What did you do in the garden today?

[GardenTillers44]

We've had a busy couple of days. My wife and her beekeeping buddies harvested 5 gallons of honey while I worked on building the base for our 8x10 greenhouse we are constructing this week. My wife swapped a couple beehives for a new automatic coop door. We installed it today and it's really cool. For tonight's entertainment, we sat and watched it close with barely a sound right at the set time of 8:15. Geez, I can remember when we used to white-water raft and climb mountains for fun, now we watch an automatic door close and the garden grow!

 

[Latitude33]

Where did you climb? Rock Jock? Alpine? Big Wall?

 

[GardenTillers44]

Where did you climb? Rock Jock? Alpine? Big Wall?

Fourteeners and other hills in the Rockies and North Cascades. Tried some technical stuff early on, but prefer hiking with my wife and hauling camera gear into ridiculous places.

 

[pennyJo1960]

sounds like my BF when he was younger he was deep into climbing.. my hip and knees from years of showing dogs 51 weekends a year do not do much climbing just chasing our 5 dogs and 32 chickens and 8 cats

 

[Beer can]

think tomorrow with a new soup I am trying we will have fresh spinach, arugula, pepper lettuce, dill, greek oregano and fresh tomato ..... I have a salad to go with Avgolemono
a chicken and lemon soup and sourdough rolls

I've never heard or tried any of that combination but it sounds

I love to put some nite crawlers in for the girls and watch the antics they are so funny

Lol, we pick them at night after a good rain, for fishing, ever done it?
Soo much easier picking them in the garden with nice weed free rows compared to 'hunting' them in the lawn. Used to get hundreds of them in a night when I was younger. My back doesn't care much for it now so I'm happy with a couple dozen and then quit Lol.

 

[pennyJo1960]

this is the recipe I am using the biscuit recipe was from Ron
the salad is a mix of things I grow in the garden and we love pepper

Avgolemono


Ingredients


1 (3 pound) whole chicken


1/2 cup uncooked white rice


salt and black pepper to taste


3 egg, beaten


2 lemons, juiced


Directions


1. Rinse the chicken and remove any organs that may be inside. Place in a pot large enough for the chicken to move around, but not too much room or the broth will be watery. Add the chicken neck if that is included with your chicken. Fill with enough water to cover by about 1 inch. Cover and bring to a boil. When boiling, reduce heat to low and simmer for 45 minutes to 1 hour, skimming the fat from the top as it collects.


2. When the chicken is done, the meat should pull from the bones easily. Transfer the bird to a large bowl and set aside to cool. Add the rice, and season the broth with salt and pepper. Simmer over low heat for 20 more minutes, or until rice is tender.


3. Whisk the eggs with the lemon juice in a bowl. When the rice is done, turn off the heat. Whisk one ladle full of hot broth into the eggs slowly so the eggs do not curdle. Gradually whisk in more broth until the egg mixture is heated. Then pour the egg mixture back into the pot, whisking briskly. The result should be a creamy, cloudy looking soup. You may season with additional salt, pepper or lemon juice at this point.


4. You may add pieces of chicken to the soup before serving or serve soup with salted chicken on the side.

Sourdough BISCUITS

1 tb Active Dry Yeast 1 c Sourdough starter
1 1/4 c Water-Lukewarm 5 c Bread flour
1/3 c Sugar Melted butter or Margarine
3/4 ts Salt

If you desire dissolve the yeast in warm water with a little sugar till bubbly. Sourdough is a yeast but rises faster with added commercial yeast. In a large mixing bowl add sugar, salt, sourdough starter, yeast and flour. Cover; set in warm spot and let rise until double. Punch down and turn out onto floured work surface. Roll out to 3/4 inch thickness. Cut with biscuit cutter. Dip both sides in butter or oil, and place on
well-greased baking sheet. Let rise 15 min.
Bake at 425 - 20 min. or until golden brown.

 

[CapricornFarm]

Rub a leaf between your fingers and see if it has an aromatic, spicy aroma. Looks like spicebush to me, especially since the berries grow along the branches and not as a drupe like dogwoods or viburnums. They grow as a small to medium shrubby tree in your area. We have a lot of that growing in our woods. The female plants have the green oblong berries that turn red about this time. Good native bird food, and the spicebush butterfly caterpillars eat the leaves.

I am betting you are right! Great, i am going to check it out tomorrow. Lots of interesting plants here. Tons of paw paw all over the ground now.

 

[Beer can]

Try googling datura or Jimson weed...
I have a moon plant that has an upright white trumpet flower that opens at night and smells like jasmine. Kids in OKC got sick smoking seeds from the spiny pods thinking it was a hallucinogenic...the county made it illegal to grow them in your yard.
I have them growing in my yard...in the country...in another county. The wild purple variety grows in our back pasture and has a smaller flower with a more spindly growth.
These are not to be confused with the Angel trumpet which has a dangling flower that can be white, yellow or peach colored.

I forgot about the jimson weed craze on the news.
I planted some flowers around our mailbox last yr that I got from a nursery. Was wondering where I heard the name before? Salvia? So I googled it... Miley Cyrus's name popped up first...
Then not too long ago they had to outlaw bath salts.. wow.
Sure is some dumb people out there.

 

[pennyJo1960]

guess they are not native to western washington never heard of that out here

 

[CapricornFarm]

My little helpers and i planted almost all of my plants in pots today and mulched them! I was very impressed , as they wanted to help quite a bit. The oldest girl, Bella, had to change clothes twice because they got wet. I even dug up my dead rose bush. Here the invasive rose bushes are growing all over the place and this one dies. I watered the bean and pea seeds i put in the ground to try and germinate asap.
I got three sides on my compost bin today. Needs touch up paint and the other side. Got potato peels in it already. Leaves and chicken poo to be added soon.