DorsalFin of Bloom
May. 14th, 2021 10:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ismoAnother beautiful day, and I was sitting in the back yard, thinking how fun it would be if an ice cream truck happened to drive by. I haven't seen one in my neighborhood in years. The maple leaves are all unfolded, big floppy awnings of green. The tree in front, by my window, is still a tawny garnet, but the rest are green. Their shadows do a stately minuet across the yard, hour by hour. We don't have a lick of sun back there until 10 or 10:30, when the sun is high enough to clear the treetops. In the winter, the pines were bold strokes of color, but now, facd with the fresh new dresses of their deciduous neighbors, they look a bit dowdy. Maybe it's not true that if you buy that classic fashion item, it will be evergreen. However, they are accessorizing with fresh green tips on every bough, and a dusting of pollen that makes critics like me blink and sneeze.
Last night I had mixed up the dough for James Beard's Mother's Raisin Bread and put in the refrigerator to rise overnight. In the morning I punched it down, rolled it out and anointed it with butter, raisins soaked in rum, grated orange peel, and spices, and baked it. The Sparrowhawk was eating a slice with butter as we lounged in the yard, so he wasn't thinking about ice cream trucks. I'm afraid I monkeyed with the recipe a little bit . . . well, quite a lot actually . . . but for pete's sake, who has mace in their cupboard? I don't. So I put in some nutmeg and cinnamon . . . probably twice what he recommended, and also a sprinkling of brown sugar. I just felt his recipe was too refined. It needed more punch. Anyway, it came out well.
After due consideration of where the sunlight fell, when there was any, I resigned myself to the fact that there was no better place to put my raised beds. It is what it is--Michigan! There are trees! So I went ahead and pounded in the anchoring stakes, and then I hauled TEN BAGS each containing almost a cubic foot of compost mix from the garage to the back yard. So you do the math and figure out how much that weighed. I'm too tired. I also hefted many things in the shed to find the big tarp. I spread the tarp on the grass and dumped the compost on it, along with equal quantities of perlite and peat moss. I enlisted the Sparrowhawk to help me mix it all together. The last time I did this, it worked like a charm, as described in "All New Square Foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholomew. You're supposed to be able to fold the tarp from side to side, thus mixing the materials perfectly. But this time it was so heavy it was impossible to roll it in the approved fashion, and we had to use rakes and shovels. We got almost all of it piled into the new raised beds before it started to get dark and we were tired. Tomorrow I will wet it down thoroughly, and then they'll be ready for planting. Whether I turn out to be the hero of my own garden is anyone's guess! I also moved the seedlings out for the afternoon, and back inside again for the night, beginning the hardening off process. It's a lot of work for a dang tomato. Normally I'm a very outcomes-focused person, but with gardening, it really is more about the process.
Last night I had mixed up the dough for James Beard's Mother's Raisin Bread and put in the refrigerator to rise overnight. In the morning I punched it down, rolled it out and anointed it with butter, raisins soaked in rum, grated orange peel, and spices, and baked it. The Sparrowhawk was eating a slice with butter as we lounged in the yard, so he wasn't thinking about ice cream trucks. I'm afraid I monkeyed with the recipe a little bit . . . well, quite a lot actually . . . but for pete's sake, who has mace in their cupboard? I don't. So I put in some nutmeg and cinnamon . . . probably twice what he recommended, and also a sprinkling of brown sugar. I just felt his recipe was too refined. It needed more punch. Anyway, it came out well.
After due consideration of where the sunlight fell, when there was any, I resigned myself to the fact that there was no better place to put my raised beds. It is what it is--Michigan! There are trees! So I went ahead and pounded in the anchoring stakes, and then I hauled TEN BAGS each containing almost a cubic foot of compost mix from the garage to the back yard. So you do the math and figure out how much that weighed. I'm too tired. I also hefted many things in the shed to find the big tarp. I spread the tarp on the grass and dumped the compost on it, along with equal quantities of perlite and peat moss. I enlisted the Sparrowhawk to help me mix it all together. The last time I did this, it worked like a charm, as described in "All New Square Foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholomew. You're supposed to be able to fold the tarp from side to side, thus mixing the materials perfectly. But this time it was so heavy it was impossible to roll it in the approved fashion, and we had to use rakes and shovels. We got almost all of it piled into the new raised beds before it started to get dark and we were tired. Tomorrow I will wet it down thoroughly, and then they'll be ready for planting. Whether I turn out to be the hero of my own garden is anyone's guess! I also moved the seedlings out for the afternoon, and back inside again for the night, beginning the hardening off process. It's a lot of work for a dang tomato. Normally I'm a very outcomes-focused person, but with gardening, it really is more about the process.
gardening is 99.99% process
Date: 2021-05-15 06:16 am (UTC)i salute you for all your hard work.
no subject
Date: 2021-05-15 01:04 pm (UTC)I have mace in my cupboard, LOL. And I always punch up the spices in my baking.