Southern Style Reds and Greens

A few days ago I posted about the Red and Green colors in my backyard. Now I want to take you to my community and show you the reds and greens we have, Southern style. This past Saturday our farmers' market had a community marketplace where we had the typical Southern November market produce: pecans, sweet potatoes, and greens (turnip, mustard, and collard). Plus we had jams and jellies, salsas, baked goods, and crafts.

Since I'm new to true Southern cooking, I've been a bit hesitant about trying my hand with such standards as sweet potatoes and greens (many times I've cooked chard, arugula, and kale, but those really aren't 'Southern'; and I've done the occasional baked sweet potato). But this weekend I decided there was really nothing stopping me, so why not try out my culinary skills with such fare? I bought some turnip greens and sweet potatoes and tried my version of reds and greens.

I roasted the reddish sweet potatoes in the oven with some rosemary. And then I sauteed the turnip greens with onion, garlic, white beans, and balsamic. A little S&P on both and we had a winner meal. It wasn't bad with a red meritage from Hahn Winery either! Maybe the way I cooked these reds and greens wasn't exactly Southern, but it was a nice first step for me.

Reds and Greens

All of us gardeners and non-gardeners alike have been enthralled lately with the lovely fall colors. For me it's the reds that really grab me. Okay, maybe the oranges too. But every year that my 'Bloodgood' Japanese Maple turns this red I'm one happy woman. This picture is from December of last year. Right now this maple is still mostly burgundy. Soon it'll be almost blood red.

But this time of year I also have one little plant that starts turning a brilliant green. It's the mosses that come up in the cracks between and outside the pavers. Can you believe this green color in the sea of autumnal foliage? I used to know the names of mosses when I took botany courses but those have long since disappeared from my brain. But I don't really care, whatever we humans call them, I think they're extraordinarily beautiful and interesting.

Commitment Issues

For a number of reasons I've had a difficult time committing to a permanent greenhouse. But I need a place to keep my larger potted plants in the winter and the house won't do. The sunlight we get in the house in winter is just not adequate. Besides, whenever I've tried that I spend a lot of time fretting about the mess the dying leaves make. Note I didn't say I spent a lot of time cleaning them up! ;-) So what to do? Check this out.


This is my semi-permanent solution. It's a pop-up greenhouse by Flowerhouse. It comes in its own little/big carrying pouch.


It's helpful to have two people put it together cause you have to work with the tension of the steel rods. It's kind of like putting up a big tent and it's fairly easy to do.

Here it is almost in place. Note the smaller one on the right. That was the original one I bought in 2005. You're supposed to be able to take it down and put it back in that pouch but try as we might, my husband and I were never able to even get close to getting it in the pouch. So it stayed up all year long (we don't really need it in the summer), and the year after that, and the year after that. But it has a limited lifespan. This year the plastic started to kind of decompose. So I struggled with the concept once again of whether to commit to a permanent greenhouse...

But when I stopped pulling in any money to our household, the decision was made for me. Another, and much cheaper solution, was just to get another pop-up greenhouse. This time I went for a larger one. And I also found out that what I really need is one that's twice that size! Lucky for me, if I can't make the commitment to a permanent greenhouse by next year, I can always buy another one this size and zip the two together.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - Nov 2008

Here we go with what's blooming in my yard on the 15th of the month, for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. Although it may be fall, the blooms are still hanging in there.

This is probably common this time of year in many gardens, Autumn Joy Sedum. Most of mine are dried and brown but this little one is a late bloomer. When I saw this photo enlarged on my computer I noticed these little black ants (or some type of bug) amongst the little buds.


I love the self-seeded alyssum. I guess that's because I could never keep alyssum going year round in Texas! That's a prostrate rosemary growing in between them.


Here's my brugmansia, the plant that drives me crazy. It only blooms in the fall but what whopper blooms it gets.


The potted geraniums (pelargoniums) are still going strong despite a couple of light (very light) freezes.

I've become a huge fan of nicotiana since I planted these this year. I bought some more on my last nursery trip.


Mexican Mint Marigold (Tagetes lucida), a nice fall bloomer.


Purple petra basil, still hanging in there.



Last but not least, and not exactly a bloom, I need to give a shout out to my aeonium, Aeonium arboreum v. atropurpureum ‘Zwartzkopf’ . The poor little thing hasn't gotten the star treatment on my blog yet!

There are several other things blooming too - most of the roses, coneflower, bouganvillea, and a surprise paperwhite narcissus. Now it's time for me to see what's going on with everyone else's blooms on their blogs!

Work and Play

This past Sunday was my day of work and play. First the play. I had been driving to and from Shreveport the last three days doing volunteer work for Chimp Haven. So I'd been watching the progression of fall colors on the interstate, noting how they seemed a bit early for us but beautiful nonetheless. Since the hubby hadn't seen them, I suggested on Sunday that we take a little drive to see the colors before the week of anticipated rain brings them down. He suggested we take our two cats along for the drive, sort of a family Sunday road trip.

We headed north and then west, stopping by the Autrey House for a photo op. The Autrey House is a "dog trot" house, a typical mid-nineteenth century hand-hewn log house built by the early settlers. A dog trot house has an open central hallway with two rooms on either side and a sleeping loft. (I'm sure it didn't originally have a tin roof.) Not many of these have survived so this is quite a historical gem.

Further travels revealed a clearcut. Rather disappointing and ironic when looking for fall colors. In fact, not many fall colors were to be found on our journey. I think we were too late for the sweetgums and too early for the red oaks.

And finally, Duba and Chobe settled down when they realized they weren't going to the vet and weren't going home immediately.

On to the work! After our travels I finally got industrious with all the plants I bought while in Austin the weekend before. With the help of my husband I created another bed and essentially connected two other ones with the new one. I also moved a lot of existing plants around and planted all the new ones. The plants I'm most interested in seeing how well they do are the Red Dragon persicaria and Eupatorium viburnoides, also called Viburnum Mistflower. This one is related to Joe Pye Weed but it's woody and flowers in the fall. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find a lot of information about it on the web. Guess it's relatively new to the trade.

Have you ever bought a plant, not knowing exactly what it'll look like but thinking it would be neat anyway? And then you get home and do some research and go "what the heck was I thinking of?". I found I had done just that. I thought hollyhocks would be nice since part of my garden was developing a cottage garden look. But it turns out the ones I bought are those double flowered kind and the photo I saw of them online makes them look dreadful. They're called Summer Carnival. So I stuck them in the back where they won't be very visible.

I forgot to take pictures of all my work efforts and now it's raining. Good for the new plants though!

Happy Days

Happy days are here again

The skies above are clear again

So let's sing a song of cheer again

Happy days are here again

But enough about politics! Who said we don't get fall colors in the South? :-)

Growing towards sustainability

I hope you love Lady Liberty, seen here on the top of the Texas state capitol building. On this important election day, I can't think of a better photo to start my blog with. And it's my birthday! Every so often the presidential election day lands on my birthday. Some days it's been a bit depressing, depending on who wins, but today I'm feeling that my guy's going to do it. Maybe I'll be singing 'Happy Days are here again...' by tomorrow.

But I've also included this photo of the Capitol because I took it at the Texas Book Festival last weekend. It's a really lovely festival, with authors and literary rock stars speaking in rooms in the Capitol or tents outside. (An aside - they even speak in the House and Senate chambers and one year I saw Frank McCourt speak in the House chamber; he was blown away by the SRO audience.)

One of the events I attended was about some growers and producers from Texas talking with Corby Kummer (far right), Atlantic Monthly food editor, about their experiences. It was truly awe-inspiring to hear how far in the last two decades the public has come in demanding food that is grown and produced in a sustainable way. Carol Ann Sayle (2nd from left), of Boggy Creek Farm, reminded all of us of how she used to have to explain what organic "was not". I.e., it's not grown with pesticides, not grown with herbicides, etc. Now she explains it, if she indeed even has to, as food grown with a nurturing hand in the soil. Make the soil healthy and your crops will prosper. Corby told the overflow crowd about how the Europeans are jealous of America's farmers' markets. Apparently in Europe the markets are not run by the farmers but rather buyers of produce who select it and then resell it. They're jealous of our direct connection to farmers!

I must say, Austin is quite the vortex for all things Sustainable. Even 4 years ago, which is when I moved away, it was still not that common to see restaurants advertise where their raw ingredients came from. Now they have CSA's that deliver to state offices! And many wonderful farmers and ranchers have started to prosper by the proliferation of farmers' markets, chefs partnering with producers, and CSA's ensuring their survival. I was a little jealous and depressed by it all, thinking about how far we have to go in my community. I work with the farmers' market here and right now we're working on educating the producers about growing for their customers, never mind going organic. But as Carol Ann reminded me, even Austin had to grow to get there. So I'm hopeful.

Work!

No, not that kind of work. I didn't return from Austin with a 'job' job. But I did return with a load of plants that are going to require a lot of hands-on work on my part as soon as possible. I had a lovely time at my favorite nursery, Barton Springs. They grow such healthy plants in their greenhouses that the ones I haul all the way back always seem to do well. Even though I'm in a different plant hardiness zone (8a versus 8b for most of the Austin area), they still thrive. I bought a variety of plants like Turk's Cap, Red Dragon persicaria, Inland Sea Oats (for my friend Alexis), and hollyhocks, a first for me.

If I get some time tomorrow (lots of things going on, including VOTING!!), I'll blog about a great panel I saw at the Texas Book Festival on Texas organic growers and producers.