Rhododendron austrinum can make a giant shrub, if grown in the right conditions. It has taken over a large portion of my rock garden. How big does it get? So big that I could barely fit it into the frame of my picture.
Wide and Tall
Obviously, this species will make a multi-stemmed shrub. Though the max height is usually ten feet, this one is twelve, and still growing. I have one more normal sized plant. Swallowtail butterflies love both.
Spring is Here
This is definitely not the hardiest of the natives, but it still grows like crazy here on the southern end of zone 7. I will also add, they grow equally well without any fertilizer. Neither of my two plants have ever had any.
After almost three months of non-stop rain, it finally dried up enough for me to plant my taters. We already have had our yearly average rainfall total and it is only the end of March. At least all the moisture made it easy to dig the trenches with a real old style tool.
Scovil Pattern Hoe
That hoe is usually reserved for mixing concrete, but it will move some earth as well. I planted four varieties of taters.
Yukon Gold (Six Pounds)
Red Norland (Five pounds)
Gold Rush (A New Variety for me. One Pound)
Russet (One Pound)
That made two and a half rows. The delay in planting meant that all the taters had sprouted well, which made it easy to use the classic American method of cutting in half any tuber that had more than four eyes on it, and every Red Norland did. Every cut tater was dipped in agricultural lime.
After I aligned my trenches with my homemade garden string combo, I lined each one with crushed egg shells for calcium, and pelletized lime for more calcium and magnesium. The final touch will be to top dress them all with some composted chicken manure. That will be my only source for nitrogen, until they leaf out, and then they get some liquid Alaska fish fertilizer.
Hopefully, the taters will no longer smell of rotten fish when I dig them.
When these plants bloom, it’s time for early Spring planting. The absolute first to bloom is in the next picture.
Neviusia alabamensis
That’s commonly known as Alabama Snow wreath, one of the rarest shrubs in the world, mainly because it only reproduces vegetatively, aka, by stolons instead of seeds. This year it began blooming during the second week of February, easily the earliest I have ever seen. That was when I got busy. Here’s a list of veg I planted, every one of which is up and growing.
Greens
Lettuce “Lolla Rossa Darkness”
Lettuce “Jericho”–can take some heat
Kale “Lacinato”
Brussel Sprouts “Catskill”
Mustard “Mizuna Red Streaks”–currently my favorite of the greens
Root Crops
Carrot “Kuroda”–also can take some heat
Radish “Lady Slipper”
Peas
I accidentally managed to plant all three types of peas–Snow, Sugar Snap, and English. They are growing like crazy, as it is supposed to be eighty degrees F here today.
Dwarf Grey Sugar-Snow Pea that actually grows to about five feet here
Sugar Daddy–Sugar Snap
Little Marvel–Heirloom English Pea
Here are the remains of the project.
J. L. Hudson, the anarchist seed seller in California, is the best around, for both quality, selection, and value. Still, I will also buy a commercial pack of heirloom seeds for fifty cents.
At this point I must agree with the last sentence of Candide, the great work by Voltaire: “That is very well put, said Candide, but we must go and work our garden.” No wonder Thomas Jefferson had a bust of Voltaire, in the entrance hallway at Monticello.
This will be the fourth time I’ve planted asparagus crowns, aka roots, and these are two years old, which will give us a good decade of Asparagus spears every spring. This year, however, I have the secret weapon that my family used when I was very young, and that would be well composted chicken manure. We had the finest patch of Asparagus in several counties.
As the temps are to be in the upper 50’s F this weekend, it will be a good time for a labor intensive project. The crowns need to be planted fairly deep, around six inches, and spread out properly. My garden is mostly sand, which means they need to be planted even a little deeper than usual.
I bought these crowns from Amazon for a ridiculously low price, and to my surprise, they shipped from Shanghai, China. Amazon has even outsourced vegetables. I was amused to learn this week that our corporate overlord Bezos had his phone hacked by the Saudi royal family. That will teach him about dealing with other royalty.
I’ll soak my crowns in water tomorrow, and plant on Saturday. To quote the great Wendell Berry,
“Eating ends the annual drama of the food economy that begins with planting and birth.”
Then I will try to find out the Chinese term for Spargelzeit, which is German for Asparagus time.
Here are two classic nutcrackers. One dances every Christmas, and fights the Mouse King. The other one only cracks nuts, and doesn’t dance at all.
The military looking fellow did come from the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains) in Deutschland, but he is mainly decoration, who could crack some hazelnuts, maybe, but not much more. That hundred year old fellow is another story. Archimedes himself would have loved this design. “Give me a place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will move the world.” Or crack some nuts.
A Pecan was Harmed AND Eaten
I put the old fellow on a nice piece of oak, and made a spot for the pickers, as pecans are bad about sticking in the shells. And then there is the thing to bust open the pecan’s relative, the notorious hickory nut.
Hammer Down
Yes, that is a California made Vaughn 23 ounce framing hammer, and be ready to swing it to bust open a hickory nut, or a black walnut. Cooking can be a lot like work. Just don’t break hickory nuts on a nice countertop.
Anyone who has spent much time in the South has come in contact with our insect scourge, the imported Fire Ant. After sneaking in on a banana boat, literally, in Mobile, they have spread from here to California. Their bite is bad enough that it can literally leave a scar. I have plenty.
Worst of all, their preferred habitats are lawns and veg gardens. People spend millions of dollars on chemicals to kill them. My solution is the Occam’s Razor of pest control. I just pour boiling water on them. It is both environmentally friendly, and emotionally satisfying.
You could run across your lawn with a kettle of boiling water, or you could do what I do, which is to take the fire to the ants (pun warning). My favorite setup is above, all Swedish, an Optimus stove and a Trangia kettle. Maybe I should get a dragon tattoo.
Killing fire ants, and playing with matches. How appropriate.
When it’s eighty nine degrees F at noon, you wander around in your air conditioned kitchen looking at all the various weirdness you have collected over the years. Hanging on our wall was an honest to god French made herb shredder, a Mouli Parsmint. It’s actually something of a bad mother.
It may resemble a wheelbarrow, but this thing can shred some leaves. Put in some herbs, and crank it up.
The French, They are so Clever
It also pops open, so it can be cleaned. I really should make more pesto every year.
Chickens always win a Stare Down with Emma the Aussie
We had our first four egg day, just as our six Barred Rock hens were about to hit the six month old mark. I imagine that will be the usual output of eggs, using the one egg per day and a half, per chicken, rule.
I am the Ruler of the Roost
Those two are Big Tail and Little tail. Though allegedly the same age, the developmental difference between the two is obvious. And there is even one thing they like better than their red wheelbarrow.
Earth Movers
My compost bin! I fill it up at least once a week, and they empty it out in no time. I still expect to have some of the richest compost in history, except that I will have to track it down, as they scatter it throughout the pen.
Coop, or Co-op?
At night they all cram into this pre-fab coop, which was made by Innovation Pet. It’s very clever, and was designed by some real chicken experts. Not actual chickens, but humans who are experts on chickens. It cost much less than what it would have taken me to build something similar. I did sit it on a foundation of 4x4s, which turned out to be an excellent idea, as we had an unbelievably wet spring.
At a later date, I will expound upon my mostly home made watering and feeding devices, two of which are partially visible in this picture. Until then, peace out.
An existential question here–Should I wash my eggs? I mean, they have been up the inside of a chicken, so there is something strange about that. Who knows what those birds have been doing? I regularly catch mine loitering in my driveway. So naturally, the answer is no, and yes.
NO
My fresh eggs, which I collect a couple of times a day, are said to be safely consumed unrefrigerated for up to three months. They never last more than a week around here, so no biggy with that one. Unwashed eggs have a natural bacteria barrier coating known as the bloom or cuticle. If you buy eggs at a farmer’s market, just ask a seller if they have been washed. A little chicken poop on the eggs is a good sign they weren’t.
YES
The big bad USDA requires that all supermarket eggs be washed, and even steamed. Thus the natural coating has been removed, from even the freest of the free range eggs. Combine that with the fact that most commercial eggs are at least a month old before they hit the shelves. Keep these jokers cold. Moral of this story: No supermarket egg, no matter how expensive, will be as good as a farmyard one. There has to be a lesson here, if not an egg manifesto.
DOWN WITH BIG CHICKEN
Chickens of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your coops! Seriously, this goes back to the heart of agri-culture. Know where your food comes from, and all will be well. I promise.
Here’s an old family recipe, created out of the necessity of eating only vegetables. As it so happens, it turns out to be, and I am actually understating this here, unbelievably good. Our vegetables play well together.
I have Died, and Gone to Vegetable Heaven
Create your own version out of whatever you have, but this is ours. Using what you got is the secret to good food. Quantities are based on how much you have.
Ingredients
Chicken Stock
1 Vidalia Onion, diced
Butter Beans
Field Peas
Tomatoes
Okra. sliced
Sweet Corn, cut from the cob
Salt and Pepper
Except for the seasoning, ingredients are cooked in that order. This is truly a dish of high summer, when all these things are in season at once. I now mill my tomatoes in a food mill, so the okra seeds get to be the star. The kicker is when all this is cooked, add:
Wide Egg Noodles
The extra starch does some magical something or other, and adds a little who knows what. Wait, that’s called flavor. Ideally, serve with a hot piece of:
Corn Bread
We’re talking a real melting pot here, Southern Cucina Povera. We freeze some for the winter, and days when you think it will never be warm again. Freeze it without the noodles, and add those only when you cook it. This soup is the boss, the mac daddy, and the kiss my butt on twentieth street shut your mouth cheap talk at the table stopper. That last one is something of a Birmingham thing.
Southern Fusion Cooking 