The Catalogs Have Begun Arriving!!!

Today I received TWO gardening catalogs - An early Burpee catalog and one from the Gardeners Supply Company. So what you're asking yourself... That means that myself and gardeners throughout southeast Michigan have begun to get the "itch". It doesn't help that the cold and snow the past few days has caused some to grumble (not me though)...

I DID find a very cool raised bed "planting tool" on the Gardener's Supply company catalog - And it's something for FREE. Check it out. The tool will help you plan and plant eight types of raised bed gardens from plans for a children's garden, the kitchen garden, and even a high yield garden. I am planning on trying it out this summer for my two 3' x 6' raised bed gardens and my small 3' x 3' raised bed. Looks to be easy and educational!

Best Holiday Gardening Gift

YEA, I am so excited to write that I have been given the best gardening gift yesterday - And I CAN'T wait to use it. No it won't help me grow bigger, better plants, and no it won't make my summer gardening chores easier, but it is a FUN gadget!!! Yes that's right, mom gave me a time lapse garden cam, specifically the GardenWatch Cam by Brinno!

I can now spy on my growing garden... He he, better yet MAYBE in can capture images of my sneaky rabbit as he chomps all of my sweet, succulent lettuce to the ground... Grrr... Silly rabbit this is for kids!

No really, mom bought be a plant cam. I saw one in a catalog a few months ago, and casually mentioned it to my mom. I thought it would be a fun thing to use throughout the yard. it SO makes me want to begin planning and plantin', THAT'S for sure.

Here is a demo of some seedlings growing that is posted on YouTube:

What was the best gardening "gift" that you received from Santa this year?

Build Your Own Rain Barrel This Winter

A few years back my brother bought me my first rain barrel for Christmas. Yes a rain barrel in Michigan, in December is kind of odd, however if you think about it, planning your garden for the next season is a popular hobby, so why not plan on how you're going to water it. PLUS some communities give tax rebates for the usage of rain barrels!

So why not make your own rain barrel??? Take a look at a friends video of the experience her and her husband had while building their own rain barrels:

Gifts for the Gardener

I love Downtown Home and Garden in Ann Arbor, and don't know ANY gardener who wouldn't appreciate a holiday gift from there... So when planning what to get that hard-to-buy-for gardener, think of bringing them a garden in Winter!

They even have a great web coupon available for this month:

Pumpkins, Pumpkins Everywhere

I've been lax on blogging for this site, I know I'll commit to posting one a week for anyone out there reading. I just got caught up in the harvest and then garden clean up, then we got sick, then, then, then... Let's face it, we have excuses for EVERYTHING, but the bottom line I made the commitment to put myself out there, so I'm going to do it

The end of the summer brought about several bountiful crops - small green peppers, a bumper crop of a few zucchini (that the squash bugs didn't destroy!), tomatoes, apples, grapes, peaches, small pumpkins - mostly pie pumpkins, and ice box watermelon. I was like a canning and cooking fiend. On my best days I put up 8-12 quarts of something or another - Typically some type of "garden marinara sauce".

When the tomatoes ran out (Or more likely when I ran out of steam for cooking them all) I was faced with the last of the green peppers and pumpkins! We ate a lot of pepper steak and I made several batches of the pepper/onion mix to freeze for use later. Pumpkins though they were a different story, and we had 30 small pie pumpkins and 4 presumably small carving type pumpkins, we carved 2 of them.

What does one do with pumpkins that's not "sweet". I knew I could make a killer pumpkin spice cake/cupcakes - But what else?! And so I went on the hunt...

I found several awesome recipes that I'll write about in the next few days: Pumpkin Noodle Bowl (courtesy of a Facebook friend), Pumpkin Ravioli, Pumpkin Pasta, and finally several Pumpkin Soups. When I got confident in the flavors of pumpkin I made my own recipe that turned out mild but very tasty. Here it is:

Delicate Pumpkin Soup

1/2 cup minced onion
1 1/2 T unsalted butter
2 cups of fresh pumpkin puree or 1 can of pumpkin puree
3 T Parmesan Cheese
1 cup heavy cream
2 cups beef, chicken or vegetable broth
1/4 t dried thyme
1/4 t dried tarragon
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste

Sour cream, creme fresh, roasted pumpkin seeds or fresh fried sage leaves for garnish

Brown 1/2 cup of minced onion in a pan with 1 1/2 T butter. Add 2 cups of pureed pumpkin and saute for an additional 2 minutes. Add 3 T of Parmesan cheese and a dash of nutmeg. Simmer gently until the pumpkin mixture is slightly dry.

Add approximately 1 cup of heavy cream and 2 cups of desired broth and whisk together until all ingredients are fully incorporated. Add a 1/4 t thyme, 1/4 t tarragon ad 1 bay leaf and bring soup to a gentle boil for approximately 30 minutes - Or longer to add more of the herbal flavor!

Season with salt & pepper to taste and top with a dollop of sour cream or creme fresh and couple chopped and seasoned baked pumpkin seeds or a fried sage leaf for garnish.

Yummy, hearty and warming... The entire family liked this recipe!

Make your own grape juice - It's good for you and tastes GREAT!

This year the kids and I have done a TON of foraging - I say they help me, but basically they run around the open field and play while I harvest! Sometimes I go just by myself - I just need to get away.. The other day I needed one of those days and I popped over to my friend Steve's to harvest the last of our pumpkins, and misc. garden produce. I also wanted to grab the grapes that i had seen earlier in the summer growing in several places along his property line.

As I arrived I realized I may be too late, as one of his new neighbors was hacking away at the fence-line at the uncontrolled and overgrown grapevines, mulberry trees and black raspberries. As grandma would say, I was a day late and a dollar short... However as I approached the fence-line I heard "So you must be the maple tree girl, Steve told us about you. He said you may be coming for the grapes." Luckily most of the most prolific vines were still in tact, so i was able to harvest a bunch.


After I stopped by to ask Steve about any large nearby Oak trees (as I was also on a Hen of The Woods mushroom hunt). He told me to check out the old cemetery adjacent to his property

I arrived and didn't find any elusive mushrooms HOWEVER I thankfully looked up and saw a whole lot of wild grapes. I spent the next hour and a half collecting as many as I could reach - Wish i had a ladder with me! In all I collected 15-20 pounds of grapes.

So what does one do with grapes? Make jelly? I already have so much of that put up for the year... Make wine? I didn't have everything I needed to make that happen... How about GRAPE JUICE!

Now if you think making your own grape juice is difficult, it's not, but like the I Love Lucy episode where she gets very messy from mashing grapes - It IS a messy project!!! The kids thought it was cool that I brought home these tart super dark purple gems - They didn't much like eating them though, as they were too tart!!! So I set about to make my juice

Grape Juice

*NOTE: Generally, a pound of grapes makes approximately 1 cup of juice.

Essentially all you do is wash the grapes and remove them from their stems - This is really a pain to do though given the size of wild grapes! After they were washed, I added them to a large pot and added enough water to cover the grapes. Next mash the grapes and bring the pot of water/grapes to a simmer for approximately 10 minutes.

Next prepare a fine mesh colander with cheese cloth or other fine cloth - Don't laugh but I actually used clean nylons that were no longer good - They really do the trick! Then strain and gently squeeze the juice out of the grape pulp and compost the remaining mash.

You now have pure grape juice...

Our final product could have stained shirts BLACK it was so dark and rich, and in all after we cut it with water some and added a little sweetener we got 3 gallons of a very tasty juice. be aware though that there is some sediment in the bottom, so if you like strain the juice several times, or avoid shaking it before serving! My favorite way to drink it was to add some red wine to it making a perfect fall wine cooler!

I figure with all the natural goodness I got from that dark, rich juice, that I won't EVER die of any cancer because the juice was so full of so many good-for-you antioxidants

For a great step-by-step photo pictorial and directions for making your own grape juice, check out this site I found!

Fall Mushroom Foraging

Last fall my husband and I headed out to a guided fall mushroom hunt with the Washtenaw County Parks & Recreation Program. We had a good time hunting for puff balls and were the only team that found the elusive Hen of the Woods.

I don't know why I had a craving to find them this fall, but the other day I decided I wanted to find my own Hen of The Woods. I packed up the car, loaded the kids and went to a local Township Park for the "hunt". We didn't hit the jackpot immediately, with Hen of the Woods, however we found TONS of puffball mushrooms all over the park. The kids had a blast walking around looking at dead tree trunks, in the open fields and along the trails - I think they found all of the mushrooms before I did. I COULD however smell the mushrooms as we headed along our way and told them to look out, and it's likely that walking ahead of me netted the most fungi, but I won't complain.

Along with finding mushrooms, I told my children never to pick any, except if Mommy or daddy were right there and said it was OK, and I told them to NEVER EVER eat any. I even said that they could die from eating mushrooms - I would tell ANYONE that. The two types of mushrooms I was hunting though are the easiest to identify and don't have poisonous look-a-likes really, so with my trusty guide-book in hand I felt confident in our harvest. Anything I wasn't certain of I took the "when in doubt throw out" route...

What was truly amazing was the next week while at my son's soccer game, my husband and daughter were roaming around, and my daughter netted a large cache of puff balls that hadn't gotten trampled - they were right in the middle of all the soccer fields!

We had a blast walking through the park looking for wildlife, falling leaves and all there is to see and do (I enjoyed tiring them out too!). I love teaching my children new and exciting things to do, and they enjoy spending the time with dear ole' mom!