Thinnings

A body has to be desperate for fresh greens to consider washing these tiny Tom Thumb lettuces. That's me. Ready for the salad spinner (another fabulous gift from Lissa) are these lettuces and some bigger spinach leaves.

A good rain, actually a deluge, made them easy to pull up. These greens suffered through lots of heat and dusty winds, and are now really glad to have cooler days. Yesterday was the exception, being in the 80's. Like a sundial, we in Missouri only count the pleasant days.

Great news this morning, the Toy Choys are within days of being ready for a stir-fry. Because they do not over-winter like spinach, I will gobble them up.

A Favorite Hickory Tree

Of course I hate to play favorites and hurt the other hickory trees' feelings, but I do have one special tree. Those nuts just taste better. From my brochure from the Missouri Conservation Department, it appears that the tree is not a Shagbark or Shellbark. I went around one spring and tried to identify all the hickories in the twenty-four bearing trees from the leaves. This one is a Mockernut hickory (Carya tomentosa). I could be wrong.

The nuts have a fabulous taste. The year I gathered quantities of nuts in anticipation of selling some, I kept the Mockernut ones for me. Alas, I wound up doing all the work of hulling, etc., only to put the rest out for the squirrels in winter. They were glad, because they couldn't quite remember where they had stashed theirs.

A couple of weeks ago, I found a few under my Fave Tree. I looked up and could have sworn there were no more. However, Iz took a walk in the woods when she came for a visit. She found quantities, which shows how reliable my opinions are.

These are some from a shellbark tree down on the river bottom that I named Bountiful. I got 47 gallons  from it in 2010, the last prolific harvest.

We went up yesterday with buckets to the special tree. We grubbed around in the leaves and kept getting quantities of nuts. The other night the drought was broken once more with nearly seven inches of rain. That must have knocked them down. Quickly filling the two buckets we brought, we carried them down that steep hill, then up a steep hill to where we had left Rosie and the cart.

It seemed like a good opportunity to change my blog picture. I'm repeating it here for those who don't get the entire picture. Many thanks to my sister Jeni, who I am indebted to for getting the blog up and running in the first place. The technical parts of blogging are a big mystery to me.

Since I am nothing if not greedy, I went back today to get the rest of the fave nuts. The hulled nuts that float aren't good, but I got plenty of the sinkers. They have to be dried and allowed to age a bit. I can hardly wait.

Adorable Nuts

When I first moved here, I planted a few Filbert trees from the Missouri Dept. of Conservation. Since then, I've kept checking on the two that survived. They had catkins, which helped me to tell them from the other shrubby growth in that area.

This year, I got a wonderful surprise: nuts. They grew in leaf-like wrappers that were easy to pick. I wasn't expecting them to look like that. I read up on them and was reassured that they will no doubt produce many more nuts in years to come.

I picked a bowl of them and took them over to the pond and hulled them. They are darling.

This year, they are small, but I'm hopeful that this will be the start of something big.

I don't recall ever being so excited about Filberts. This was my first time to grow them. Had to take their pics and the squash and peppers barged into the shoot.

The hickory nuts dried enough to start splitting, after I set them out in the sunshine for weeks and brought them inside every night.

The hulls are best popped open with a flat-bladed screwdriver. This was not a big year for hickories. 2010 was a bumper crop. I froze enough nuts to last years. According to the literature (nuts are prolific writers) they only bear every two years. I'm always eager for a repeat of the bounty in 2010.

There is one black walnut down on the bottoms. I intend to get some of  those, too, for some banana nut bread. The first year I was here, I stored the walnuts in the playhouse, where the mice surprised me by being able to gnaw through the hard hulls.

Another year, mice climbed down the strings on the hanging bags of hickory nuts and spoiled them. Mice suffer from incontinence.

This time, all the nuts are coming in with me. I hate to be greedy, but I am not sharing this tiny harvest with rodents.  

Prepping Peppers

It's been a good year for bell peppers, also Anaheim Chilis and mild Jalapenos. I brought in these beauties to slice and freeze for stir-fry dishes. Last winter, I bought a green pepper at the grocery store. It was big, watery and almost tasteless. Hence, I'm saving more of my superior stock. The Jalapenos I just add whole to dishes to give them a little pep. We originally found the mild ones as an offering from Texas A&M, called Tams. Haven't seen those in a while, but we still call the mild ones Tams. I tossed one into a veggie concoction in the juicer with tomatoes. I realized, when the juice was too hot to drink, that taking the seeds out first would have been a great idea.

The peppers are both Yolo, an old reliable variety, and Margaret's. I found the pointy Margaret's in the Jung catalog some years ago. They were from seeds of a Hungarian pepper saved by a woman with that name. She was apparently a pepper prepper. I began saving my own seeds and was glad I did when they were no longer available in the Jung's catalog. One has to save the seeds from the red ones because the green ones aren't quite ripe. Margaret's have wonderful flavor, especially when red.



The Anaheim chilis are mild and delicious. Once I figured out how to stuff and broil them, they were fabulous. One plant always gives a bumper crop. I only regret I can't eat more of them. I'm just one woman against all that bounty.

Little tomato cages are a good idea for the peppers. Otherwise their limbs break under the heavy peppers.

All summer long, I've enjoyed quantities of peppers. I've had hash stuffed green peppers, plain raw peppers, tuna pilaf and this elegant Spanish Frittata that Lissa sent me the recipe for. It's a meal using lots of what I have on hand, peppers and eggs and parsley. Excellent with a glass of Pinot Grigio.

This year, I grew five bell peppers, two Tams and one Anaheim, and have enjoyed a wealth of peppers. Over the years, I've tried the multi-colored ones but for best flavor, I keep coming back to Yolo and Margaret's. The red ones are sweet. Even sweeter are the moments when I see similar red peppers at the grocery store for over a dollar each.

Rich, beyond my wildest dreams.

Ode to Swiss Chard

The heretofore unsung veggie this year is Swiss Chard. Even naughty Iris is in awe of chard. In early spring, I started four plants. The wonderful green continued bearing all summer long. Heavy rains, weeds, heat, drought and hot dusty wind failed to affect it in any way.

Chard surpasses its finicky cousin spinach, which bolts with heat. I made it into chard quiche when it wasn't too hot to turn on the oven. The ribs are a bit tough, so I always trimmed them away.

Chard really came into its own when it came to providing morning greens for the hens. They gobbled up every speck, including the ribs. No matter how often it was cut, the chard kept on producing.

It's still going strong, after all these months. The seeds reveal it is in the beet family, grown for the tops and not the bulbs, which are big and tough.

I've even started some late chard, El Dorado, with golden ribs, from Park Seeds. It really wasn't as good for the main chard last summer, but might be interesting if it gets in gear before too long.

It is hard to find a leafy green that is so versatile. Bugs that left the green beans riddled with holes didn't seem to notice the chard growing nearby. Excessive rains that spelled disaster to the entire tomato crop just rolled off the chard. I cut it repeatedly all summer, which seemed only to encourage it to put on more and more fresh light green leaves.

I wouldn't be surprised if it makes it beyond the first light frosts, clear into November. One year, it even over-wintered. Amazing.

I only wish it were tastier.