There’s no point in explaining my absence; nothing has been as it should for the last 23 months and we all know that. However, I did finally decide to try and get back to keeping this page relevant and posting about the things that have kept me busy during this long stretch seemed fitting.
This page is focused on baking and gardening because that is what I do; I bake and I garden and sometimes, I bake with what I have grown in the garden. Lately though, many days have been spent canning things from the garden; pickles, jams, tomatoes in all forms, vinegar and vegetables. We actually produce enough food in the garden to feed ourselves through the year. There is a real feeling of satisfaction when I peek into the cupboard in search of ingredients and I pull out a jar that is filled with something that I grew and canned myself.
When my husband gave me a pressure canner one Christmas, I was excited; I could finally do more than just tomatoes or pickles! The cupboard is now stuffed full of single serving jars of soup that I made to keep me fed this winter. It may seem like work but when you do the math, it is almost always a lot cheaper than buying cans of soup and it certainly doesn’t contain the preservatives and crap that most cans of soup are full of.
The biggest bargain I have found is to buy bags of dried beans and then can them. A one pound bag of beans will yield four pints of cooked beans once they are canned and you figure it out, a jar ends up costing about 35 cents. By canning them you also have jars of beans that are ready to be added to a dish without having to soak and cook them; a real win-win in my kitchen.
Hummus is a staple in our house and I was not really fond of making it from store bought chick peas. No matter what I did, even using the Vitamix, just did not make it as creamy as I would like. Then I began canning my own chick peas; what a difference in consistency!
Navy and Great Northern beans are interchangeable in recipes if you ask me. Just look at the photo, Navy on the left, Great Northern on the right. The only real difference is size. Either one works in a bowl of soup or as a side dish or straight out of the jar with a spoon… Yes, I’ve done that when I am too lazy to cook although I will heat them up most of the time.
Recently, I made a batch of Cuban Black Bean Soup and having jars of cooked beans ready to go meant that I didn’t have to cook them first. That batch of soup was finished quickly and into jars it went. Now I have a supply of black bean soup and black beans in the cupboard.
The last batch of beans was a half bag of Blackeyed Peas. We had a major infestation of pantry moths over the summer and had to toss out so much dry food that leaving an open bag of beans in the cupboard was a bit of a risk. Besides, if I am really going to eat a bowl of beans for dinner, these will be my first choice. Saute some onions and garlic, drain the beans and add them to the pan with some broth and just let it simmer; bacon or ham can be added too but i generally skip that. Dinner in less than ten minutes.
Since this page really is about gardening, I feel I must take it full circle. Did you know that you can easily grow your own dried beans? Granted it takes some space and patience but most pole beans will produce pods faster than you can find them on the vines. Every year I plant a variety of green beans called Cherokee Trail of Tears. The vines can grow 15 long and they produce tons of green pods. When young, they are some of the tastiest green beans and we always process a bunch, vacuum seal and freeze them for use over the winter but we have also found that it is just as easy to let some of them go to seed. If you let the pods mature and dry on the vine, you will be able to harvest them and then shuck the beans. This particular variety produces black beans and we have done this a few times. The beans are small but tasty and we have enjoyed them in soup and chili. If you grow your own, do be certain the mature beans are edible, some such as Hyacinth beans can be poisonous.
Now get out there and plant some beans!
It has been a busy summer and even though fall has arrived, things are not slowing down! We have picked a freezer full of vegetables and I have canned more tomatoes than I can count! Here are some photos of the garden to give you an idea of what we have been up to. Above is a lousy photo of one of our ginger lilies in bloom-they are so fragrant!
Back in May, I brought home 7 tire planters from the Urban Gardening Festival. This one is full of shade loving plants and they have really filled in, now I need to figure out how to keep it alive over the winter-these plants are not cold hardy!
The other 6 tires look like this and I just replanted them with fall flowers-now they need to fill in. The strawberries have spread like crazy and we are hoping for fruit by the bowl next year. The strawberries have also helped the rhubarb crowns get established and we were able to harvest from each plant.
Gate greeters-love the little faces that greet me as I enter the garden.
The chair planters I made this spring have filled in.
How can you not love sedum? These plants are so hardy and can survive the neglect they sometimes get in this busy garden.
Love the colors and textures they add too and bees love the blossoms.
All of this heat has been just what the peppers needed and they are coming in by the bowl.
Poblanos
Sweet banana
Roselle Hibiscus is one of my favorite plants in the garden. This year I am experimenting with jam. The first batch is in jars but I see room for improvement and will be making more.
Someone asked me why I planted flowers in the garden. The short answer, I like them! But more importantly, so do pollinators and butterflies. This little skipper is drinking from a noodle bean flower.
New to us this year is Cardinal Basil. Those flower heads can get as big as a softball and the leaves are huge as well. The flavor is an intense, classic sweet basil flavor and it has made its way into a lot of tomato sauce this summer!
The change of seasons means a change of plants. Extra Dwarf Pak Choy is actually ready to harvest and we have picked some already.
The last of the canning tomatoes-finally done with it for the year!
Where ever I go in the garden, they watch us work
Lady Bird, our only Americauna hen is a little shy in comparison to the others
The watermelon jungle. First one we picked wasn’t ready and the chickens ended up with a nice treat. This one looks ready to go.
Glass chicken.
The bottle tree.
The flower tower
Cherokee Trail of Tears beans are one of the best heirloom beans. We let a bunch go to seed so we will have plants next year. We can also dry out the seeds and cook them like other dried beans.
Finding an egg in the box is something that never gets old.
We harvested the sweet potatoes and pulled up about 40 pounds from the six plants in the bed. So, there you have it, what we have been up to the last couple of months. Come back and visit soon!
Rhubarb is not easy to grow in the south. The high heat and humidity make it challenging for this Siberian transplant. Some of the varieties can survive in our area, Nashville zone 7a, such as Victoria, Canada Red, Cherry Red or Valentine, but afternoon shade is the key. Plant the crowns on a Northern slope or in an area that gets shade in the afternoon so that the soil temperatures stay cooler, be sure it gets plenty of water too. In my garden, I have four Victoria crowns growing, the most commonly found variety here in Nashville, and I use large, plastic bread racks to provide shade for the plants during the hottest periods of summer.
This year, I was surprised at how quickly all of the crowns grew and I was able to harvest some stalks to both make this cake and to freeze for later. One of my favorite cakes to bake is an upside-down cake. Being able to turn a fully decorated cake out of a pan is so much better than having to frost and decorate layers. As beautiful as it is, the stalks made me think of celery-luckily, it didn’t taste like celery!
This recipe is a work in progress and I am not posting it here but it is based on a Persian Love cake made with pistachios, lemon zest, cardamom and rosewater. To decorate it a little after turning it out of the pan, I sprinkled chopped pistachios and rose petals around the edges. Because this was a large cake, 9″x13″, I took it to a Master Gardener meeting and potluck dinner, I came home with a very small piece; I ate it for breakfast the next day.
There are so many things to see in the garden, too many to share. This is a glimpse of what is going on now. Enjoy the view!
Well, it goes without saying, I have neglected this blog lately. As spring approached, things in the garden at home and in the Demonstration Garden got busy, very busy. As we have worked to prepare the Demonstration Garden, a small team of volunteers worked on getting the word out. The result, a chance to tape two segments for a local TV show, 
Every month, our Master Gardener group has a potluck dinner that precedes our meeting. Each member brings a dish to feed about 8-10 people and I always bring cake. My original plan was to make an apple cake to use a few leftover apples, but when I went to the grocery store, pineapples were on sale. My plans quickly changed.
To make a really good pineapple upside-down cake, you must use a fresh pineapple. While canned fruit will work in a pinch, it just does not have the flavor of a fresh pineapple. If you do not want to mess with cleaning a fresh one, look in the refrigerated section of the produce department in the grocery store. Most stores will stock fresh pineapple that has been peeled and cored, keep in mind that it will also cost at least double the price.
Use a roasting pan that is 10 inches by 13 inches or use a rectangular cake pan of a similar size as long as the sides are close to two inches high. Grease the pan well and pour in the caramel. Tilt the pan to spread it evenly across the bottom and then layer in the slices in any pattern that suits you. For my cake, I chose rows simply because they would act as a cutting guide for the person who would be slicing the cake and it worked out beautifully.
When the cake comes out of the oven, it is important that you let it sit for 10 minutes before unmolding it or the fruit will stick to the pan. The caramel is boiling at that point and it needs to cool a bit to form a bond with the fruit and the cake. If you wait too long, you will need to return it to the oven to heat it up again, so this step is not one that you want to lose track of. Set your timer for 10 minutes when you take it from the oven and wait for it! Place a sheet tray or serving platter over the cake and invert it. The cake should release immediately and fall right out onto the platter. Allow it to completely cool off before slicing or the cake will crumble.
The perfect blend of spice cake and caramelized fruit!
While your cake cools, let’s get that crown taken care of! Gently pull off the leaves of the crown until you reveal what looks like roots. Believe it or not, they are roots! When you have a nice layer of them that goes all the way around the pointed end, place it in a glass of water.
Keep it near a bright window and be sure to change the water frequently so that it does not get moldy or fermented. If all goes well, you will have roots that stretch down into the water and you can plant it in a pot. Use a light soil, one that will not hold water and make sure it is in a warm, sunny spot. It will take a long time to grow a fruit, be patient! For more information, here is a 
To say it has been cold here is an understatement. Yes, I know that plenty of places are much colder and covered in snow, so what! We moved south to escape snow and frigid temperatures and the last two weeks have been brutal here. So rather than dwell on the cold or debate who has it worse and all that, let’s just look at photos from the fall taken out at the Demonstration Garden in Ellington Ag Center. Before the frost. When it was still warm… Mexican Sage in bloom.
Love the fuzzy blooms, so do the bees.
Vietnamese coriander in bloom. So delicate and tiny.
The swamp monster that tried to eat the garden-Swamp sunflowers in bloom
The swamp sunflowers were about 8 feet tall and they are spreading out. Don’t they look beautiful with the Burning Bushes?
Want to plant something that bees and hummingbirds love? Fill your garden with salvias and one of my favorites is Pineapple Sage. The leaves smell like a pineapple lifesaver candy when you rub them and they are edible meaning you can use them as you would most other edible herbs. Honey bees love them and if you have a colony nearby, you might just find enough of them in it to make the whole plant buzz and vibrate. Hummingbirds will visit them too but only if they stay in your area through the fall. Pineapple sages tends to put this show on late in the season and this was taken around the first week of November.
Just look at those pollen baskets!
We built this out at the Bee Garden and we are hoping that beneficial insects are nesting here.
This garden is just full of color and blooms.
Our climate here allows for tropical plants to grow and thrive during the warmer months but the fruit never has a chance to mature and ripen.
We can only dream about bananas; these did not make it and were killed by frost shortly after I took the photos but while it was blooming, the wasps and bees loved the nectar and pollen.
This update is a little late but if you are wondering how the garden is coming along, here it is! When we finally had our hard frost a few weeks ago, I went out and spent the day cleaning and harvesting what I could.
In my effort to add visual interest, I have added a bottle tree and the white metal baskets are a project in the works.
Our hens have really helped us improve the soil and control insects. These are two of our young hens; a Black Australorp and an Americauna, who is also our only green egg layer.
She really is a sweet bird but she is also a bit shy and the other hens tend to bully her a bit.
These are a couple of the old girls. We brought our Golden Laced Wyandottes with us when we moved here from Virginia. They aren’t laying much anymore now that they are over 2 years old but they still help out by providing us with manure and by eating insects.
The iridescent feathers on the Australorps are beautiful when the sun hits them. The hens wander the outside of the garden in their tunnels and they are safe from hawks and our plants are safe from the hens!
This pretty lady, an 
Because I was curious, I looked up information about her and discovered that this little brown ball is actually an egg sac. Each one can contain about a thousand live babies who will over winter in the sac. As I cleaned up the bed of flowers where she was living, I discovered three of these egg sacs! In the hope of having another spider or two next year, I carefully moved the sacs and placed them in the beds with our fig trees.
Early in the spring, I planted a number of perennial flowers and herbs around the garden. At that time, I also planted an artichoke. It has gotten large and if it survives the winter, I am hoping for chokes!
Cabbage heads are looking good.
We harvested most of the broccoli for Thanksgiving dinner and froze what we did not cook. Because we only cut the top heads off, we left the plants in the ground so that they would produce side shoots of smaller heads. If all goes according to the plan, we will be picking broccoli through the winter.
When we were in Virginia, I planted Tokyo market turnips for the first time. They are smaller than the typical turnips found in grocery stores. At last check, they were nearing maturity and I am looking forward to roasting a few!
Cardoon looks a lot like an artichoke. The difference, chokes or the flower, are the only edible part of an artichoke while both the flower and the stalk are edible on a cardoon. Actually, the stalk is more commonly consumed and it requires a long simmer to soften the extremely tough fibers.
The stalks look like celery on steroids and they are just as tough as you would imagine. And then there are the spines; they are every bit as sharp as they look!
Handle the stalks with care and be sure to cut them off before you try to cut and cook the stalks.
All around the garden are little pops of color in the form of violas, one of my favorite plants.
Love this color combination.
Part of the clean up meant gathering tomatoes, both ripe and green. If you are considering planting tomatoes, give these little yellow gems a try. They are called Barry’s Crazy Cherry and they can be found in the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed catalog.
Late in spring, we put a watermelon plant into the garden. Hoping for a few melons to share with the hens, we were disappointed by how slowly the plants grew. This was the largest of three melons. The first one that we cut into was white inside, it became some really nice pickles. The other two are still waiting to be cut and we are hoping for better luck!
One of the best decisions I have ever made was to become a Master Gardener. Not only have I learned a lot about the hows and whys of all things gardening, I have had a chance to make wonderful friends! Earlier in the summer, I was talking with a fellow MG member and I mentioned that I really wanted to learn how to make hypertufa pots and that I was more than willing to plan a get together at my home with some of our gardening friends. It was if the walls, or maybe the hostas were listening in on my plans because as quickly as I mentioned this, we learned that one of our fellow MG members was offering a tufa pot workshop in her backyard. Needless to say, I quickly signed up for the class!
Making the mixture is fairly easy, it takes a little elbow grease but it is not at all difficult to make. In a large container with a wide opening, combine 3 parts peat moss, 3 parts vermiculite and 2 parts portland cement. For extra strength and durability, you can throw a handful or two of fiberglass reinforcing fibers. Add water to the container and mix it until it is moistened but holds its shape-refer to the photos above. Do not do this with bare hands!!! (nevermind Georgeann’s bare hands, she warned us about the consequences) Portland cement can be a bit caustic and it will dry your skin to the point of irritation.
Select a mold with a wide opening and grease the inside with spray or a thin coat of shortening. Line it with a couple of plastic bags or a sheet of plastic drop cloth. Do not worry about the crinkles and wrinkles, they will add texture to the pot.
Press handfuls of the mixture into the bottom so that it is at least an inch and a half thick. Using your fingers, make a hole for drainage. Keep building up the sides so that they are at least an inch thick but when it comes to the top edge, make it a little thicker and rounded so that it is stronger. Let it cure, out of direct sun-in full shade, gently lift the plastic sheet to remove the pot from the mold after a day or two. At this point, you can carefully shape the edges or carve designs into the surface of the pot. Use a metal brush or a file to sand the edges and small chisels for the carving. Replace it into the mold to finish curing. You want to do this to ensure that you can get it out of the mold at all-a lesson I learned the hard way!
If you walk around Georgeann’s garden, you will find tufa pots. This one is home to just one of many hosta plants.
The pots are very durable and can even spend the winter outdoors. Even though the cement mixture is on the alkaline side, plants can thrive in them and so can moss.
The moss is a plus in my opinion, I just love the character it adds to the pots.
As a beekeeper, I love seeing Vitex (Chaste Tree) in gardens.
All through the garden, I found little surprises like this mosaic of a Blue Jay.
And this Earth ball.
The waterfall is actually a water feature that recirculates but it is no less beautiful than a real stream!
Of course, there are plenty of Hostas to admire, too!
As much as I love Hostas, I really love Hydrangeas!
Arbors are everywhere in the garden.
Another of Georgeann’s tufa pots, this time it is a trough. Remember what I said about the crinkles and wrinkles in the plastic liner? They really do add a lovely texture to the finished pot. 
Everywhere you look, there is something to see, and in my case, covet!
Don’t you just love this little cottage?
This swing is hidden from view in most of the yard but I was still hesitant to sit on it for fear of acting like a child…
If this were my garden, I have a feeling that I would be spending a lot of time sitting out in front of the cottage at this table.
Caladiums are quickly becoming one of my favorite plants to add color to a shade garden.
This stone sits at the start of the path that leads up to the cottage and if you ask me, it is an accurate description of Georgeann’s garden.
So the moral of this story; if a Master Gardener opens their home to you, go! You really have no idea what you will discover or learn until you walk through someone’s garden and I am genuinely grateful that I had the chance to spend a morning exploring this beautiful garden. And in case you were wondering, there was definitely cake; I brought my Guess Again Tomato Cake and the recipe will be posted soon!
Let me just say that I am not a landscaping expert. My first idea was to shingle the rocks starting at the top. The thought was that the flow of water would be slowed down from hitting the cracks and crevices created by the rocks. It did slow the water but it also created many little pools of water and as I stood out there in a down pour watching, I realized that I needed to try it in reverse order.
Because I had previously hauled all of the rocks to the stream, reversing them was a fairly quick task. For my second attempt, I started at the bottom and shingled them upwards. So far, it seems to work better but I suspect that in time, I will have to come back and truly dig out the stream bed to create a deeper channel that I can line with rocks. For now, this works.
As I gathered rocks, I tried to pick them for shape and color but also for moss.
Lichen also makes nice markings on the rocks.
Because this is a mountain stream, mosses were a must and there is also no shortage of it here.
By carefully digging out small ferns, I was also able to add them to the rocks.
Once the stream was finished, I began working on the pond area. The person who built the stream bed had it all flow down hill into a small pond which acts as a basin to hold most of the water. The area is terraced and has a dry bed as well as a wet bed where the water from the stream flows in. Almost the entire yard is shaded or has dappled sun light which makes it easy to use plants like hostas but beware, deer will eat them and the pond is fenced in to keep them out.
The flowers on shade plants generally are not as showy as their sunny counterparts. This tiny spike of pink blooms on the Tiarella Pink Skyrocket, commonly called Foamflower, it your reward for taking the time to look closely at the plants in the garden.
If you recall, about a year ago, I posted here about my mother’s garden. In that piece, I mentioned how she is a gardener of things rather than plants. This meant that I spent some time rearranging the statues in the garden as well.
In the wet area of the pond, I had the chance to plant some water lovers; Iris versicolor Blue Flag and Iris sibirica Sparkling Rose. Keeping them company is a Ligularia stenocephala Little Rocket (commonly called Leopard plant or Ragwort), Lobelia speciosa Vulcan Red (commonly called Cardinal Flower), Pulmonaria Raspberry Splash (commonly called Lungwort), Phlox divaricata Blue Moon (commonly called Wild Sweet William or woodland phlox) and Astilbe chinensis v. taquetii Purple Candles.
One of the surprises in the yard is the large quantity of native Jack in the Pulpits growing. With a small trowel, I carefully dug a few smaller specimens up and moved them into the wet area as well and near the center of the photo, you can see the trio of leaves from a single plant.
Ligularia in bloom makes a statement and is large enough to be easily seen from the deck.
The pulmonaria and the phlox have adapted well to their new homes.
The cardinal plant has show quite a bit of new growth; the bright green leaves will turn darker with age.
This is the first time I have tried gardening in my mother”s yard and everything I have planted is an experiment. Between the growing conditions and the deer, I am hoping for success. After seeing the amount of growth on this Cardinal plant in just one week, I am encouraged!
Whoever did all of the stone stacking and terracing gets the blue ribbon! When the stream empties into the pond, it comes over this pile of rocks and collects in the basin which is lined with cement. Years of water have led to lots of ferns, moss and lichens but I think I like the reflection best.
On my next visit, I hope to bring help with me along with a mattock; that hose needs to go!
will garden for cake 