A Match Made in Heaven
The longer I garden the more I start to hone in on my likes and dislikes when it comes to plant combinations. For me, gardening is a creative outlet. Just as I’m constantly trying different angles and lighting to get that great photo, I’m often moving plants around to get just the right combination of texture, color, and form. Every now and then, a few things get planted together and they just work. They look as if they belong together.
I feel this way about chives (Allium schoenoprasum) and lamb’s ears (Stachys byzantina). I find them to be stunning when paired together. Both of these plants are humble common herbs, you see them in many gardens and they have medicinal utilitarian backgrounds. There’s just something about the contrast in texture and form that works in my eyes (you may feel quite differently). One of the best parts of this combination is that both plants are quite easy to propagate. I’m working on incorporating a few more pockets of this combo in other areas of my garden.
What’s a plant combination that you find stunning?
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Poison Ivy
We have poison ivy growing all around the property here at Chiot’s Run. We’re surrounded by woods, so it has the perfect habitat to thrive. I don’t mind so much because it is a beautiful plant and thankfully I’m not allergic and neither is Mr Chiots.
Poison ivy (toxicodendron radicans) grows throughout most of the United States and Canada. It is mostly found in wooded areas and along the edge of the woods, although it can grow in open areas as well.
Learning to identify poison ivy is quite easy. It is a good idea to learn to identify this plant even if you never hike or think you’ll be exposed to it. Look for three shiny smooth almond shaped leaves fanning out to form it’s distinctive trifolate shape. The leaflets alternate on the vine. The poison ivy that grows in my gardens emerges in the spring with beautiful tiny shiny red leaves.
I don’t aggressively try to eradicate poison ivy from my gardens. I believe all plants have a purpose and a place. I do pull out any plants that grow close the house, or along the walkways where people might come into contact with it just in case. I would hate for a visitor to go home with a terrible allergic reaction.
Poison ivy is beautiful in the fall, it turns a lovely shade of red and yellow. That’s one of the reasons I leave it in the surrounding woods.
Are you allergic to poison ivy? Do you have any growing in your gardens?
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Quote of the Day: John Gunther
All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast.
-John Gunther
There’s nothing quite like starting the day with a good breakfast. I’m not picky about what I eat for breakfast except that it can’t come from a box and I prefer it to be warm. We don’t go for cereals or other pre-made things, if we’re looking for a quick breakfast a piece of sourdough bread toasted in a cast iron skillet with some good pastured butter is our breakfast of choice. We also like scones for quick grab and go breakfasts.
Once or twice a week we enjoy a breakfast featuring eggs. Whether a hearty “farmers” breakfast as they’re called in diners around the country. Eggs, bacon, potatoes, toast, sometimes mushrooms, and onions as well. Sometimes it’s an omelet and sometimes simply scrambled eggs. Every now and then I’ll whip up a breakfast pizza!
In the winter we love steaming bowls of oat groats topped with nuts, crystallized ginger, cinnamon, raisins and some maple syrup. We also enjoy warm coconut rice pudding on occasion.
Lately we’ve been eating sourdough pancakes a few days a week since we have such a bounty of maple syrup in the pantry from the 2011 sugaring season.
No breakfast is complete without a cup of coffee with raw milk. This is of course my favorite part of breakfast!
What’s a typical breakfast for you?
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Giant is Right!
I’ve been out cleaning out the raised bed that housed the spinach that I overwintered. The plants started to bolt with the heat that we’ve been having. It seems that overwintered plants have gotten used to the cool weather and bolt at the first sign of heat – so make sure to succession plant to be prepared for this! While cleaning out the bed I came across this leaf on one of the ‘Giant Winter’ Spinach plants.
Now I understand why it’s called GIANT winter spinach – that’s the biggest spinach leaf I’ve ever seen. It’s pretty much a salad unto itself!
Have you ever harvested a giant vegetable in your garden?
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Friday Favorite: Homemade Pizza
There’s nothing quite like pulling a fresh homemade pizza out of the oven. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t like pizza from a shop, that’s good in it’s own way. But a pizza made at home just the way you like it is hard to beat. And you don’t have to drive 20 min to pick it up, or pay the $25 either (one of the few bad things about living in a rural area)!
Until earlier this week it had been way too long since I’d made a pizza, many months. We’ve been missing the tangy sourdough crust, spicy tomato sauce, mushrooms, olives, caramelized onions, sun dried tomatoes and some delicious flavorful cheese. The drought is over and we enjoyed a PERFECTLY delicious homemade pizza with leftovers for a few days.
It’s not like we don’t ever eat pizza if we don’t make it at home, we have a standing dinner date every other week with friends for pizza. We spent months purchasing from all the different local shops and critiquing them. Yes we even had a scoring system and when we arrived at our favorite we’ve eaten it ever since.
If I had to choose my favorite pizza topping it would be mushrooms. Not the kind from the can, but real mushrooms, sliced thinly and tossed on top of the cheese. A good Hawaiian pizza comes in close behind made with caramelized pineapple and thinly sliced ham.
What’s your favorite pizza topping?
