Passing the winter hours: Puzzles

Another activity to pass the time is puzzles. I enjoy jigsaw puzzles a few times a year. I rarely attempt one larger than 500 pieces. This one I picked up at the antique mall for half price, and it's a bit of a challenge at 1000 pieces. It still had some large chunks put together (thank Heaven!)


I've made it through the awkward stage where you are putting straight edges along the sides to see where you've forced pieces (they angle slightly) and am closing in on the stage where you are sure there are at least three pieces missing. And since this on is used, that could be true!



I've taken a break to wander around the yard in the sunshine checking to see what bulbs are up... daffodils only... and have put some stuffed pork chops and a frozen apple pie from the last of my apples in the oven (thanks Mom). Now, back to the puzzle board.

Book Review: The Dirty Life

Another way a gardener makes it through the long cold winter, is reading gardening books. I have a lot of large, glossy "coffee table" type books to supplement my favorite veggie magazine and seed catalogs, but what I really love is personal experience type books. Garden Novels. I was surprised, when I searched back through this blog, to find that I have never reviewed any books.

The first one I ever read was "The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden"

This is a great book about how a normal middle class person can go insane trying to create, maintain and make use of the perfect kitchen garden. It's a struggle I am now quite familiar with. But a far better book is Animal, Vegetable Miracle, a Year of Food Life.



Animal Vegetable Miracle diaries a family's year long attempt to eat nothing but local food. Food they raised in their garden, and in their chicken coop and food bought from other local farmers. These are the pretty much the only two I reread over and over. I've now got another "read again" book. The Dirty Life a Memoir of Farming, Food and Love by Kristen Kimball. She hasn't written anything else, but she has a website and a blog to be found at KristenKimball.com




The book tells the story about how she fell in love with a free thinking, rather challenging man and left her life as a writer in NY City, gave up her vegetarian diet, and helped him create a "whole diet" CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm in Upstate NY where they farm with horses, feed a couple of hundred "members" and have learned to use all parts of the pig except the oink.

She soon learns there is a lot more to gardening and farming and the far rural lifestyle than meets the eye.

"Did I really think that a person with a genius for fixing engines, or for building, or for husbanding cows, was less brilliant than a person who writes ad copy or interprets the law? Apparently I did... There' s no better cure for snobbery than a good ass kicking."

She also learns to milk cows by hand, butcher chickens, pigs and cows, till crops with a team of Belgians, and get along with her husband-to-be in the process. This isn't just a book about gardening, although they have acres and acres of garden crops this is about farming as a whole and the lifestyle that goes with it.

“‎A farm is a manipulative creature. There is no such thing as finished. Work comes in a stream and has no end. There are only the things that must be done now and things that can be done later. The threat the farm has got on you, the one that keeps you running from can until can't, is this: do it now, or some living thing will wilt or suffer or die. Its blackmail, really.”

And it is about eating locally and seasonally.

"The central question in the kitchen would have to change from 'What do I want?" to 'What is available?"

I thoroughly enjoyed this book right down to the last paragraph. I have to admire her for her resourcefulness and determination. While I would happily learn how to adjust harness and aim a harrow, I don't think I could either make or eat blood sausage. I can certainly relate to her not feeling clean for weeks or months at a time as she toils in the fields. And I can commiserate with the havoc a wayward herd of cows or a runaway team of horses can cause.

I don't often recommend books. Taste in literature is a very subjective thing. But, if you enjoy this blog, you will enjoy any of these three books, and The Dirty Life in particular.

Magazines: Heirloom Gardener

Besides seed catalogs, what is it that gets a gardener through the long cold winter? The answer: Glossy Magazines. And I have a new favorite, Heirloom Gardener. I subscribe to very few magazines, preferring to pick them up at the newsstand depending on how the issue strikes me. Then I usually copy articles and info I like for a ring binder, and give the issue away. I subscribe to Hobby Farms and Hobby Farms Home which I promptly share with my mother. I plan my errands around the release of Organic Gardening so I can check out the latest issue at the "fancy" grocery. Then a couple of months ago I happened to pick up an issue of Heirloom Gardener at Tractor Supply.




I was hooked! I had seen this magazine before back when it was a plain paper (boring) publication with illustrated covers and lots of practical advice. It is put out by Baker Creek which not only does great work offering heirloom seeds from all over the globe, but also hosts a very informative and busy gardening forum called I Dig My Garden. I used to spend quite a bit of time on that forum, and it is still a wonderful place to research questions and ask for advice.

The magazine has been revamped, glossed up, and is now offered at some newsstands, including Barnes and Noble and Tractor Supply. You can even follow them on Facebook. I was lucky enough to stumble across their first release to TSC and am now a subscriber.

Besides articles on gardening and vegetables, they feature other topics of interest such as cheese making, bees, poultry, apples, plenty of recipes and lots and lots of glossy photos! Next time you are at Tractor Supply, check for it. The Spring issue with the tomato on the cover is at the printer now and will soon be on news stands. Search for them on Facebook to keep abreast of the release date. See if you don't fall in love with this magazine too.

Candlemas / Groundhog Day

As the light grows longer
The cold grows stronger
If Candlemas be fair and bright
Winter will have another flight
If Candlemas be cloud and rain
Winter will be gone and not come again
A farmer should on Candlemas day
Have half his corn and half his hay
On Candlemas day if thorns hang a drop
You can be sure of a good pea crop


It is very overcast here in Western NY today so I am hoping for a good pea crop. So I have come out of blogging hibernation to share these curious little facts...

For centuries people have been using animal prognosticators from bears to marmots to predict the coming of spring. There are even clashing calendar systems which state spring should start anywhere from Imbolc (Celtic St. Brigid’s Day February 1st) to the Vernal Equinox (established by the Roman calendar). Some years we go with the Celts. Some years the Romans.


The Romans looked to the Hedgehog. In America, we let a Ground Hog decide, in Serbia they watch the bears. If the bear awakens early from his hibernation, and is startled by meeting his shadow on the way out, he will be frightened back into his den and sleep for another 40 days.

Yawn... now back to my long winter's nap.

A found jewel...

I stood in the produce department this evening, bagged salad in hand, perusing their offerings, deciding what to dress it up with. I had already decided on my favorite winter fruit, a pomegranate, but I had a fruit craving. I needed something else. The strawberries looked over ripe, the pears looked green, the apples siney like plastic. I was hemming and hawing over whether or not to take a chance on some tasteless grape tomatoes when I spotted this jewel...

There was only one left. I snapped it up. It may disappoint in the end, but at that moment, it was a visual feast. And not just for me. Like I said, it was the last one left. I was not the only shopper to be lured in by creative packaging and the memories of warm, sunripened cherry tomatoes.

It was Andy Rooney who said "The federal government has sponsored research that has produced a tomato that is perfect in every respect, except that you can't eat it. We should make every effort to make sure this disease, often referred to as 'progress', doesn't spread."

But, not every tomato grower in America has jumped on the "perfect round red tomato" bandwagon. Well, maybe they did, but some have finally jumped off. And I'm not talking about just your local farmer's market crowd. Some people are working out how to ship that homegrown heirloom tomato taste out of season. At the forefront of this movement is the UglyRipe crowd.

I had heard about these before I actually saw them in my own local store. And you won't see them very often. They come packaged in an individual flack jacket to protect them from bruising and then rotting. I saved the flack jacket as an oddity in case I ever have to ship a ripe tomato. It was pretty good. I would think it was a brandywine, and in the dead of winter, or any off season month (November through July) it tastes pretty good.

So, how were the little yellow sunbursts in my salad tonight? Not bad. Not bad at all.

Deck The Halls

The evolution of the Christmas celebration as we know it has been a long and varied one. There are as many ideas of the meaning of celebrations at this time of year as there are people who celebrate. And this, the longest night of the year, is the perfect time to reflect on the bringing in of greenery, and the illumination of the darkest corners of our homes and hearts.

I love Christmas songs, particularly the old English ones like Deck the Halls and the Holly and the Ivy. I'm also a big fan of wassailing. So, as a gardener, one is curious as to what these plants and traditions mean. In ancient, pagan Europe and England, King Holly rules from MidSummer Night to MidWinter Night. King Oak ruled from MidWinter Night to MidSummer Night. Winter Solstice was the perfect time to celebrate these by bringing greenery in to remind us of life and growth. Holly boughs were brought into the homes, and Mistletoe, the parasitic plant growing in the Oak was also thought to have special qualities. Ivy was another evergreen plant in abundant supply in wintery northern climes.. The Holly was masculine, and the twining Ivy a feminine symbol.

Poinsettias, native to Mexico and Central America, were part of those Christmas celebrations long before it was introduced to America. Now, these fickle tropical plants, along with Paperwhites and Amaryllis are must have traditions as we force them into their showy displays at a time when they would normally be dormant.

My memories of decorations in my childhood always revolved around a Christmas tree. We also had a vintage nativity scene, a simple candelabra in the window, and of course, miles of paper chains. I was in my early twenties when I attended my first company Christmas party. It was held at the local town club. When I walked into this stately old club my first sight was an oak banister. They had decorated it by loosely twining fine grapevines around it. In the negative space created, there was gold tulle encasing white lights, angles blowing trumpets and doves.

I had never seen such an elegant and imaginative Christmas decoration. I was awestruck, and from that moment my thoughts of Christmas decorating shifted. I was no longer content with a tree. I longed for a banister to decorate. I've never gotten one, but I make due. The spandrel that divides our livingroom from the diningroom is the focal point, and other garlands are placed so as to compliment and balance the greenery throughout the house.

You can get quite showy with your greenery, but sometimes a simple boxwood wreath hung by a coordinating ribbon is adornment enough.

I enjoy the many color options that are offered for Poinsettias. This year I highlighted my graniteware collection with a creamy white one.

And where real greenery fails, there are many silk options to be had. I cut and combine floral picks and stick them into bare corners.

Over the sink, the usual vegetable prints are exchanged for botanical prints of seasonal plants, holly, winter pears, my favorite pomegranates, and the Colonial symbol of welcome, the pineapple. Silk bayleaf wreaths, which coordinate with the bayleaf garlands in other rooms, are hung on every pair of short cabinet doors.

Not even the bathroom is bare. The modern LED battery lights and candles make it possible for me to light up every nook and cranny.

Of course, the real thing is always best. My mother makes dozens of wreaths to give as gifts with sprigs of holly and rose hips tucked in. People look forward to this gift all year long and she enjoys shopping for ornaments to personalise each wreath to the person's decor or personality.

One year a friend of mine in Maine gifted me with a box of trimmings from her own yard. I used a centerpiece form purchased through the Colonial Williamsburg catalog to construct this centerpiece. When the pears become over ripe, just replace them with ornaments.

Colonial Williamsburg is a great source of inspiration for decorating with greenery and fruit. I page through their galleries each year looking for inspiration. In fact, it was Colonial Williamsburg which first popularised Candles in the Windows back in the 1940s. That is a look I've always enjoyed. It's amazing how elegant and festive the right sort of facade can look with careful placement of single candles.

Other sources of decorating are the idea galleries at Better Homes and Gardens and Martha Stewart.

White Flower Farms sell wonderful garlands. Sometimes I will buy one, cut an end off to use in arrangements, and hang the shortened garland for decoration. They also sell boxes of mixed greens if you have a hard time finding a local source. Williams Sonoma is another excellent source.

If you want silk greenery that you can use year after year, there are now many catalogs which supply excellent quality decorations. My favorites are Front Gate, Grandin Road, Ballard Designs, and Horchow Home.

One of my gardening projects for next summer is to plant evergreens for the express purpose of trimming for holiday centerpieces and garlands. We have a planting bed ready, and next spring I will be shopping for my own holly and ivy, and probably some box wood and other evergreens so stay tuned.

Some Things are More Trouble Than They're Worth...

There are certain things that seem like a wonderful idea at the time, but in reality, are just more trouble than they're worth. You can either buy the finished product for much less than you can make it yourself, OR you are better off just admiring a picture of it. Please remind me of this moment of clarity if I ever show signs of doing the following:

Trying to grow my own Sweet Corn, Pumpkins or Watermelon.

Canning Tomatoes or making Sauce.

Planting more than two Zucchini plants at a time.

Baking cutout Christmas cookies.

I keep a list of cookie recipes that I've mastered, and I also keep a list of failures to never try ever again. Inevitably, every few years, my memory grows dim, and a photo like this in a catalog...

...will catch my eye. I will immediately send away for the cookie cutters. I will clip the photo for inspiration. And I will take several years off my life trying to achieve similar results.

And for what? To try to impress my mother, husband, extended family, friends and coworkers with my baking prowess when I present them with a picture perfect box of Holiday delights? Trust me, there is no baking prowess. My mother is already impressed with me, due in no small part to her claim on giving birth to me. My husband barely tolerates my flights of Holiday fancy as it is, and my coworkers know they must pretend to be impressed or suffer a 40 hour work week of bad (worse) temper. My friends would probably think me pretentious and talk amongst themselves while I'm occupied with my cutout cookies.

Alternatively, there are several recipes that are a lot less trouble than they appear.

Split Seconds, for instance, have a bit of a learning curve, but are remarkably easy, and they look so festive. Especially if you drizzle white icing over the finished cookies. I use cherry jelly instead of raspberry jam, and I apply it with a cookie decorator.

Hershey's Peanut Butter Blossoms. This dough is SO easy to work with. Very forgiving. But, if it looks like you are going to get more than 4 dozen out of the batch (I got 5) be sure to unwrap the extra kisses BEFORE you pop the last sheet in the oven! Time is of essence!

Pecan Turtles. A regional candy favorite. Add two tablespoons or heavy cream instead of water to your caramels. Very easy to make, not as messy as they sound and heavenly to eat.

Now, as for those cut out sugar cookies... I still have several refrigerated dough logs to work through. I think the wise choice would be to get out the snowman cookie cutter and apply the frosting with a broad knife.