First what does a plant take from the soil

click to enlarge chart

I have a lot to share about gardening. It's hard to decide what will help the most. This is a bit of helpful information to get you ready for the longer posting I've been working on.

I loved Rebecca's garden, a TV show and web site all about gardening. It is gone now, who knows where Rebecca went and why she gave up passing along those wonderful gardening ideas but here is one of her great hints.

Everything you plant will take something from the soil and some plants will give back to the soil. If you know this chemical process for each plant you will help yourself grow the best food you can.

Study the chart and learn to what needs to be rotated

1) make a list of what you'd like to grow.

2) Put your list in their correct growing families

3) Keep the family groups together and rotate every year.

Remember each food family has different soil requirements which I will fully cover in the next posting. You must be sure to amend the soil to fulfill the needs of each kind of plant.

HINTS:

Nightshades heavy feeders: tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and potatoes

Roots Light feeders: beets, onions, carrots, turnips, parsnips

Brassicas Heavy feeders: Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and Brussels sprouts

Legumes Heavy givers: peas and beans

Vining crops heavy feeders: melon, squash, cucumbers

There are many other groups for vegetables see the chart below.

Rotating your crops will also cut down on bugs and disease

Compare your list of things to plant to the chart above.

How will you place your plants to make the best use of the soil?

Why I've been too busy to talk to anyone

This is a special dress for my grand daughter

I haven't met her yet but I will be very soon, getting on a plane in the morning and this is Penny who will be given her name and blessing in church on Sunday.......Now you know why I couldn't take any one's calls or help anyone out the last few days........SMILES

Penny and her big brother Flynn

cradle your Easter Eggs

How I loved my Scout leader years! They gave me a wealth of crafts to pass along. Today we have a little wash cloth bunny to hold your Easter eggs.

I don't have any pretty colored Easter eggs to sit in this bunny

I bought a package of inexpensive wash cloths.

It was a bundle of white, pink and yellow. Lucky me!

Starting at a point roll to the center. center

At the opposite point roll to the center.

The two fluted ends become the ears of the bunny Take the roll and fold in half.

The egg will rest at the folded end

The ears and face will be made at the loose ends

The face is made by Holding the ears up and folding the two ends in half.

A small rubber band is then placed over a hand full of the folded ears. This will make a tiny double cheeked face. Make the rubber band tight. If you don't have one tightly wrap string around the face. This is how it looks when the rubber band is around. The face is ready for eyes and a nose

This is how it looks from the side

I glued on eyes and a nose and tied a ribbon on his head, You can use felt for the facial features

Be sure and add a little pom pom for his tail.

Easter Goodies

Click to enlarge and print

I know the recipes look really old but that is because they are! Taken from a Girl Scout magazine from my high school years. Take the ideas and use them with the ingredients you like. I can see the egg in some pastel buttercream frosting. That would be pretty. Or dye some coconut and put it on the cakes. Just be sure and have fun!

Now the reward....Gardening tips

It's now time for Gardening ideas. And that really is the point, ideas to bounce around in your head. It may be Spring on the calendar but outside the Winter still rages on! Let's talk about weather then.....

What do you think plants need to grow and produce food?

Well I know what they don't need and that's a freeze. It will kill exposed parts of the plant and if it doesn't have a full deep root system the whole plant will die.

Where I live the last Frost date is May 13 but Everett closer to the water has a last frost date of March 23. You can learn your last and first frost dates (my first frost is Oct 5Th) a couple of ways. Washington State University hosts the Cooperative Extension in many county's here in Washington and they provide a valuable service including the frost dates. Sadly we may be losing these great services as the college has announced cutbacks on services. So don't wait to get information you need while it's easy to get. You can check with your local agriculture office or the college agriculture dept. Try online you may find your area on line. Know your city, and county.

OK put your thinking caps on and here is some other basic things you need to understand to be a good gardener.

1. Frost dates

2. micro-climate

3. Minimum winter temperatures

4. Accumulated heat units

5. Days of Sunshine

WOW just the list looks interesting doesn't it?

Let's start with Micro-climate.

The city my frost date is listed with says last frost Mar 23. This never worked out for me and so I called the extension office and they told me why. I live in a mirco-climate. A little area with it's own climate. I'm on the East side of a hill and across from me is another hill. This pockets the air, cold, wet, snowy, what ever we get and give me a different climate than the norm. So are you in a mico-climate? See the list below for ideas:

A. If you live near a large body of water you are less prone to frost and often cooler on warmest days

B. Elevation, the higher you are the cooler and wetter in many parts of the county, surely here in the Pacific Northwest

C. If you live between hills as I do, cold air is more dense than warm and it flows downhill. That makes my springs very late and my falls very early. Study out the land around you! Is there a tunnel for wind?

D. North-facing areas receive less heat from the sun and southern exposures have more heat. This may change your length of growing season. North areas grow slower, Southern areas grow faster giving me time to grow things that take longer to mature (be eatable!)

Look around see what you have that might change your climate. Are there lots of dense trees? A large rock formation? Hills? Is your land East, West, North, South facing, where do you receive most of your light from? I'm at a disadvantage as my property is on an east Hill and doesn't get much of the western light, but I do get some Southern so that helps.

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Minimum Winter Temperatures

There is a map that tells you what Zone you are in and what your low temperature is. It's wild to try to see the little bands of color and figure out what Zone you garden in.

http://garden.org/zipzone/ Try this web site to find your location close up. Also go to the home page for tons of great gardening ideas.

Each Zone designates an average annual minimum temperature.

Knowing your zone will only tell you the average least temperature.

I am in a Zone 7b with a mico-climate, the pacific ocean near by and lots of mountains. This means that in a zone 7b we get down to 5-10 degrees F. in an average winter with lots of other considerations. There are 11 planting zones across the U.S. and Canada. Don't place too much value on your Zone, they have to keep redoing these and there are so many other helpful considerations.

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Accumulated Heat Units

Plants need heat to grow. We didn't have any heat last year and everyone had tiny carrots. They just couldn't grow with so few hours of heat. Plants require a certain number of accumulated heat units to mature. If you can't get enough of your accumulated (meaning over the growth period of the plant) heat you may not be able to ripen tomatoes, pepper, grapes etc.

Knowing this number can help you be prepared to trick Mother Nature. The right kind of plastic under tomatoes adds heat, putting peppers on the South wall of your home adds heat units. Lots of tricks to try and they do work.

Where I live in Western Washington we gets 1518 units of accumulated heat, where as over the mountains where the wheat grows they get 2,500 units.

OK some heavy stuff for serious people. 50 degrees F is the most frequently used base temperature for warm weather crops (I will cover those in another posting)

To figure the Heat Units you take the difference between the *mean temperature for the day and 50 degrees F. If the *Mean temperature is below the base of 50 degrees then there are NO heat units for that day. OUCH

Example: a day with maximum temperature of 72 degrees F and a minimum 50 degree (base) would put the mean temperature at 61 degrees. That makes 11 heat units added to the accumulated for that day.

(*Mean temperature is found by adding the maximum and minimum temperatures and dividing the sum by 2)

Now don't trouble yourself with this unless you find it fun but do know that plants can't mature for eating without a certain amount of accumulated heat!

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Days of sunshine

Because I live with a lot of cloud cover and moisture in the air I have a very low light intensity most of the year. What that does is make me consider where to plant things. Plants that do well in part shade may need to be planted in my full sun area's. This can affect food in several different ways. Apples may not get red, hot pepper may seem mild, peaches won't be as sweet and Vitamin C in plants will be reduced. You can compensate for this problem as you can for too much sun. Move plants into more protected areas and in partial shade. I have gardened in both kinds of climates and they have their blessing and challenges.

Let's be smart about Gardening

Here was the headlines on NBC news;

First lady breaks ground on 'kitchen garden' Students will help plant fruits, vegetables to supply White House kitchen

At the end of the article it said this:

Mrs. Obama then led a cheer with the children, shouting, "Let's hear it for vegetables!" and "Let's hear it for fruits!"

This has prompted me to speak out. I agree Gardens are wonderful and more people should take up vegetable gardening. Some important issues need to come forward. It's not easy to garden. some points in case. If you see video of Mrs. Obama's school group they are digging, but do you see they are digging in the lawn, the grass. Oh my are there some difficult issues with gardening in a plot surrounded by lawn. Next point all that fuss over vegetables and fruits being planted didn't in any way include planting those fruit trees. At first I thought the media missed that all she was planning on planting was vegetables and herbs but no she has the kids yelling for vegetables and fruits, which come from trees after all! Don't we know where fruits come from?

There is so much our nation no longer knows about gardening. There has been a lot of reference to the Victory gardens grown during World War II. We are different as a population now. Never before has more people lived in the City for longer times. We have lost touch with our agriculture genes! We don't even know who grows our food or if it's even safe.

Am I crying doom here? NO just a warning. If you think in all this excitement with the falling of our economy that you will save money with a big garden you are WRONG. If you think that growing a garden will give you some good things to eat you are RIGHT. Garden for the right reasons. There are no Victories in Victory Gardens. All you do is put some other business OUT OF Business. During the War the farms in our nation were needed to supply the war effort. We have taken this out of context. Gardening now should be about safe and tasty food for our families.

It is not easy to grow food. Learn all that you can and even then you will not have a great first year in many cases. Here are some suggestions on what you need to learn.

1. What growing zone are you in? Don't try to grow citrus outside the citrus zone. Learn what grows best in your climate and stick with that while you are learning to garden.

2. I recommend container gardening for a good start. It lets you control a few more things, like is my garden in the best place.....in a container.....move it. It lets you work without big tools like a rotor tiller which you may not have. A little hand shovel is all you need with a container. It uses less enrichment's. Just a good way to start so consider containers!

3. Buying any package of seed may not be useful for your needs. I promise to address seeds soon but if you can't harvest a few seeds for next year what good is a garden? I plant only seeds that are non-hybrid and reproducible. Yes if you have a favorite sweet pea that is hybrid surely buy and plant it, but my food I have to be able to keep it going with out the expense of buying seed each year.

4. Learn what to do about your soil, the bugs, water, sun, shade and be sure you have time for keeping the garden weeded, fed (yes you need to keep feeding a food garden) and then when harvesting more beans than you know how to eat learn what to do with them to eat them in the non-growing times.

5. Work on a plan and have an idea of what you will plant, how long it needs to grow, when it needs to be planted to avoid frost on both sides of the calendar. Be sure to plant at those times best for each plant.

Does this seem like a lot to think about? OUCH! If you think so then let me tell you to encourage the local growers in your own area. Buy from them, pay a fair price, tell them you want organic, let them know you are glad they have the knowledge to grow your food and be glad they do. Find that spot that the locals sell their food, flea markets, street corners, the valley over the hill. Find these hard working people selling their food.

You may be very successful in gardening and that is my hope but many of you never grew up with a garden and may have no idea what to watch out for and how to make it work. Keep at it year after year and you will get good at it but please don't put a bunch of money you don't have into a garden that you are not ready to take care of. Give those smaller container gardens a try. Grow some lettuces, carrots, garlic, green onions etc and next year try a few more things. Be a success at gardening.

.

There is more to come I promise to reward you for putting up with my warnings!

Fun goodie for kids

I was happy to enjoy the Parent's magazine from it's beginning. This was one of the recipes I enjoyed over and over.

Popcorn dollars

Parent's magazine 1982

1/4 Butter

1/2 peanut butter (choose a safe one)

1 10 ounces bag of mini marshmallows

10 cups of freshly popped popcorn unsalted

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Melt butter in heavy kettle, stir in peanut butter and marshmallows.

Heat very slowly, stirring constantly, until mixture is smooth; remove from heat. Stir in popcorn, stir until evenly coated.

Now comes the fun, kids can help. Butter your hands lightly, take a full tablespoon of the popcorn, flatten into a popcorn dollar.

Place on wax paper and top with a 2 or 4 chocolate chips.

Let stand until nice firm popcorn dollars. If popcorn starts to harden in the pan, turn on low and stir until it's warm.

makes 3 1/2 dozen

These are tiny and perfect for tiny hands. We loved making these.

Happy St. Patricks day

Can you believe this lucky coin says "china"?

I'm not Irish, but my last name YELLS IRISH! So to all my green loving family and friends

"Happy St. Patrick's day"

And may you all find your pot of Gold.

We attended The Evergreen State Fair's kick off dinner tonight and along with cooked cabbage we enjoyed an evening of Irish dancing. Such dazzling outfits and toe tapping and clapping enjoyed by everyone!

So if you are not Irish as I'm not, join me and find someone who is and...........................

I'm Back.....with Pizza

Did you think I'd given up blogging? No just took on a little too much and with the drop in readers I thought I'd take a brake. While I was away I took on babysitting a neighbor child, I was given an online pattern design class that took a busy 5 weeks. I loved it and am sorry it's over but it was a lot of study and work. On top of that I hurt my shoulder sleeping on the floor and had to baby it for a few weeks then got a cold (most likely from the little kids in my life!) then there was the week of feeling so down I couldn't cheer myself up so I just lived with it, and now I'm fine! As you can see I can stuff a lot into a little bit of time.

So I'll start with my favorite thin crust pizza. Everyone who eats this pizza asks for the recipe. Now it's your turn. It's not the easiest recipe, but it's not hard, just a few steps.

Ok follow the steps and you will have a crispy thin crust pizza.

Make the dough and roll it on a floured pastry cloth until as thin as you like

Recipe: makes 6 ten inch thin pizzas

dough keeps nicely for about 2 days in fridge

2 package of dry yeast (1 tablespoon each)

pinch of sugar

1 1/4 cups of warm water for the yeast

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 teas salt

1/4 cup of olive oil

Sprinkle the yeast and a pinch of sugar into 1/4 cup of lukewarm water. Let it stand for 3 minutes, then stir to completely dissolve yeast and sugar. Set in a warm place to get bubbly. If it doesn't in about 5 minutes start over.

In large mixing bowl put flour and salt. Pour 1 cup of warm water and 1/4 cup olive oil and prepared yeast mixture.

Mix with a fork, until mixed. When you can gather dough into a rough ball it is time to knead it. Flour a firm surface and knead for 15 minutes until smooth, shinny and elastic.

OH YES DO USE THAT KITCHEN AID TO MAKE THIS!

Place in a clean large bowl and cover and keep warm until about double in size. Approx 1 1/2 hours

Preheat the oven with a baking stone inside to 500 degrees F.

Break off a ball of 1/6 of the dough. On a well floured pastry cloth pat into a circle turning as you go to keep it round. When it is 7 or 8 inches big start roll with rolling pin until 1/8 inch thick or less.

With your thumbs crimp or flute the edges until you make a rim around the pizza,

brush edges with olive oil if you wish

Collect the toppings. I don't load these pizzas up. If you do the crust just won't be as crisp. You can use this dough for thicker pizza if you wish.

Here we have peppers, Canadian bacon, onion slices, canned pineapple, sliced olives, a bag of mozzarella cheese and a bag of cheddar and some Parmesan cheese.

These are the things I use in my sauce below

This sauce is perfect for a crisp crust. Use a good olive oil mixed with a spoonful of tomato paste, a dash of parsley, dash of dried hot peppers and as much crushed garlic as you like!

This is brushed on the crust after a brief pre-bake

Once your baking stone is good and hot, open the oven and you will drape your arms under the two ends of the pizza dough. I couldn't manage a photo of this process but your arms keep the dough from sticking on it's self . Lower onto the hot baking stone (Move the dough to your hands and just place it down without touching the stone)

Tap a fork all around the circle of dough to keep the bubbles under control.

Bake briefly until just a little color comes into the crust. This is not a time to walk away from the oven!

Brush all of the pizza with the above sauce.

quickly as you have the oven open at this point....top with a sprinkle of cheese a bit of the toppings and a shake of Parmesan.

Close the oven

This is how it looked as I closed that oven door.

Bake approx. 10 minutes or until bubbling and brown as you wish

Here it is coming out of the oven.

Yummy crisp crust with melted cheese Ohooooooo

Time for an old favorite.....Lemon bars

I had a spare lemon. I don't buy them often which is hard on a girl who grew up with a lemon tree outside her bedroom. I just can't pay the price they demand, so I was not going to let this one go un-used. I brought out an old favorite and maybe you have it and have forgotten it but this recipe will bring a smiles of sunshine into your kitchen.

My recipe can barely be read but I got it from the Swains in 1970 so it desires it's faded ways!

Lemon Lovelies

1 cup sifter flour (yes sift!)

1/2 cup butter a little bit soft

1/4 cup powdered sugar

Blend together well (you can use your fingers!)

Press into the bottom of a 8 or 9" square pan

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes or until just golden brown.

While the above is baking mix together:

1 cup sugar

2 tablespoons flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

2 tablespoons lemon juice

all the grated lemon rind you can get from 1 lemon

2 eggs slightly beaten

Pour this mixture over the finished baked crust and RETURN to the oven

Bake 25 minutes or until nice and golden brown and dull looking

Sprinkle with powdered sugar while warm

Cool before cutting into bars.

I NEED an Ocean view....please

Today is feel the beach day!

Oh a hard week for sure. Pain that was nearly unmanageable and then some wonderful distractions. The talk of the ocean, surfing and our Southern California up bringing has me longing for the beach, a view of the ocean, the crash and draw back of the waves, the smell of sea weed & salt & fishy things, the call of a gull, a seal bark, I am home sick for the ocean.

Youngest daughter said in her blog that her i-pod and cleaning with Clorox wipes makes her feel better. We've talked of this before I know and I hope every one is finding things to lift them above hardship. Life will be hard but we can be strong and enjoy so much of this life we live.

I just had to put an ocean on this brief but needful posting. I wanted something of my own. The best I could find is this calendar photo from 2003. (You don't want to see my odd bell bottoms and me with surf board! he he) I journal life on my calendars. It's amazing what I've found from years long gone that I needed off those calendars . So here is the ocean. I am picturing myself there with a glass of strawberry lemon aide or mango something. Oh my heart be still.

Below is a nice calendar message I think will help too. Your day may seem lost in the hardship, it may not have a list of crossed off chores. It may be lonely, long or glorious! I hope. But this calendar reminds me that we plant little things. We have great rewards later after it grows. You don't have to do something big to plant a seed in your child, in yourself, in a friend, a spouse. A tiny seed grows a redwood tree. I know.....Tiny seeds exposed to the heat of fire. One day you have a giant, breath taking redwood. I know because I've grown the real redwoods and I need to tell my kids, they are also redwoods. They make me so proud, their good choices, the love they show trying to understand each other. I must have planted some seeds and it grew 5 amazing people!

So today is plant a seed day!

I just can't stop!

I think I will be trying every recipe in the article "5 minute bread" find the recipe on Mother Earth News web site.

So for lunch today it was Nann. I am a long time maker of really good Nann. I seriously had my doubts this dough in my fridge for the last two weeks could make really good Nann.

I WAS WRONG!

It was really good

Let me repeat

It was really good.

Make it and see.

I brushed the finished Nann with garlic butter and tossed crushed dried parsley over it. It took only moments and made a great addition to lunch. yes the one in the photo was little over cooked but bleach boy loves things crisp and the one for me was soft and good!

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/Artisan-Bread-In-Five-Minutes-A-Day.aspx

Now for the surprises, the Digital age has begun

If you've read my postings on the Green thing happening then you know about the digital change over for the TV.

The govt made it mandatory that all stations must convert to Digital TV no later than Feb 17Th today. Now they have changed that to some date in June.

Now for the surprise.

Over 400 stations changed over and dropped their analog today.

No one said they couldn't do it as soon as they were ready, only that they could do it no later than June. I turned on my analog TV and only one station was working, took a little bit to figure out why.

So the test begins, will we be watching any TV during wind? Will the TV give relief and information during storms? Most likely not and we will slowly pass from even using the TV for anything but DVDs at all. Cable goes up in price too often and with draws stations making you pay for stations you'll never watch. Dish TV has the same snow and weather problems the digital has.

Check back to see what happens in the ever moving world of technology! I watch with curiosity.

Using the bread recipe for pizza

If you have made the Mother Earth 5 minute a day bread dough then you can make this pizza!

Dinner was forgotten, everyone was tired and coming down with colds. We needed food fast. My sister had tackled pizza over the week-end and it came to me to do the same.

I took a piece of dough and laid it on my flour infused pastry cloth. I just flattened it easily with my hands, no need to use a rolling pin as they suggest. I like the bubbling up dough. Then I folded the edges over once to make them a bit more sturdy to deal with.

As the recipe in the link below warns, keep the toppings light so the dough can show a bit and cook up through the cheese etc. I used olives, a bit of garlic chicken, some saute' onions and a tiny bit of spaghetti sauce. I don't have a pizza peel so I made my dough ( remember how moist and soft it is, hard to move it when it is only 1/4" deep) on the pastry cloth. When my baking stone was good and hot I took the pastry cloth down to the oven and coaxed the dough off and onto the stone. This method must be improved upon! Then I spooned on a touch of sauce, sprinkled on my ingredients and slipped the oven closed.

You don't need to put the water in the oven for the pizza but do turn your oven to it's top temperature. It took 25 minutes to heat the stone, 5 minutes to push out the dough, 15 minutes to cut up the ingredients and about 15 minutes to cook. Now that's fast food!

Wow this was the best ever pizza. The dough is chewy and my dough is a week old so it was a bit sour doughish and wonderful. Bleach Boy can't remember any better other than my cracker crust pizza.

Oh! I feel a pizza attach coming on......Good thing I saved a piece from last night.

I have a rectangle shaped baking stone. It's perfect for making triangle shaped piece slices. Cut the pizza the long way down the center. Then starting at the end make angle cuts to produce nice triangle pizza wedges! So easy and you can make them big and little.

Happy Valentines Day

You bring a bit of sunshine into my life

You let me express myself and share what I love

Yes I love families, and women who lovingly care for others.

I Hope you feel the love back that you so much deserve.

Let Cupids arrow catch your heart!

Smiles Grammie

The cupid in the photo is my dear mother in law.

We miss her so much and I love that she grew up in the 20's so we can use her lovely photo.

Now you can see where bleach boy gets his light hair

You have to try this easy bread

I was at Mildred's home last week and she was making this easy bread, she gave me the recipe and I've now done three batches. It takes about 8 minutes to make enough dough for 4 loafs or 8 if you like, let it sit out for a couple of hours, pop into the fridge and bake the loafs as needed. You will need to warm the dough at least and hour when it comes from the fridge. The dough lasts a couple of weeks in the fridge. It's wonderful and fast. Give it a try.

Thank you Mother Earth News we can always count on great stuff!

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/Artisan-Bread-In-Five-Minutes-A-Day.aspx

One note, I know you need the salt in it for a reason but it's too salty for us so we cut it down by a third.

2nd note, I have added 1/2 cup whole wheat flour to this recipe without any change.

I've added another photo below. This was today's loaf. It only set out for an hour and went into a really hot oven on a very hot stone. I know some of you are having problems with the loafs raising but I think we will find the key to that soon. Don't worry if the dough is not raising, just cook after an hour and see what happens. Keep me posted and we will keep testing this out.

Now who couldn't love this face?

Raising five kids wasn't the easiest of jobs and sometimes I just needed my space. I saved a magazine advertisement from the early 1980's that had a nice Cabin in the woods, chimney smoking on it. It said something like this "some times a get away is just another home"

So with that idea I find my self at my other home. My get away!

Made a visit to youngest daughter and her sweet babies.

Now who couldn't love this face?

Awe home sweet home!