Tag Archives: strawberries

Breakfast For Supper

21 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by in Recipes

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Our family loves pancakes. Whether a simple recipe or loaded with fruit and nuts, the aroma of pancakes cooking in the kitchen spreads cheer throughout the house. Breakfast is a great time to eat them, but supper always is best. That yummy, soothing sweetness brings comfort at the end of the day.

OK. We admit it. It’s not just the pancakes. It’s the toppings – sliced apples cooked in brown sugar and butter, tiny wild strawberries and whipped cream, applesauce, and possibly our favorite, warm apple cider sauce. Try it, and feel yourself relaxing.

APPLE CIDER SAUCE

1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons corn starch
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 cups apple cider
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 cup butter

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In a saucepan, mix sugar, corn starch, cinnamon and nutmeg. Stir in cider and lemon juice. Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir one minute. Remove from heat. Stir in butter. Makes about 2 1/2 cups.

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SWEDISH PANCAKES

3 eggs
2 cups milk
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)
1 1/2 cups flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoons salt

Beat eggs in a bowl. Add milk, melted butter and vanilla extract. Beat until blended. Add dry ingredients and beat until smooth. Batter will be thin. Spoon small amount of batter onto oiled, heated griddle. Cook over medium heat until lightly browned. Flip and lightly brown other side.

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These are the pancakes we enjoy most, but your favorite recipe with apple cider sauce will be just as delicious. Happy cooking, and happy eating!

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Protecting the Crown – A Bedtime Story

05 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by in Perennials

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Here at the farm, it’s finally time for bed. Fall has been long and warm, which has been helpful as we scurry to button up the house. Lack of consistently cold weather has delayed the last of our garden chores, however. Several hard freezes with temperatures falling to at least 25 degrees are needed before tucking in the perennials with their winter mulch.

Yields from our vegetable gardens surpassed all expectations this year. Our baby apple trees settled themselves into the orchard and thrived. The flowers and herbs in our window boxes grew enthusiastically, well into the fall. Pots of annuals were so gorgeous as we approached frosts, I wished for a heated sun room, so I could bring them all inside.

The greatest delight is the condition of the soil in the gardens. Instead of appearing depleted, having given its all to support such a bountiful harvest, the soil is soft and rich and ready to go again. Mulching gardens, trees and all my container plants with Premium Ground Cover has made all the difference. (www.PremiumGroundCover.com) 100% natural and heat-treated to kill weed seeds, this mix of chopped straw, timothy and alfalfa hay is nutrient rich, and my plants and soil love it.

As cold weather approached, Premium Ground Cover was my obvious choice for protecting strawberries and other perennials from winter stress. The purpose of mulching perennials, particularly newly planted, shallow rooted and marginally hardy perennials is not to keep them warm, but to keep them cold. During inevitable temperature fluctuations and periodic winter thaws, soil expands and contracts, heaving plants upward, exposing tender crowns and roots to drying winds and cold. Several inches of loose mulch applied to the soil late in the fall helps keep soil temperatures cold, conserves soil moisture and provides protection from the wind. Additionally, mulched soil warms more slowly in the spring, keeping plants from breaking dormancy during an early warm spell.

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Putting down the mulch is a pleasure. It’s soft and chopped short, so it stays where I want it and does not blow away, even in the stiff wind blowing on the day we put our gardens to bed. The recyclable plastic bag is easy to close, so unused mulch is neatly stored for later.

We’re ready for winter now, I suppose. Long days outside in the gardens will be replaced with shorter days on the snowshoe trails. Inside, we’ll be researching insect pests, studying seed catalogs, and dreaming about next year’s gardens.

Good night, everybody.

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Henry, king of the farm, inspecting the mulch.

Redemption

03 Friday Aug 2012

Posted by in Perennials

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My father’s father was a plumber, but Gup could build or fix anything. He taught us, “Always use the right tool for the right job.” In other words, don’t try to drive a nail with the flat side of a wrench. Whether planting a tree, wiring a house or making a crib for a great-grandchild, he would repeat, “If you don’t do it right, it will never come out right.”

Those words rang in my memory as I surveyed my strawberry bed early this summer. The previous year had been unusually chaotic, with insufficient opportunities to tend the gardens. When the strawberries should have been setting buds for a plentiful harvest in the next growing season, they were busy competing for nutrients with weeds we didn’t have time to pull. Although I weeded and mulched and tried to make amends this spring, the damage had been done, and this summer’s yield was meager.

Determined to set things right, we began a proper renovation of the bed as soon as the last strawberry had been picked. After mowing off the leaves, we tilled under all but two narrow rows of the youngest crowns, then weeded and thinned to allow plenty of room for runners and daughter plants. We fed them, shoveled the best of my finished compost around them, mulched and watered.

Surely, it would have been easier to scrap the whole bed and start over in a weed-free plot next spring. That would be the recommendation of many gardening resources, and I considered that option before choosing to put my efforts into renovation anyway. My decision means I will fight every stubborn weed until it gives up or the ground freezes. My vigilance will continue until late fall when I blanket the bed with  Premium Ground Cover, which will protect the crowns from the cold and windy winter.

So, why did I choose the more difficult way? Maybe because the daughter plants from last year rooted well and are strong. Maybe because beginning again with new plants next year gives us no berries until the following year – such a long time to wait. Certainly because I believe my persistence will redeem what I couldn’t do right the first time, and in the garden, persistence is the right tool for the job.