A Hopping Good Time!

Here is a brief update from a post last year about my hops.

I had to move them since the original spot I planted them in was too sunny. I then put them outside the garden fence where Lisa promptly pulled them thinking they were weeds. I was seriously skeptical that anything would come back for the 2012 growing season.

Boy was I wrong! While only three shoots came out of the ground they spread all over the fence:

Here is just a bit of them. I picked 2 gallons of flowers and have them in my freezer.

Now I'm looking for a local brewer...

(Way) Better Than Nothing Post

I have photos of housing scraping and painting and stories in my head, but just haven't gotten them down yet.

In the meantime, last week Sunday was the University Heights Garden Club tour, and we were one of the stops. The University of Iowa's student paper, The Daily Iowan, sent photographers. Here is one of their shots:



David Scrivner/The Daily Iowan
Guests view the backyard of Mike and Lisa Haverkamp’s home during the 2010 Garden Tour hosted by the University Heights Garden Club on Sunday. Around 150 people toured the nine locations in University Heights.

Photo can be found here, scroll to the very bottom:

Today's Photos, June 28, 2010


Here is the full story. The slideshow has lots of photos of our yard. (Photos 1, 3, 6, 9, 11 & 12) The other photos are all from the two other gardens on our street. The video clip also has me babbling about Foxcroft, while wearing my goofy Mountie hat:

Back to the garden in University Heights

We had a great time hosting the tour. Then last Wednesday everyone whose garden's were on the tour walked and had our own tour. That was was even better.

Beans Are Up!

After a really big rain most of last night I visited the garden this evening to find that the beans are just poking through the ground. Many are still wearing their seed coats:


These are Kentucky Wonder Beans and will grow up my 8 foot tall fence vigorously. I saved these beans from last year's crop.

My heirloom peas, planted the first week of April are nearly 3 feet tall right now:


In my 20 years of growing them and saving seeds, I think I have influenced their height by saving those which grew especially tall.

I'm trying potatoes again after we ate our entire inaugural crop last year at Thanksgiving. Jean, who I work with, gave me seed potatoes from Seed Savers in Decorah (I gave her peas). Here are the German Browns:


Not nearly as tall but vigorous are the Peruvian Purples:


I have to be a polyglot to garden this year.

Other early success are my onions, I've been eating them for nearly 3 weeks:


And my red leaf lettuce, which I started to harvest on Saturday:


Right next to the lettuce above are this year's new experimental plants, collard greens.

I've also got tomatoes, peppers, basil, cucumbers, cabbage, cantelope, watermelon, Chinese cabbage, zucchini and cilantro planted. I still need to put in some acorn squash and pumpkins.

Meanwhile as I work on all this, Lisa continues to sculpt the yard on a much grander, perennial scale. The textures. color, and depth never cease to amaze me, as they did on my way back to the house tonight:

Milestones, Rituals, and One Crazy Idea

MILESTONES:

Last month marked the 3rd anniversary of the blog. March 2005 seems like a lifetime ago, but at the same time it feels like it was only last week. This post is the 200th for the blog too.

RITUALS

I planted peas last weekend. My oldest daughter helped, meaning that now a 6th generation of our family has planted them since my great-great grandmother brought them to the U.S. from Luxembourg. Here's how they looked in the 2006 Foxcroft garden:


ONE CRAZY IDEA

I've been thinking about the garage. I've straightened it, but it still needs LOTS of work (as does the exterior of the house!)I've been reluctant to start anything, because it is a small single car garage.


I broke down and looked at new garage plans, and found some that would be aesthetically pleasing, but would hate to give up the yard space, and shudder to think of the cost of removing the HUGE black walnut RIGHT NEXT to the garage:


So I went back to the garage plans site today and found this:


Behm Garage Designs

It's a single sized garage WITH A LIFT! You can drive the first car in, raise it up and then DRIVE IN A SECOND CAR!

This is great, I can restore and keep my historic garage, AND get two cars in. It's got to be cheaper to buy a lift than it would be to remove the tree and build a two car garage.

As my neighbor Mike said when I showed this to him tonight, "How are Lisa and I going to know when you've really gone senile?"

Vegetarian Mincemeat: Green Tomato Pie

I cleared out most of the garden yesterday thinking that maybe we'd finally get a frost. Besides getting loads of bell peppers I had a bag full of cherry sized green tomatoes.


This means time for my annual green tomato pie. I use the recipe from my 1950 Betty Crocker cookbook:


Here is the recipe:


If you want to make this, here is Betty's (and my changes) in a downloadable (MS Word) version

Here is the step by step (my changes in parentheses):

Mix together:
•1 1/3 cups sugar
•6 2/3 tablespoons GOLD MEDAL flour (I use whatever flour and round to 7)
•1 ½ teaspoons of salt
•1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon or nutmeg (¾ t cinnamon AND ¾ t nutmeg)


Mix lightly through:
•4 cups green tomato slices
•4 tablespoons lemon juice or 1 ½ tablespoons mild vinegar (vinegar)
•1 1/3 teaspoons grated lemon rind (omit)

What I do is:
Put the cut up tomatoes in the bottom crust


Dump the mixed dry ingredients on top


Shake it a little bit


Dot the filling in the pan with:
• 1 ½ tablespoons of butter

Cover with top crust. Bake until nicely browned. Serve slightly warm.

TEMPERATURE: 425 hot oven
TIME: 35 to 45 minutes

My changes:

Usually I do the lattice top, just because its cool. I also mix egg whites, milk and sugar to brush over top crust

TIME: 45 to 55 minutes

I was cheating so I used frozen crusts, and got distracted taking out the top one so it looks pretty bad:


Usually I end up burning the edges so I often wrap foil around the pan, also this can get drippy so I always put a cookie sheet under it. I think the cookie sheet is why I always need to bake longer:


I forgot to brush on the milk/egg/sugar mixture so it didn't look quite as "golden" as usual:


I called the neighbors to invite them over when it was done and the girls were in bed. Mike, a phenomonal chef, proclaimed it good.

Over course the key question is: How does it taste? Well I've served it to people telling them it was apple, and they believed me. It's a little more tart, so my description is that it falls halfway between apple and mincemeat, hence today's title.

And here's how it looks half gone: