The Burden of Plenty

I have complained of the neglect our poor gardens have experienced over the last few years. Nearly all the rose bushes have died since no one cared to cover them for the cold Wisconsin winter. The peony bushes are slow to fill out due to several years accumulation of leaf cover. But all is not in despair.

Some plants seem to thrive on neglect though. Take the day lilies that are filling every available garden space (no - seriously - take some please). You can't tell from the picture here, but they are moving into the lawn. It's the only available remaining space. We will have to rip out quite a few, but for now I have to admit they are at least green. And they will bloom, probably all summer once they get started. I'm not 100% certain, but I'm guessing they will be the wild-type orange variety. Not exciting, but colorful anyway.

Our front garden is still suffering from what I call "chair-rail syndrome" (we've ripped out the old vine but have nothing yet to replace it).

You can see the dirt in the grass beyond the brick border - that vine had eaten almost a foot of grass already (and from the roots we pulled out, it was ready to take more). This portion of the yard gets deep shade most of the day, but there's a sliver of late afternoon sun that cuts in underneath the trees from the west. I think that's the only reason the cherry tree and the juniper here have survived. I still think a shade ground cover would be best. Right now our vote is for European Wild Ginger (Asarum europaeum). Hopefully it will fill the space well, not be too tall for the spring bulbs or the summer perennials. And hopefully it will be polite and not eat the lawn.

What's in the Box? CSA Week 1

Today was the first delivery for our CSA subscription. One week early due to nicer than normal Spring growing conditions (not that we've noticed; our house is coastal - Lake Michigan has its own ideas about weather...). We're excited that the season has started. Chats with co-workers resulted in several people confessing to CSA memberships, but ours is the first to start (score!).


 Tipi farmers Beth & Steve send a newsletter on Thursdays by email so you know what to expect. It never really prepares you for the sight of these gorgeous veggies.


This week's box contains: asparagus (about 1lb), green garlic, green leaf lettuce, radishes (and radish greens), arugula, Gold Rush potatoes (3lb), parsley, and rhubarb (1.5lb).

So, we're off and running to use all the veg in every box, one way or another. I'll keep you posted on how we manage.

CSA: What's in the Box?

It's CSA time again starting this week - another season of weekly veg boxes and I couldn't be more excited. CSAs, or Community Supported Agriculture farms provide fresh produce on a regular basis to members. Subscriptions generally last for several months over the growing season, and some include access to eggs and bakery goods as well. It's all fresh, local, and usually organic to boot.

This will be our fifth year as members of the Tipi Produce family. Farmers Beth Kazmar and Steve Pincus have been providing goodies for their CSA for, well, for at least the five years we've been members... I know they've been organic farmers for some years before that as well (since 1975 according to their website). We always get the weekly share as opposed to the every-other-week option. Some fruits or veg have such short seasons, and the harvests might skip a week, and we don't want to miss out on anything. We won't be sharing our box halvsies with anyone this year either - our first year going solo. Once the season is in full swing, we will receive a full bushel box of mixed veg every week. geekMan and I love our veg, but it's a lot for two people to get through (even with occasional help from younger family members).

Starting Fridays for the next 26 weeks of the CSA season, I plan to share with you what we get in our box each week and what we manage to do with it. Waste will not be an option. My goal is to either eat or preserve everything we get in each box. What we can't eat will be shared with as-of-yet unsuspecting co-workers (most of which are poor and often starving graduate students willing to accept the handouts). We know the pace of veg consumption might get hectic; we are hungry for the challenge.

Unplanting: Too Much of a Good Thing

Sometimes you just have to rip things out. We've been trying to preserve as much as possible of the existing plantings, but the gardens haven't had a good pruning and clean out in a few years and there was this vine eating the front garden...
The offending maurader:


I'm not exactly sure what it is, but I suspect it to be a vinca vine. Ground covers are useful alternatives to mulch or mixed plantings or grass (which come to think of it is more or less a ground cover...). They spread and don't require much care. Beware what's implied by "spread" as that can mean aggressive and destructive invasiveness. Several years of neglect allowed this vine to take over the garden, engulfing neighboring plants, even beginning to choke itself. We uncovered lily groupings, an astilbe, and two sedums, one of which is in pretty poor shape.


Poor thing. Pretty bedraggled. I'll keep you posted on how it does. In total, we ripped out about a couple cubic meters of vine. The garden looks a little bare, but I think it's taken a good deep breath of fresh air. Maybe even a sigh of relief. Next to tackle are the dozens of tree seedlings, and no doubt the weeds that will try to fill the vine void. We will have to beat them to the punch. Or, rather, dirt.

The Koreanspice Viburnum is planted in the backyard where I can smell it here in the office this evening. In the chocolate box of unknown garden goodies, that for me is like a dark chocolate praline. Bliss.

Farmer's Market Season Is Open

Tomorrow begins one of the best parts of being a foodie in the Milwaukee area: the West Allis Farmer's Market opens for the season. Produce has to be home grown by the people who sell it, promising local good stuff. But what to expect? Winter lasts all Summer here in Wisconsin, so I'm not sure what can be harvested this early in the season. The site mentions radishes, asparagus, and rhubarb as well as bedding plants (I'm guessing generally not edible on their own). I'm looking forward to the prospect of rhubarb having recently come across a delicious-looking recipe for Rhubarb Bread Pudding. Equally hoping to find some ramps, or maybe even fiddle-head ferns...

The Chocolate Garden

This is the first year of garden time in our new house. New to us, and about 60 years old. We are not the first to appreciate green things around the house, a fact that is obvious based on the gardens already in place. What isn't completely obvious is what's going to grow.

Being the latecomer to an established garden is like that famous box of chocolates: you never know what's going to come up.

We're in the process of cataloging what we can recognize and trying to figure out what we don't. We can label about 90% of what's here, although we don't know all the cultivars, hybrids etc. We may never know for some, but it's not that important.

Exciting today: the viburnum is blooming. This morning it was covered in buds, and in the space of one warm day, it has come into bloom. We guessed a viburnum, and now have proudly ID'ed it as Koreanspice Viburnum (V. carlessi if you like). Charming and headily fragrant. It's my new favorite.

Pass It On: Heavy on the Cheese Please!

Living in Wisconsin has always been associated with eating cheese, and with good reason. People in other states ridicule us as "cheese-heads", but frankly I think it's because their jealous.

Every local grocery store carries wonderful local cheeses; even the gas station stop-n-shops carry cheese curds and string cheese from the dairy up the road. So of course, we have a dairy marketing board, and of course, they have a website. Only for them, being cheesy is a good thing.

The Wisconsin Dairy Marketing Board has a lot of recipes and ideas about serving cheese (you mean you can't just lop off a piece and eat it??). It's given me a new focus in the kitchen: to recreate every recipe from their recent 30 Days of Mac & Cheese promo. Cheesemo indeed!