Plant Spotlight: Goat’s Beard
Four years ago I purchased a few tiny white Goat’s Beard (Aruncus dioicus) plants for my garden. I planted them in the side garden waiting to get a spot ready for them in one of the borders. Last year when we put in the garden pond, I decided they would be quite lovely growing behind it. It’s in full bloom at the moment and stunningly beautiful, drawing my attention to it whenever I’m in the front yard.
Goat’s Beard or Bride’s Feathers as it’s also known, is a flowering perennial that will be 3-6 feet tall and 2-4 foot wide when mature. It is native in the Eastern portions of the United States as well as parts of Europe and Siberia. It prefers light shade and moist soil and will grow in zones 3-7.
It blooms beautifully in May/June with big white feathery blossoms that look a lot like astilbe. I love the way it looks at dusk, the big white blossoms glow along the dark woodland edge. It seems to attract a lot of small native pollinators while it’s blooming. The foliage is attractive even when it’s not in bloom. I like to leave the dried blossoms on it to add some interest.
Goat’s beard is also available in dwarf forms if your garden is small. It’s definitely a worthwhile plant to look into incorporating somewhere in your garden, especially if you live in the Eastern portions of the US where it would be right at home in a native border.
Any great plants that you’re loving in your garden at the moment?
Share this:
Quote of the Day: Christy Bartlett
“You can’t be lazy. It’s up to you to see and see something new, to sustain your interest in the world around you. It’s not up to the world to entertain you. It requires effort to be interested.”
Christy Bartlett – found in The Wabi-Sabi House: The Japanese Art of Imperfect Beauty
Sometimes all it takes is looking under a leaf to find something new and exciting. I find gardening to be endlessly interesting. The more I learn about nature the less I realize that I know or understand about it. I’ve looked at wild daisies hundreds of times and earlier this week I picked some for the kitchen table and found these lovely beauties on the underside of one of the leaves.
Things like this always amaze me. These tiny little bronze/gold pearlescent eggs are perfectly formed. I think they’re leaf footed insect eggs, but I’m not positive. I’ll definitely spend some time looking these up. (here’s the post with the images of what hatched out of these lovely eggs)
What has piqued your interest lately?
Share this:
Garlic Scapes
I’ve been keeping an eye on my garlic watching for the scapes to appear. It’s amazing how one day you check and there’s nothing, then the next they’re curling out of the middle of the plant. Not all garlic produces scapes, from what I read only the hard neck varieties do, so don’t be worried if yours doesn’t.
I have read that harvesting the scapes will produce larger bulbs, this has been my experience. The first year I grew garlic I harvested some scapes and left some. The bulbs were much larger on the plants I had harvested scapes from. It makes sense as the plant doesn’t expend energy into the production of the flower instead using it to grow a large bulb.
Garlic scapes are quite delicious, they don’t have the assertive garlic flavor of the bulbs so you can eat them as a side dish or use them in other dishes. They’re quite good sauteed or grilled. If you’ve never had them before treat them like you would asparagus. My favorite way to enjoy them is in stir fry. This week it was ginger venison stir fry with those golden peas (I’ll share my recipe next week). I’m thinking this coming week I may make pasta carbonara with garlic scapes.
Do you grow garlic? Do you harvest scapes?
Share this:
Friday Favorite: Strawberry Shortcake
We picked our first strawberry last week and have been enjoying strawberry shortcake for dinner ever since. Strawberry shortcake at Chiot’s Run is a little different than most. The first time I made it for Mr Chiots he said, “What is this?” No little round spongy cakes or loads of sugar here.
When you grow you own strawberries they’re so much better than what you get at the store, you don’t want to overpower them with too much sugar. I make homemade shortcake with real butter, whole grain flour, crystallized ginger and just a small amount of sugar. This lets the sweetness and flavor of homegrown sun ripened strawberries be the star of the meal. The shortcakes are cooked until crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. When cooled we crumble them in a bowl, top with strawberries macerated with maple syrup and a dash of vanilla. Then we top it all off with some raw milk.
STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE
1 1/2 quarts of strawberries
2 Tablespoons of maple syrup
a dash of vanilla and salt
Slice strawberries and mix with maple syrup, and a dash of vanilla and salt. Put in fridge to macerate.
2 cups of flour
(I use 10 oz of freshly ground soft white wheat flour)
1/2 cup cold unsalted butter
1 Tablespoon of baking powder
(I use 2 t of cream of tartar and 1 t aluminum free baking soda)
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 cup diced crystallized ginger*
1/2 – 3/4 cup of heavy cream or buttermilk
1 Tablespoon of sugar
*If you don’t like ginger, you can add lemon zest and some lemon juice, or perhaps cinnamon and vanilla.
Preheat oven to 425, butter a baking sheet or line with parchment paper (you can also use a cast iron skillet if you’d like).
Sift flour into a large bowl and mix in baking powder and salt (if you want sweeter shortcake add 1-2 Tablespoons of sugar). Cut butter into pieces and work into the flour mixture with pastry blender, knives or fingers until mixture looks like coarse crumbs. Stir crystallized ginger into flour mixture.
Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and add in half a cup of cream or buttermilk. Stir lightly, if mixture is too dry, add the rest of the buttermilk or cream. You want the mixture to be like biscuit or scone dough, not too wet and not too dry. Spread or drop onto cookie sheet and sprinkle lightly with sugar. I make mine in one big piece but you could easily make individual ones if you’d like. Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown on top. Remove from oven and cool on wire rack.
When shortcakes are cool, crumble into a bowl, top with macerated strawberries, pour cold milk on top. Enjoy. (makes about 6 servings unless you’re really hungry)
When made this way, it’s the perfect light dinner on a hot summer day. With all that whole grain, fresh fruit, pastured butter and raw milk I don’t feel a bit guilty about eating it every night for dinner during short strawberry season!
What kind of strawberry shortcake do you enjoy in your household?
Share this:
Tiny Toads
I’ve been watching the pond daily and keeping track of the growth of the toad poles. There are hundreds if not thousands in there. There may be some frogs as well, I haven’t been able to tell yet if any of the tadpoles are frogs. It truly is amazing how a small 70 gallon pond will increase the biodiversity in your garden and capture your interest as well.
I’ve been watching these little guys since they were about the size of a grain of rice. Now they’re the size of a very large pea. About a week ago I noticed that they started getting legs and yesterday I noticed a few of them had started to lose their tails and were crawling out of the water.
Soon my garden will be overrun with tiny toads. Many of them will become food for birds but a few will survive to wage war on the slugs and other insects in the garden.
Any interesting thing in your garden you’re keeping an eye on? rabbit or bird nest? insect eggs?
