Baking Soda Magic Eraser

While setting up to take this picture, I noticed some icky greasy mess on the back of the stove top. I have asthma and cannot use harsh smelling cleaners or anything containing ammonia. Baking soda with orange oil has been the primary cleaner in our household. Recently, I discovered that baking soda and any liquid soap will clean just as well as baking soda and orange oil. This is good news because orange oil is expensive. Now I only use orange oil when I want the place to be clean and smell good - you know, company clean. Anyway, needing to clean the stove up quickly and take the picture, I just sprinkled some baking soda on a damp towel and started wiping the surface down. The baking soda basically erased the greasy mess. Aunt Debbi - doing more and more with less and less :)

Letter to an Impatient Gardener

Dear Mikey,

You have taken custody of several plants before it is time to plant them. They are four heirloom tomato plants, several eggplants and a cucumber. I know the weather is very pretty, but if you plant them in the ground now, you take a risk of them either being killed by a late freeze or stunted by cold weather. They are also too tiny to put in the ground yet. They should double or triple in size before it is time to plant them.

The nursery staff that are already selling tomatoes and peppers are laughing behind your back because you will probably be back to buy more when your plants die from the cold.

Please wait until April the 1^st to put them in the ground. At that time, check the forecast and make sure it is not supposed to get down into the low 40’s. If it is, wait another week. In the meantime, continue to let them grow in the containers and bring them inside at night if the temperatures dip down into the low 40’s or colder. Keep them in the sunshine otherwise. Make sure the potting soil stays damp, but not soaking wet.

The tomato plants are the heirloom varieties Green Zebra, Ladano de Panichio, Turks Mutt (not a dog) and Avivvi. The only one you might find in local nurseries is Green Zebra. They are all indeterminate, which does not mean they don’t know if they like boys or if they like girls. It means that they will continue to produce fruit over the season rather than making all of their tomatoes at one time. This also means they will be vines rather than bushes, so give them plenty of room and support. These are not going to make big tomatoes. They will make small, sometimes flattened, often weirdly colored fruit. The Green Zebra tomatoes are ripe when they are green with yellow stripes. They all taste fantastic.

The cucumber vine variety is Armenian cucumber. The cucumbers are going to look a little funny, sort of freakishly long, but that is never a bad thing. These cucumbers sometimes twist into odd shapes. Last year, mine produced a cucumber in the shape of the number 6. They are light green with thin but firm skin which helps keep them from getting easily bruised. They will keep for several days after being picked. I have never tasted a better cucumber.

I can’t remember what variety of eggplant I started. The fruit will either be short and fat or long and skinny. Pick them early and often unless you like bitter, seed infested eggplant.

You can save the seeds from all of these plants and grow your own next year, or just wait for me to do it. I always do.

Sincerely,

Debra, Your Rogue Master Gardener.

Sugar Snap Peas: A Guest Post By Michael Middleton a.k.a. Middle Monkey

Planting the seeds

Sugar Snap peas are little vines that to grow massive proportions. They give off a lot of veggies that can supply you with enough food for weeks, depending on where you live.
To plant the seeds you want to use a good fine potting soil in a small container flat. When planting the seeds you want to plant them about a half an inch down. Afterward you want to water them until the ground is damp, be careful you don’t soak them.

Caring for the seeds

You want to water the seeds every day, and they will come up in about a week’s time. In a few more days the seedlings will sprout ,and you want to move them to a larger containers with gardening poles in them.

What they look like when they sprout

When they sprout they look like green little weeds with leaves. You want to move them over as soon as you see a sprout because these little suckers grow fast. As they keep growing they will look like little green strings with leaves

What should happen next

The seedlings will grow into vines and start to produce the little peas that can be eaten raw or cooked. Make sure that they are growing on the poles or else they will try to wraparound a fence or something.

As they grow they should go up the pole in the transfer pot because they are vines and they will grow to be happy healthy plants as they continue to give off these peas that can be eaten raw or cooked

If you do all these steps you should find that the plant will grow fast as well as, feeding you with some fantastic peas.

Collecting Cow Poo with My Moms

Spent the day with my mom. We were supposed to cut back her rose bushes, but she had that job done by the time I made it to her yard. Instead, we cut back dead stuff in her little round perennial garden. At one time, the area where this garden is now was an above ground pool for my little brothers and sisters. Now, my little brothers and sisters are way taller than I am and almost all have their own families.

We cut everything back and hauled off all of the woody stuff to the burn pile. Then I got the bright idea to put the leaves in her fancy compost bin. Opened that sucker up and it was dry as a bone. I managed to pull out a little compost, but it needed brown, green and wet.

We loaded up the leaves and green stuff. When we added water it ran right through. Something was wrong. Mom asked, "Could a little cow poo help?" Well yes. My dad has a herd of about 5 cows. They live in a couple of acres behind my parents home. So here we go out into the pasture to collect some cow crap. Mom had a little garden scoop type thing. I had my gloves. I picked up way more poop with my gloves than she picked up with that scoop thingy.

We went back added to poo to the compost pile. Mixed it together added water, which did not run through, and I think she may have an active compost pile. Of course, when it gets cold next week and she wakes up to a steaming monster in her yard, she may not thank me very much.

Broccoli Cheese Mushroom Soup

I love soup when it is cold outside. I love to make soup from the vegetables I grow in my little garden. Fall vegetables grow particularly well for me because we rarely have a hard freeze. This blog has become a little recipe heavy. The broccoli in this soup did come from my own garden. The milk should have come from my CSA farm. Unfortunately, I had to buy my milk this week at the grocery store. It is whole and organic, thankfully.


1/2 large onion
2 cups chopped broccoli
1 cup chopped mushrooms
1 cup creamy type cheese (I used Velveeta because I didn't have the melty kind of queso blanco)
1 cup sharp cheddar cheese shredded.
2 cups or more whole milk (if you want a thick soup use less. For a thin soup use more)
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup chicken or vegetable stock (I used Better Than Bouillon chicken stock)
A pinch of curry powder


Saute the onion in a tablespoon of butter. Add the stock and broccoli to the onion. Continue to cook on medium heat until the broccoli is completely cooked - about 10 minutes. In the meantime, saute the mushrooms in a little butter and set aside.


Adjust the heat to low and add the milk. Be careful, it is easy to scald milk and that would taste horrible. Use a wand blender to smooth out the onions and broccoli. Add the cheeses to the broccoli, onion and milk and stir continuously as the cheeses melt. Add the chopped mushrooms and just a pinch of curry powder, stir and eat it up.


I didn't feel like this soup needed any extra salt or pepper.

My friend Tony Tolentino suggested I serve my soup with crostinis. Here is his yummy recipe

12-18 sun dried tomato slices
1/2 cup Italian salad dressing, olive oil or your own vinaigrette
1/3 to 1/2 loaf of French bread
Basil leafs
Preheat oven to 350
Marinate tomatoes in the dressing for 30 minutes
Cut bread in 1/2 to 3/4 inch slices and brush both sides of each slice of bread with dressing
Roll up basil leaves and slice
Bake bread until golden about 3 minutes per side
Top each slice of bread with a tomato slice and continue to cook until the tomatoes are heated about 4 minutes
Top with basil slices.

What is your favorite kind of soup?

?

Borrowed from Mr. Charles Harvey off of Facebook.

Happy New Year Best Hoppin John Ever

I accidentally made the best black eyed peas of my cooking lifetime. So easy and only 4 ingredients if you count water :)

1. 1/2 pound of dry black eyed peas
2. 12 ounces sliced salt pork
3. 1 can of Rotel with lime and cilantro
4. Water

Place the peas in your crock pot and cover with water. Let them soak for two or three hours while you celebrate New Years Eve. After midnight add more water covering the peas completely with about an inch of water over the level of the peas. Add the salt pork and set the crock pot on low. Let them cook all night long. In the morning, add more water if needed and stir. They will be ready by lunchtime. Stir in the Rotel just before serving. Yummy Yummy Yummy. It you want it to be Hoppin John, serve it over rice.

Don't forget to turn on the crock pot. I almost did.

Happy New Year.