currently holding back the urge to critique the entire gardening plot of this one shot and I'm being so brave about it

Hi Michael. It’s that time of year again. That time you always hated when I was so, so very hot and sweaty and thus, always had the air conditioning turned down, the overhead fan turned to high and the small floor fan churning away all night long. Like living in a wind tunnel, you’d say. I’m sure you wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn that nothing’s changed. I climb into our bed, each night, still on my side, yours untouched, with the dull roar of all my cooling machines as my companions. The thin sheet quivers in the breeze. You’d hate it. I’m physically comfortable and I lie there, thinking. Look at this headline from an article I read this evening.

Scientists Have ‘Woken Up’ Microbes Trapped Under The Seafloor For 100 Million Years

I mean, really? While I was trying to wrap my mind around the impossibility of those numbers and the subsequent life options they revealed, I suddenly hoped that meant we had a chance of reuniting somewhere in this mystifying universe. Certainly our collective and relatively young microbes have just as good a chance at survival as those ancient ones. I’m positive that your microbes are all over our house, our garden and in the few personal items of yours which I’ve stashed away. There might be a few hairs in your brush. I wouldn’t care which version of us we’d be, young or old. Ish.

So then I was thinking about all the tiny details of life I’d normally tell you every day when you were still here in the flesh. I mean, I like your constant cosmic presence, but I usually turn to that with just the most important stuff. I’ve been dying to share with you all these strange little nothing thoughts that cross my mind. Mostly, no one has ever been able to put up with the endless stream of seemingly random, disconnected thoughts that pour out of me. My sister, Cheryl is probably the next best listener after you. As my younger sibling, she was well trained in the absorption of my peculiar brain workings. I’m lucky she’s still here. But there’s just nothing like you for that bottomless reservoir of acceptance which  you provided for me. Isn’t it ironic that we both know you’d be appalled by me releasing all this private information into the faceless universe? I mean, I know some people who read my blog but mostly, they’re strangers. Honestly, except for a few private spaces in myself that defy language, most of the rest is just irrelevant in the long run. What impact do our little quirky selves have? I know you’d disagree but I need to survive now, in my own way. So here are a few random thoughts that beset me as I lie in our bedroom, my favorite space, while my mind wanders in the wee hours after I’m done reading, wishing I could talk to you above the whir of the fan blades spinning around me.

You’re the only person who knew that while I was listening to WLS radio during my pubescent and teen years in Chicago, I wasn’t just a rock and roll/rhythm and blues kid. I also liked gospel, jazz and classical music. I still remember that when you were working at the Record Service, you kept track of my favorites and made sure I always those albums in my stash. And then, you updated them to CD’s so I didn’t have to wear out my vinyl. I’m still listening to lots of different genres every day. I don’t think I could’ve gotten through this bizarre pandemic time without it.

Here’s another weird thing I’ve noticed lately. I don’t watch much television during the day. I turn it on for a few minutes when I get up in the morning, mostly a defensive move to make sure nothing impossibly earth-shattering happened overnight. That’s how things are right now – every day seems to bring a story that’s incomprehensible. Today the story was that after the worst economic quarter ever reported since they started measuring these things, Trump suggested that perhaps we shouldn’t hold an election this fall. This guy will sling any idea that he thinks will get him a second term. As an historian, you just wouldn’t believe how this country has devolved since you’ve been gone. Anyway. When evening rolls around, I’m tired from being outside most of the day. After dinner, I watch the news and then scroll through the tv guide, looking for anything that might distract me, amuse me or otherwise edify me in some way. Lately, I’ve realized that virtually every day, The Godfather, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or Gladiator is playing. Often they’re on at the same time, while other times, they’re staggered. It’s so peculiar. Usually I watch bits of all of them. By the end of the week I’ve seen them in their entirety, albeit out of order. I’ll also pause for Sense and Sensibility, The Princess Bride, Pride and Prejudice or any Errol Flynn movie. Makes me laugh. If you were here, you’d be doing the same thing with The American President, To Have and to Have Not, You’ve Got Mail or The Maltese Falcon. Also Goodfellas, A Bronx Tale, or Stand by Me. I’m working my way through a decent number of tv series that I missed when we were too busy to watch them. But recently, I’m needing revolution. I’ve got “Z” and Battle of Algiers on my DVR. I probably don’t need to get more cranked up than I am these days, but I guess that’s too bad. Watching them anyway. I wonder how any new shows will be made for the fall? Better not go down that rabbit hole. They’re probably not going to happen.  

I want you to know that in your honor, I have loyally kept up with a smaller version of your food garden. Not just the perennial herbs that still marvelously appear and make me feel that it’s you who’s emerging through our rich dirt. That’s kind of absurd because your ashes are sitting in a beautiful box in the house waiting to some day being mingled with mine. Then we can be in the garden together. That aside, I’ve also been diligently planting and nurturing the annual herbs and vegetables, although at the moment, I’m losing the vegetable battle with the squirrels and rabbits. I’ve managed to get about two dozen cherry tomatoes off the vines while I try to ignore the smushed ones on the ground with one bite mark taken before abandonment. All the low-hanging large tomatoes have been filched along with the green peppers. I’m holding out hope for ones that are a little higher on the vines.

I’m really missing your cooking, though. Yesterday, I started ferreting around your recipe folders and dug out the one for pesto which, by the way,  wasn’t labeled. I’m going to make it. I don’t have as much basil as you would plant so I don’t expect to be spooning the mixture into ice cube trays that we could pop out of the freezer for pastas and pizzas. But I’m going to get it done. You really spoiled me. The good news is that I knew it and let you know. So there’s that.

Meanwhile, I’m being really mindful about enjoying every bloom in my flower world. I wait impatiently to make sure that my perennials return and get so happy when they show up. Then I try not to get sad because soon they’ll be gone. That’s something I have to work on – if I’ve learned anything, I know I need to stay in the present. So I’m out there a lot, with the butterflies and the birds, chasing them around with my phone to get good photos that I hope will be comforting in what I expect will be a socially distanced winter.  

Regarding the birds. So far, since spring, there’ve been 50 species in the yard. I don’t know if you’d recall that I started drawing them and filing them in a binder called The Yardbirds. I know you’d get the music reference. Anyway, my renderings are improving. If I practice, I’ll get better. Here are a couple of my recent ones.

I’m really happy that I’ve created a great bird habitat in the yard. I’m learning a lot about their behavior. I love watching the hummingbirds and the house wrens. Tiny, but mighty. I’ve grown fond of catbirds which are showing up regularly at the feeders. They’re perky and curious and pretty brave.

I’ve done something pretty dumb, as getting attached to wild animals doesn’t bode well for a happy emotional outcome. But I’m very fond of the cardinal pair that lives here year-round. After a rousing rescue of one of their fledglings last week, I felt so familial with them that I decided to name the strikingly beautiful female who comes for here daily for a dip in the birdbath. I’m calling her Pumpkin. Now, how absurd is that? I like her boyfriend too.

Another thing I did after a good deal of thought was sell your beloved bike. That was hard for me. I know it was just a thing but you loved it so much. I heard your voice in my head saying, “don’t be ridiculous – it’s just sitting there being wasted. Get yourself some extra cash.” So I did. But I took photos first. All these things I have to do. When I lie in bed in the night, I think about how much easier it is to share the loads of life. I miss that a lot although I’m glad I have what it takes to manage on my own. I think back to my mom after my dad died. By the time she was my age, she’d been dependent on me for almost 5 years. Makes me shudder.

How could I not tell you this most important thing? Our daughter, who went from working remotely to having to appear in person in a closed courtroom, found out the other day that a court clerk had tested positive for Covid19. She was asked to leave her office, get tested and do another 14 day quarantine. Then the judge in charge pf hearing her cases tested positive as well. Ugh. That meant that all the rest of our little family bubble had to be tested too. So far, she and our son got negative results. Our son-in-law, both grandsons and I await our results. I hope we’re all negative and can resume our little intimate enclave. The months ahead look daunting to me. The virus is traversing the country at will with no definitive treatments or vaccines. I dread flu season adding to the complexity of everything. Feels positively medieval.

  In other news, I got an email from the park district informing us that the indoor pool was reopening immediately. The list of precautions and requirements is very long and detailed. I read it carefully while keenly aware of my longing to get back to swimming. In the end, I’ve decided against it. I just don’t think being in an indoor facility shared with high school students can be safe enough for someone like me, a member of what I call the “death group.” So I’ll just have to know that a block and a half from our house, people will be paddling away while I won’t. This adult decision-making of risk vs. reward is overrated.

In other news, I actually wish I was more like my mom in her widowhood. She used to talk a lot about how all she wished she could do was hold my dad’s hand one more time. Lucky her. I remain deeply interested in resuming our intimate life for another 30 years or so. I hope if this reaches you, you’ll be glad to know that some of our best things are strong enough to survive death.

So that’s all for tonight. By the way, I thought you should know that I just restlessly flipped on the television. There is Gladiator in the midst of the re-creation of the battle of Carthage. Round and round it goes, my dearest boy. Until next time.

A Message from the Wind Tunnel Hi Michael. It’s that time of year again. That time you always hated when I was so, so very hot and sweaty and thus, always had the air conditioning turned down, the overhead fan turned to high and the small floor fan churning away all night long.

Summertime and the snipping is easy

Ruth talks you through the trees and shrubs that can take a trim at this time of year

Cutting back a flowered weigela

I wouldn’t exactly say I’m secateur-happy, but when I see something that needs a good trim I generally can’t wait to get out there and get at it.

A couple of shrubs in the garden have been causing that ‘snippy’ itch over the past few weeks including a plum tree with a dead leader shoot and a weeping ornamental cherry that has grown so large it’s trailing over the lawn and getting tangled in the perennial growing below.

amateurgardening.com/blog

Both needed a haircut but I had to put on my patient pants and wait until the timing was right. Conventional wisdom says we prune trees and shrubs in autumn and sinter when they are dormant, but there are several varieties that are trimmed in high summer.

These largely fall into two categories; those that are susceptible to silver leaf disease (see below) and shrubs that flower in early summer and create each year’s blooms on strong, young growth.

Remove all-green ‘reversion’ from variegated shrubs to stop its spread

A third group are evergreen shrubs that are less hardy and more likely to have their cut tips damaged by cold weather if they’re cut back in winter.

As with all prunings, we start with the ‘three Ds’– removing stems that are dead, damaged and diseased. We then move on to overlong and straggly growth, aiming to create an attractive open shape that is healthier for the tree or shrub as it aids airflow and reduces the risk of fungal problems. It also allows more sunlight through to ripen away growing fruit.

Cut away dead, dying and damaged wood as well as spindly growth to open up the shrub

If a shrub is really overgrown, you can either hard prune it all at once, which means it may not flower for a couple of years until it has grown back enough, or you can renovate it by removing a third of old stems at the base each year for three years.

This means you will still get blossom and fruits and will have the equivalent of a ‘new’ shrub after the third year as it all be made up of new growth.

Pruning to healthy new growth growing in the direction you want the new shoot to take

When giving a light trim, cut overlong branches back to a pair of healthy leaves  or a single shoot growing in the direction you want it to grow.

amateurgardening.com/blog

This week I have been kept busy cutting back our recently flowered philadelphus and weigela. I also checked over a variegated euonymus and found a small case of reversion, where the green-and-white leaves had been replaced by solid green foliage. This needs to be pruned out or it will eventually take over the whole plant.

Feed, water and mulch shrubs after pruning

Then it was the turn of an overgrown ornamental weeping cherry, an over-enthusiastic greengage and a ‘Victoria’ plum with a dead ‘leader’ shoot that needed to be removed (and a new leader trained in its place). These, like cherries, plum, apricots, rhododendron and laburnum, are pruned now to reduce the risk of silver leaf disease.

This disease is a condition caused by the fungus Chondrostereum purpureum, which has spores that are at their most active in autumn and winter.

Tying in the new ‘lead’ branch of our ‘Victoria’ plum

Affected leaves develop a silvery sheen and their branches will then die off. When cut through, the branches may be darkly stained and older dead wood may develop bracket fungi with a white, woolly surface and dark, purple-brown underneath.

By running vulnerable varieties in summer you remove the risk of infection, especially as pruning cuts heal faster at this time of year.

amateurgardening.com/blog

Where silver leaf develops you must remove and dispose of the affected branch as soon as possible and thoroughly disinfect tools afterwards.

Always sharpen and clean tools after use to prevent the spread of pests and disease

  Let’s keep gardening!

One of the great things about lockdown was that more people discovered the joy of gardening and growing things and we greatly hope that this won’t wear off now that ‘normal’life has resumed.

This blog is an insight into what the AG team is up in their gardens, what we like to grow, what we pick and harvest, what’s worked for us and what hasn’t – because like everyone, things go wrong for us too!

AG‘s agony uncle John Negus is still answering your questions and solving your problms

Our gardening ‘agony uncle’ John Negus is also still working hard. Send him your problems and questions, with pictures if you can, and he will get back to you with an answer within 24 hours, as he has been doing for decades. Contact him using the AG email address at: [email protected]

amateurgardening.com/blog

We already have thriving Facebook page but are also on Twitter and Instagram. These sites are a brilliant way of chatting to people, sharing news, information, pictures and just saying hello –we will get back to you as soon as we can.

Best of all, as gardeners are generally lovely folk, more interested in plants, hedgehogs, tea and cake than political shenanigans and point-scoring, so the chat is friendly and welcoming.

You can find us at:

Facebook: Facebook.com/AmateurGardeningMagazine

Twitter: Twitter.com/TheAGTeam

Instagram: instagram.com/amgardening_mag

So please drop by, follow us, ‘like’ our posts and say hello –we will reply as soon as we can. Happy gardening!

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So why Home Gardening For Your Family Is A Healthful Choice

Whether its basic lawn attention as well as meticulous focus in a blossom collection, everybody wants to have an captivating backyard and backyard. This particular desire is generally not satisfied, not due to the fact of a lack of work, nevertheless because a number of tiny issues can be ignored. A new few special tips for your home garden can make be sure to get exactly what you want. Take the proper approach to sitting sod. Start off by preparing your garden soil with treatment. Pull any weeds of which you see, and do the job to break up this soil so that it is a new fine tilth. Tone and flatten the soil and make it a little compact. Thoroughly soften the soil. Stagger your sod so that each and every combined offsets from joints throughout adjacent rows. Slice away from extra sod together with spend less it to fill in spaces you might generate later. Waters your sod daily to get a week, which is enough time period for doing this to root in addition to be able to hold up against foot traffic. Plant many perennials in your backyard that keep out slugs. All these mollusks are usually able associated with consuming a complete garden whole of flowers in a nights. Snails and slugs such as to eat perennials using smooth and thin leaves, especially if they happen to be young flowers. Slugs in addition to snails is going to leave quite a few perennials on your own, particularly those with a bad tastes or tough, hairy results in. Wonderful varieties of such perennials include euphorbia, campanula, helleborus, achillea, and heuchera. Spend the additional dollars to barrier in your yard. You are about for making real expenditure in moment in addition to dollars to generate a garden of your personal, but it can all visit waste through the stomping feet of playful little ones, animals and additional little wildlife. Protect your investment along with a small fence of which keeps the children and critters out. When you do gardening, help make sure that you include a pair of farming gloves. Gardening is rough on your hands and fingers. Thorns and sharp branches may hurt your hands if they are not protected by safety gloves. Sometimes you cannot observe precisely what is in a good rose bush if you stick your hands in there to be able to berry. Wearing a good set of two farming hand protection will make convinced your hands will not really end up being injured. If occur to be looking for a natural fungicide to protect often the seeds flats or the trays that you just plant this tumble or winter, the option is easy. Basically put a dusting associated with peat moss moss that is milled or ground throughout the top of the flats or maybe drop this between each one line of seeds. The particular acid within the moss will help to prevent the development of fungus, keeping your seedlings strong and healthy. Smaller pebbles and stones make excellent plant markers. To read your plants while together adding a touch regarding natural beauty in your yard, collect some small stones and stones. Find pebbles along with a fairly smooth area, and use a permanent sign or a minor paint to set your flower names about them. This is a much prettier plus much more natural solution than the conventional plastic tags that mess up most gardens. Obtain rid of virtually any lawn pests immediately. Back garden insects, such as red spider mites, ants, whitefly, and even aphids, can infect the plants with various diseases, if you decide to notice any of the plants with your backyard dying or faltering to be able to flourish, check for pests first. To get clear of garden infestations, spend in a good pesticide. When you plan your yard this year, change the design so that it's totally different from where the various crops ended up located last calendar year. For example of this, place your current tomatoes inside the part regarding the garden where often the corn grew last time. This particular rotation of plants will help keep your soil from turning out to be depleted involving the nutrients required by means of each type of vegetable. Did you know the fact that watering your outdoor yard plants with garlic herb drinking water can help to pursue away insects? Just peel the results in off a number of cloves of garlic and even place them in a large container just like a clean gallon dimension cosmetic milk jug. Load often the container with waters plus let the garlic extreme for a day or maybe a pair of prior to watering your vegetation. Be sure you water your yard daily. Should you or anyone else can not do the idea every day, anyone may well want to look from setting up a sprinkler system. The convenience of acquiring a sprinkler process exceeds the cost of the idea. That way your garden will be watered everyday. To be able to make sure you don't harm your own plants whenever you water these people, only use water in a lukewarm temperature. Cold waters can easily shock your plants, doing it more difficult in order to absorb this properly. Try filling your current watering can easily before you go to bed at nighttime so that it'll be the great temperature when you're ready to drinking your flowers in typically the morning. Did you understand that cute lady pests are beneficial to vegetation because they kill unsafe aphids? Lady beetles, furthermore known as ladybugs, eat substantial numbers of aphids throughout its life. One particular beetle can eat five, 000 aphids! You can obtain creatures at the yard center, or perhaps through on the internet resources, if you have a tendency have almost any in your garden. Plants love ladybugs! To make the more of outside the house, it will be important to irrigate often the property adequately and conservatively. While marihuana nasiona feminizowane might be tended to feed, nurture their home gardens with a lot water, that is not only a waste of water, but is not helpful with regard to your flowers. Ensure you water your plants reasonably for the healthiest lawn possible. Reduce the have to have for not eco-friendly pesticides in your garden by growing and maintaining local crops. Native flowers can have a better weight contrary to the bugs and microorganisms of the location, and will certainly be better outfitted for you to compete with native weeds. Native plants will appeal to valuable native insects, like as characters, which can naturally control insect difficulties without the need intended for chemical substances. The perfect garden or back garden takes some sort of lot of hard get the job done, time, and devotion. Also with these kinds of, though, numerous gardens can easily fall small of your goals. Using the tips given in this article, you can make sure that isn't going to happen, and therefore your grass or yard is as good in real life while that is throughout your head.

Vegetable Feast: Sweet Potatoes, Walking Onions, and Water Timers

In his “Vegetable Feast” column, horticulturist Frank Hyman offers seasonal gardening advice paired with his own trademark wit.

Sweet Potatoes: Sweetheart of the Summer Garden

Both white potatoes and sweet potatoes are delicious, but sweet potatoes can be better for you: their orange flesh offers beta-carotene, fiber, and B vitamins, and they’re lower on the glycemic index. Some sweet potatoes have been bred to have white, yellow, or purple flesh. The young leaves are tender, tasty, and nutritious enough to eat like sautéed spinach all summer long.

Sweet potato transplants (called slips because, when they are about 8 inches long, these shoots “slip” right off the potatoes) show up at garden centers in late spring. They often come in a bundle of 50 with tiny, inadequate-looking roots or sometimes no roots at all. But at any stage, a sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is about the toughest plant in the vegetable garden, so don’t worry about the roots—they’ll do fine.

You can also grow your own slips by sprouting a sweet potato from last year’s harvest or even an organic sweet potato from the farmer’s market. (Conventional sweet potatoes are often sprayed with a chemical called BudNip to prevent them from sprouting.) Cut the potato in half lengthwise, lay it on a bed of moist sand, and put it on a sunny windowsill. In about three weeks, you’ll have slips sprouting from the sides of the potato.

Here is your chance to teach kids about cloning. A clone is any new plant with DNA that’s identical to its parent. Plants propagated by cuttings, divisions, or in this case, sprouts, are all clones. On the other hand, plants propagated from seeds get half their DNA from each of their two parents, as humans do.

With your slips collected and your bed freshly turned, drop the slips on the ground about 12 inches apart in the row, in rows that are also about 12 inches apart. Use a tool like a broom or rake handle turned upside down. From a standing position, use the tip of the handle to push the bottom end of the slip into the soft ground until only the top leaves are showing. A 2-by-2 stick will also work. This is a good use for worn-out tools: cut off the worn-out end and save the long handle to use as a garden stake or for poking sweet potato slips into the ground. As each slip is poked into place, use the tip of your toe to settle the soil around the root. When you’re done planting, give each slip a shot of water.

Giving children these tasks could be a good lesson in teamwork: one kid drops the plants on the ground, another pokes them with a stick (this will be a popular job), the next one settles the soil with their toe, and the last one pours some water on each plant. Adults also appreciate this technique since it requires no bending over.

Outside of long droughts or desert conditions, no summer irrigation is necessary for sweet potatoes—they are that tough. Sweet potatoes do like it hot, so northern gardeners may want to use black plastic mulch, which heats up the soil. But because they spread across the ground quickly, shading the soil, suppressing most weeds and outrunning the rest, some gardeners even forgo mulch. Sweet potatoes are also generally free of insects and diseases, making them a great cost-effective crop that won’t need babysitting all summer.

Harvest some or all of the potatoes any time after Labor Day. Cut the leafy vines to the ground first and feed them to the chickens or the compost bin.

Dig the potatoes with a shovel. A range of sizes will be found on the roots of every plant. If you have warm, dry, fall weather, leave the potatoes on the ground for a few days so the skins dry out enough to be stored indoors for several weeks or months. Ideally, save one or two to start slips next spring.

To cook them, pierce the skins with a fork and bake for 45 minutes at 400°F for a sweet, moist, nutritious side dish that really doesn’t need butter or spices.  

Save Time and Water with a Water-Timer

Occasionally I see gardeners struggling to keep their gardens watered by hand. Most hoses might put out about 10 gallons per minute. For an urban gardener in an older part of town, corrosion in the water pipes may cut that rate in half.

To grow well in summer, a vegetable garden needs—very roughly—a gallon of water per square foot per week, if there’s no rain. So watering about 600 square feet of garden would take one to two hours of your time every week if done by hand. And there’s still the rest of the garden to tend to.

But there’s an alternative that I rely on: inexpensive timers mounted on the spigot allow the right amount of water to run through a soaker hose or sprinkler and then they shut off the water for you.

I know timers work because I set up all my garden clients with them. Since 99 percent of my clients aren’t gardeners, the timers let me create a simple push-button irrigation system that allows non-gardeners to keep new plants alive.

These timers work the same way an egg timer does in the kitchen. Turn the dial to a set amount of time and tick, tick, tick, it works its way through a countdown and turns off the water on schedule. They cost $10 to $15 and are available at most garden centers.

It’s this easy: 1) screw the timer onto the spigot, 2) screw the garden hose onto the bottom of the timer, and then 3) connect the garden hose to a soaker hose or sprinkler in the garden. Remove the timer in winter so ice won’t crack it open.

Then do as I suggest to my clients: turn on the timer on your way out of the house. You can be confident that the watering will stop while you’re away. You might leave the house with the nagging feeling you’ve left the oven on—I can’t help you there—but you won’t come home to find your yard a swamp.

When you do arrive home, move the garden hose to water another bed and set the timer again before you go in to make dinner. No standing around required.

Self-Starters: Egyptian Walking Onions

I try to save time in the garden, and what could save more time than for vegetables to replant themselves every year? All we would have to do is keep them mulched and gather the harvest. Am I just dreaming?

Most popular vegetables—tomatoes, broccoli, etc.—are annuals and only live for a few months before dying. That’s why we have to resurrect the vegetable garden each season. But a few vegetables are perennials, meaning they live year after year. You’re probably already familiar with perennial veggies like asparagus and rhubarb that come back every spring. Another perennial vegetable is Egyptian walking onion. These onions are delicious, drought hardy, and pest free, and they keep multiplying—on their own.

Walking onions (nobody really knows if they’re from Egypt) don’t set seed at all. In early summer, odd-looking clusters of four to eight bulblets erupt at the top of their 2-foot-tall, pillar-like green leaves. If you’re familiar with pearl onions, you’ve got a good idea of their size and range of color. Called topsets, these thumb-size bulbs get heavier until mid- or late summer, when their weight causes the leaves to arch to the ground. Left alone, the topsets will root where they land. That’s why they’re called walking onions (although their pace is more of a saunter).

Once set in, or on the ground, the rooted topsets grow into 2-inch-wide onions. They send up fresh leaves and grow new topsets the following summer, which then take another slow step on their perennial journey.

You can harvest walking onions at one or more stages:

1) Year-round, you can eat the greens and use as you would chives or spring onion greens.

2) From fall to spring, harvest some of the small, first-year onions from the ground as scallions. Any remaining bulbs will keep growing and multiplying.

3) In midsummer, harvest some of the full-size bulbs.

4) Also in midsummer, harvest the mature topsets. Though small, like pearl onions, they are super-easy to peel if you boil them for a minute or two, drain, dunk in an ice bath, cut the root end off, then squeeze ‘em till they pop out of their skins like a muscadine grape. (StartCooking.com/blog/202/How-to-Peel-Pearl-Onions)

Do leave some bulbs unharvested in a dedicated bed so they can save you time by creating next season’s crop. Or harvest and poke bulblets about a finger-joint-deep into moderately fertile, prepared soil to help them kick off their promenade.

The post Vegetable Feast: Sweet Potatoes, Walking Onions, and Water Timers appeared first on Paleo Magazine.

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Hi Michael. It’s that time of year again. That time you always hated when I was so, so very hot and sweaty and thus, always had the air conditioning turned down, the overhead fan turned to high and the small floor fan churning away all night long. Like living in a wind tunnel, you’d say. I’m sure you wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn that nothing’s changed. I climb into our bed, each night, still on my side, yours untouched, with the dull roar of all my cooling machines as my companions. The thin sheet quivers in the breeze. You’d hate it. I’m physically comfortable and I lie there, thinking. Look at this headline from an article I read this evening.

Scientists Have ‘Woken Up’ Microbes Trapped Under The Seafloor For 100 Million Years

I mean, really? While I was trying to wrap my mind around the impossibility of those numbers and the subsequent life options they revealed, I suddenly hoped that meant we had a chance of reuniting somewhere in this mystifying universe. Certainly our collective and relatively young microbes have just as good a chance at survival as those ancient ones. I’m positive that your microbes are all over our house, our garden and in the few personal items of yours which I’ve stashed away. There might be a few hairs in your brush. I wouldn’t care which version of us we’d be, young or old. Ish.

So then I was thinking about all the tiny details of life I’d normally tell you every day when you were still here in the flesh. I mean, I like your constant cosmic presence, but I usually turn to that with just the most important stuff. I’ve been dying to share with you all these strange little nothing thoughts that cross my mind. Mostly, no one has ever been able to put up with the endless stream of seemingly random, disconnected thoughts that pour out of me. My sister, Cheryl is probably the next best listener after you. As my younger sibling, she was well trained in the absorption of my peculiar brain workings. I’m lucky she’s still here. But there’s just nothing like you for that bottomless reservoir of acceptance which  you provided for me. Isn’t it ironic that we both know you’d be appalled by me releasing all this private information into the faceless universe? I mean, I know some people who read my blog but mostly, they’re strangers. Honestly, except for a few private spaces in myself that defy language, most of the rest is just irrelevant in the long run. What impact do our little quirky selves have? I know you’d disagree but I need to survive now, in my own way. So here are a few random thoughts that beset me as I lie in our bedroom, my favorite space, while my mind wanders in the wee hours after I’m done reading, wishing I could talk to you above the whir of the fan blades spinning around me.

You’re the only person who knew that while I was listening to WLS radio during my pubescent and teen years in Chicago, I wasn’t just a rock and roll/rhythm and blues kid. I also liked gospel, jazz and classical music. I still remember that when you were working at the Record Service, you kept track of my favorites and made sure I always those albums in my stash. And then, you updated them to CD’s so I didn’t have to wear out my vinyl. I’m still listening to lots of different genres every day. I don’t think I could’ve gotten through this bizarre pandemic time without it.

Here’s another weird thing I’ve noticed lately. I don’t watch much television during the day. I turn it on for a few minutes when I get up in the morning, mostly a defensive move to make sure nothing impossibly earth-shattering happened overnight. That’s how things are right now – every day seems to bring a story that’s incomprehensible. Today the story was that after the worst economic quarter ever reported since they started measuring these things, Trump suggested that perhaps we shouldn’t hold an election this fall. This guy will sling any idea that he thinks will get him a second term. As an historian, you just wouldn’t believe how this country has devolved since you’ve been gone. Anyway. When evening rolls around, I’m tired from being outside most of the day. After dinner, I watch the news and then scroll through the tv guide, looking for anything that might distract me, amuse me or otherwise edify me in some way. Lately, I’ve realized that virtually every day, The Godfather, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or Gladiator is playing. Often they’re on at the same time, while other times, they’re staggered. It’s so peculiar. Usually I watch bits of all of them. By the end of the week I’ve seen them in their entirety, albeit out of order. I’ll also pause for Sense and Sensibility, The Princess Bride, Pride and Prejudice or any Errol Flynn movie. Makes me laugh. If you were here, you’d be doing the same thing with The American President, To Have and to Have Not, You’ve Got Mail or The Maltese Falcon. Also Goodfellas, A Bronx Tale, or Stand by Me. I’m working my way through a decent number of tv series that I missed when we were too busy to watch them. But recently, I’m needing revolution. I’ve got “Z” and Battle of Algiers on my DVR. I probably don’t need to get more cranked up than I am these days, but I guess that’s too bad. Watching them anyway. I wonder how any new shows will be made for the fall? Better not go down that rabbit hole. They’re probably not going to happen.  

I want you to know that in your honor, I have loyally kept up with a smaller version of your food garden. Not just the perennial herbs that still marvelously appear and make me feel that it’s you who’s emerging through our rich dirt. That’s kind of absurd because your ashes are sitting in a beautiful box in the house waiting to some day being mingled with mine. Then we can be in the garden together. That aside, I’ve also been diligently planting and nurturing the annual herbs and vegetables, although at the moment, I’m losing the vegetable battle with the squirrels and rabbits. I’ve managed to get about two dozen cherry tomatoes off the vines while I try to ignore the smushed ones on the ground with one bite mark taken before abandonment. All the low-hanging large tomatoes have been filched along with the green peppers. I’m holding out hope for ones that are a little higher on the vines.

I’m really missing your cooking, though. Yesterday, I started ferreting around your recipe folders and dug out the one for pesto which, by the way,  wasn’t labeled. I’m going to make it. I don’t have as much basil as you would plant so I don’t expect to be spooning the mixture into ice cube trays that we could pop out of the freezer for pastas and pizzas. But I’m going to get it done. You really spoiled me. The good news is that I knew it and let you know. So there’s that.

Meanwhile, I’m being really mindful about enjoying every bloom in my flower world. I wait impatiently to make sure that my perennials return and get so happy when they show up. Then I try not to get sad because soon they’ll be gone. That’s something I have to work on – if I’ve learned anything, I know I need to stay in the present. So I’m out there a lot, with the butterflies and the birds, chasing them around with my phone to get good photos that I hope will be comforting in what I expect will be a socially distanced winter.  

Regarding the birds. So far, since spring, there’ve been 50 species in the yard. I don’t know if you’d recall that I started drawing them and filing them in a binder called The Yardbirds. I know you’d get the music reference. Anyway, my renderings are improving. If I practice, I’ll get better. Here are a couple of my recent ones.

I’m really happy that I’ve created a great bird habitat in the yard. I’m learning a lot about their behavior. I love watching the hummingbirds and the house wrens. Tiny, but mighty. I’ve grown fond of catbirds which are showing up regularly at the feeders. They’re perky and curious and pretty brave.

I’ve done something pretty dumb, as getting attached to wild animals doesn’t bode well for a happy emotional outcome. But I’m very fond of the cardinal pair that lives here year-round. After a rousing rescue of one of their fledglings last week, I felt so familial with them that I decided to name the strikingly beautiful female who comes for here daily for a dip in the birdbath. I’m calling her Pumpkin. Now, how absurd is that? I like her boyfriend too.

Another thing I did after a good deal of thought was sell your beloved bike. That was hard for me. I know it was just a thing but you loved it so much. I heard your voice in my head saying, “don’t be ridiculous – it’s just sitting there being wasted. Get yourself some extra cash.” So I did. But I took photos first. All these things I have to do. When I lie in bed in the night, I think about how much easier it is to share the loads of life. I miss that a lot although I’m glad I have what it takes to manage on my own. I think back to my mom after my dad died. By the time she was my age, she’d been dependent on me for almost 5 years. Makes me shudder.

How could I not tell you this most important thing? Our daughter, who went from working remotely to having to appear in person in a closed courtroom, found out the other day that a court clerk had tested positive for Covid19. She was asked to leave her office, get tested and do another 14 day quarantine. Then the judge in charge pf hearing her cases tested positive as well. Ugh. That meant that all the rest of our little family bubble had to be tested too. So far, she and our son got negative results. Our son-in-law, both grandsons and I await our results. I hope we’re all negative and can resume our little intimate enclave. The months ahead look daunting to me. The virus is traversing the country at will with no definitive treatments or vaccines. I dread flu season adding to the complexity of everything. Feels positively medieval.   In other news, I got an email from the park district informing us that the indoor pool was reopening immediately. The list of precautions and requirements is very long and detailed. I read it carefully while keenly aware of my longing to get back to swimming. In the end, I’ve decided against it. I just don’t think being in an indoor facility shared with high school students can be safe enough for someone like me, a member of what I call the “death group.” So I’ll just have to know that a block and a half from our house, people will be paddling away while I won’t. This adult decision-making of risk vs. reward is overrated.In other news, I actually wish I was more like my mom in her widowhood. She used to talk a lot about how all she wished she could do was hold my dad’s hand one more time. Lucky her. I remain deeply interested in resuming our intimate life for another 30 years or so. I hope if this reaches you, you’ll be glad to know that some of our best things are strong enough to survive death. So that’s all for tonight. By the way, I thought you should know that I just restlessly flipped on the television. There is Gladiator in the midst of the re-creation of the battle of Carthage. Round and round it goes, my dearest boy. Until next time.

A Message from the Wind Tunnel Hi Michael. It’s that time of year again. That time you always hated when I was so, so very hot and sweaty and thus, always had the air conditioning turned down, the overhead fan turned to high and the small floor fan churning away all night long.