Katie Joseph’s Blog

After discovering that we actually had raised beds under the small jungle on the north side of our yard, we tried a garden last year.  Then a tree fell on it, and then I broke my ankle.  (It was a rough summer.)  Despite severe neglect, we had more tomatoes than we knew what to do with.  We ate many of them and froze many more.  The beans got bug-bitten, and the corn, which I neglected to water on account of the ankle, was developmentally delayed to the point of giving up at 18″ tall.

This year, though, armed with All New Square Foot Gardening, brand new raised beds, and a renewed desire to avoid the grocery store, we’ve tried again.  (Google docs spreadsheet here for those interested.)  My friend Julee came up and generously spent a couple of days helping me jump start this backyard farm.  I was going to e-mail her these pictures, but then realized that I hadn’t posted on this blog in darn near a month.  Here it is:

Middle bed

East bed (with sad-eyed, vegetable-loving hound dog, who gets hollered at every time he tests the plants for flavor)

Julee brought along “multiplier” onions, originally brought over from the old country, according to family history.  She plunked them in the ground the day before she left and I wasn’t entirely sure they would grow.  As it turns out, they were just waiting for about two inches of rain, which came over the weekend.

I've got onions, they're multiplying.

They went from zero to six inches seemingly overnight.  It may be that it’s not oppressingly hot out yet, or it may be that I’m just getting old, but I love going out each morning to check on my little plants.  I am especially excited about checking the rain gauge the day after a storm.

In case you’re curious there is no photo of the hops/spinach/basil bed because the hops is looking a little scraggly and, being female and a bit self-conscious, they didn’t want their photos all over the internet (boy, are they lucky there’s no Facebook for flora.)  When next year rolls around and the vines don’t have a transplanting hangover, they’ll make their internet debut.

I’ll do my best to make progress reports.  We should be sampling some of the lettuce crop in the east bed’s cell D6 this week, and the cats have already been enjoying the fresh catnip garnish on their kibble this week.

Red!

The stucco repair work on the garage is nearly done, and we spent Sunday cleaning it out. Everything went back in with room to spare.  It’s like having a new garage instead of the decaying, falling-down hovel it once was.  It’s a good thing that tree fell on it.

Related to garage-cleaning: if you want a 1970s blue three-speed Schwinn appropriate for people up to 5′10″, please let me know. Otherwise it’s going on Freecycle.

A nice lemon shade, perhaps?

A bright, cheery yellow.

…and a new door color option.  Please opine!

Your thoughts, please.  Right now, the door matches the house, but I think we can do better.  For whatever reason, I’m stuck in RGB mode.

As promised, here’s a brief write-up on the bread-making experiment.  To my great delight, it worked almost exactly as advertised.  I’d made bread before (ciabatta-style) with a kneaded dough and while that was OK and the end product very tasty, it did require me to be near the kitchen and at my timer’s beck and call for two or three hours.  After reading the intro to the new book, I executed the first recipe, and despite one minor mishap (no cold water in hot Pyrex!) the bread turned out great.

The first loaf required about twenty minutes of my attention, spread over two days. It does require some planning on baking day since you need to get the process started at least an hour before you plan on serving the bread, but that time can be spent getting dinner started.  Or, if you’re me,  you’ll spend it searching the internet and rummaging in the refrigerator trying to figure out what to make.

The end product of this experiment was much more dense than other bakery breads I’ve had, and also had a more complex flavor.  I dare say it might even be better than Le Quartier.  You don’t need any fancy toppings, but fresh butter is a wonderful addition.  If you’ve been pondering bread-baking, this book is a great way to get started.

Next up: a recap of the Mother of All Garage Sales.

On the way back from dinner last week.

I took a somewhat spur-of-the-moment trip to visit Julee in Arkansas last week.  It was the perfect vacation: temperate weather, leisurely walks, and goooood food.  The photo above is from a sign shop within hollerin’ distance of Julee’s tower house.

Food-wise, I feel compelled to share this simple yet delicious recipe: rosemary pork chops.  We had that tonight for dinner, along with garlic/chevre mashed potatoes and asparagus.  You know you live in a privileged society when you find yourself thinking, “My, what am I going to do with all this chevre?”  Delicious.

Will report soon on my baking experiments — I just ordered Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day from Amazon.  Should be here in a week or so.

A photo I took while visiting Julee made the “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks. This snowy January day just got a little brighter.

The animal most commonly perceived as having an attitude of permanent disapproval is the rabbit. Lagomorphs, however, do not have the cat’s ability to radiate disdain straight into one’s heart, often from rooms away. Boy George displays above the sagging whiskers of disdain, disapproval and disappointment. The dog gets this look a lot.