Gardener's New Year

The ground is still frozen.  Snow fell on Tuesday and lingered on the ground through Thursday.  The temperature was in the fifties today, but stayed in the low thirties in the preceding days.  It gets dark too early and light too late.  And the ground is sill frozen. 

But I'm celebrating my garden's new year, with a nifty new seed starting idea I picked up off Pinterest.  (Where else?)  It's also the Pagan spring festival of Imbolc, but I'll talk about that another time. 

I've been saving up egg shells and paper cartons over the past few months (the best method I've worked out is to crush the top of the egg and gently pick away the broken bits of shell and then wash out the interior), and now I'll get to see how this works.  I planted green onions, chives, and garlic chives from seeds, and I'm trying out a few of the bulbs I picked up from Walmart's garden section the other day.  That idea doesn't seem to have been a good one, though, because I overestimated the room in the egg shell.  I also got some garlic bulbs, but I think I'll wait to direct sow those and the rest of the onions. 

The lid of the egg carton will also be used; I think I'll scatter-sow lettuce and spinach and a mesclun seed mix I have left over from last year in that side and either use them as micro-greens or transplant the whole container outside.  I shall track this experiment and report back presently. 

As they say, watch this space.

Tiger Patch

  Here at the newly rechristened Many Fingered-Pie (a title that is a bit garbled, admittedly, but it fits), I freely concede to the charges of being inconsistent - a glance at the archive dates alone will prove that - scatterbrained, and, included in the new subtitle, haphazard. 

  Who is my accuser?

  Myself.  And by extension you imaginaries reading this ill-advised article.  Hmm, "article."

  Also included in the new subtitle, I tend to really like things, and get excited about doing things, only to sally forth to do whatever latest shiny idea has caught my eye and discover - I like it much more on a theoretical level.  That usually doesn't keep me from trying to do, or, once the shine has temporarily worn off, from coming back and giving it another go once my head of enthusiastic steam has built itself up again.  It doesn't even keep me from gleaning a modest enjoyment and satisfaction from the practical side of the project at hand.  That just doesn't seem to be enough to keep me faithful and true for more than a few weeks, months at the most, at a time.

  I suppose the root of my problem could be considered a mixture of short attention span combined with a real struggle with the expectation of instant gratification. 

  Of course, my problem could also be that I'm a fickle, wishy-washy twit.

  Usually, my spurts and lapses of interest cause no more trouble than persuading me to spend way too much money on something I will not consistently use (and driving my family nuts), but with gardening, it's a somewhat different proposition.  There is a distinct need to be on top of the ball.  Hard work is needed, and often.  If it's time to plant, and I'm not in the mood, I need to either get the heck off my seat-warmer or miss an opportunity not easily regained.  That's what happened this spring with my garden.  I wasn't in the mood, and my seat remained warm.

  There are excuses, naturally, some of them even valid.

  For one, last spring, I planted a beautiful, luscious, lovely, spec-TAC-ular white zucchini - an Italian heirloom, no less.

  It was eaten alive by squash bugs.  Organic product controls listed in my bug reference book, Good Bug Bad Bug, were beyond my means at the time.  The only viable option under preventative action once I discovered the infestation was "hand pick."  I found myself not up to the task.  Yes, I know.  My failings are many.  Sigh.

  An interrelated reason for my lack of enthusiasm was that here in the central Piedmont of North Carolina, we had a winter that was so underwhelming it left us looking at each other and asking, "What happened to January?"  It must have seemed like the greatest thing since sliced bread to the local insect population.

  The best excuse for the tendency toward garden deterioration near the middle of summer, even when I do get out there in the spring is that overheating through exertion is a sure fire migraine trigger for me.

  So my poor little garden languished while my "People say I'm easily distra - SQUIRREL!" attitude found other momentary points of focus.

  Well, bugs and all, my focus has rolled around again.  In August.  Sometimes I wonder if I'm a closet masochist...

  Anyway, I'd like to get my garden in shape at least for a meager fall crop of greens, so I set out into the jungle.  I live at home, and while it is my garden, PapaBear has quite the veto power.  When we have different ideas about what should be done, it can get... a bit sticky.  (Another reason I lost interest, an attempt to avoid conflict - because I'm a coward - except, duh, letting the garden go feral caused even more conflict).  He wants to spray everything.  I don't.  So I've been looking for an eco-friendly, quick-result method to tame my tiger patch.  I settled on this kill mulch, no-dig technique from the Walden Effect homesteaders (whose delightful month-by-month ebooklet series you can find here).  My beds are, well, maybe just a wee bit worse off than hers, but I'm hoping it will still work.

  So, here are the ubiquitous before and after pictures:

Before.  *Hangs head in shame*

In between. A good two year's worth of figure drawing newsprint supplemented the cardboard I dug out of the garage.

Aaaaaand after!  *Pats self on back*

  I shall be keeping a weedy eye out, as I've already flagged some trouble spots.  Developments shall be logged as they occur.

Roast Beef Leftovers

One of my favorite things to do with roast beef leftovers is to make pasties with them.  I've found multiple pasty filling recipes that call for starting from scratch with raw meat (and tried several of them), but honestly, leftover cooked meat just works SO much better.  After Thanksgiving I even made filling from leftover turkey.  But roast beef is definitely my favorite.

FOR THE CRUST:
3 cups flour
1 1/2 sticks butter
> 1 cup water (added according to baker's judgement)
(you could make a double batch since I always wind up with more filling than will fit)
FOR THE FILLING:
+/- 2 cups roast beef leftovers (or cooked meat of choice), diced fine
1 small onion, diced fine
1 potato, diced large
1 carrot (if desired), shredded or diced fine
1 - 2 eggs
garlic as desired
thyme as desired
Rosemarie as desired
MAKING THE CRUST:
Barely soften the butter - just enough so it's easy to mold with your hands
Put flour into a large mixing bowl
*Put the butter in with the flour and mash together until the flour resembles fine bread crumbs
add the water a splash at a time, just until the dough is neither dry nor wet and doesn't stick to your fingers.  Cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge for half an hour.
MAKING THE FILLING:
Chop the meat, onion, potato, carrot, and garlic and scramble the egg(s) in a separate bowl.  Heat some olive oil in a big (BIG) frying pan and saute the onions and garlic.  You can either scramble the eggs at this point in the same pan, or you can add the other chopped ingredients to the garlic and onions and scramble the eggs in a separate pan while the main mixture is heating up, then add the eggs in once they're almost done.  Add the herbs as desired.  Once everything is heated through, turn off the burner and take off the heat.  PREHEAT THE OVEN TO 350 DEGREES F.  by this time the dough should be chilled.
MAKING THE PASTIES:
Take the dough out of the fridge and work it in your hands until it has warmed up a little.  Now you can roll the dough out on a surface and cut out perfect circles until you need to lump the rest back together and roll it out again, but I find that the repeated rolling out ruins the texture of the dough, so I just break off palm sized pieces and work them out with my fingers, like you sometimes see done with pizza dough.  However accomplished, one you have a flat, roughly round bit of dough, drape it over your hand and scoop filling into its center.  Then fold it up so when it lies on its side on the pan it looks like a fat half moon.
The pan?  Oh, yes.  Just a regular cookie sheet will do - I always spread baking parchment over the bottom.  Repeat until you run out of dough.  Once the oven is preheated, cook the pasties for 30 minutes.  Then slide the rack out and slather the topsides with melted butter or an egg-wash, after that, cook for another 20 - 25 minutes.
Pasties can be eaten hot or cold, and keep in the fridge for several days.

I made a batch of these last night.  My brother likes to have them in his lunch, which is great...the only problem is - I'm on a no-wheat diet so I couldn't have any.

Yes, I'll admit it.  I cried.  Just a little.

*this is one of the most important actions I've discovered that helps give the crusts a nice texture - it works on bread dough, too.