When I was young, nobody could have convinced me that gardening was fun. I saw too many people sweating in the process. I was young and vain, so sweating was not high on my list of things to do. I have always loved to pick flowers and arrange them, but somehow I never made the logical connection of growing them first.
When I fell in love with my big old house, I was given the gift of a wonderful, rich dirt, well established yard, but I still didn’t get it. I was not born to the soil like my friend Patsy Sumrall, who would ride down the road and wax rhapsodic “beautiful dirt” in the freshly plowed fields. To me, they were just fields we passed on our way to go somewhere shopping.
It was, however, my friendship with Patsy and Cindy Neilson that planted the seed of my becoming a born again gardener. I don’t use the term born again lightly. I know how many fine Christians use the term to set themselves apart from the unwashed masses who have not yet been saved. I do understand, though, how it feels to have the kind of sudden revelation they experience. They have theirs with Jesus. Mine came this time with his mother, Nature.
I must admit, I do feel a religious experience when I walk out in my yard (garden to the rest of the world) “while the dew is still on the roses”. My garden is a loose, evolving creation. It is always changing depending on what is blooming now or what out of my various plant experiments that decided to live. If everything I had planted over time had decided to live, now my yard would be a jungle. Apparently not all plants like it here in my yard. I have developed two philosophies that I garden by. One is from my friend, Gloria Clarke, who says “ I don’t like them if they don’t like me!” about the things she plants. The other is I practice survival of the fittest with the plants. If they need petting, they can die in peace.
I tried a few roses early on with great disappointment. They were like the girls in high school who thought they were the prettiest, so they felt the need to be pampered because they were special. It was the same with teachers’ children in you r class. I never cared for either one. I didn’t have any patience with roses either. Anything that has to be sprayed and fertilized and regularly watered needs a home with somebody else. It reminds me of that country song “Here’s a quarter, find someone who cares!”. Roses and I were not soul mates. A few of them live and prospered in spite of my lackadaisical attitude.
My whole view of roses changed though, when I saw the P Allen Smith Garden Show about antique roses and attended an antique rose seminar at the Alabama Rural Heritage Center. I discovered the survivor roses. These are the roses our ancestors brought with them when they left civilization and headed west. They stuck the cuttings in potatoes to keep the cutting moist. They have survived at old home places throughout the South and ,of all places, the Natchez Cemetery. I visited Natchez twice and got some cuttings both times. The B&B where I stayed said that for gardeners wanting the cuttings, there was a don’t ask, don’t tell policy about getting the cuttings. Actually, I think the cemeteries know that by allowing the small cuttings taken off, they are getting pruning for free.
I took along friends to keep the car running while I snipped the cuttings. I had bought paper towels and zip lock bags to put the cuttings in until I got home. I have had about 6 different varieties from there to live. I have also bought a goodly number of antique rose plants from Petals From the Past. There is some truth to the old adage about gardening –The first year it sleeps, the second year it creeps. The third year it leaps. That has certainly been true of the antique roses. They are drought tolerant, they don’t need spraying. They are happy with neglect. I think that between antique and native plants, I have found my gardening niche. If you happen to be in rural Southwest Alabama, come by and see my garden. I’m like a proud parent showing off the new baby. I am also finding gardening friends who feel the same way. Gardeners speak a common language. If you speak gardening, you are welcome!
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Check out my photos on Facebook
|
Monday, April 13, 2009
Black Cast Iron Skillet
The essential tool of every southern cook is the black Iron skillet. It is not just any iron skillet you buy. It must be a seasoned iron skillet – one that has been oiled properly and baked until it is black, not the new gray of one that has just been bought. It is the thing that holds the kitchen together.
Somewhere along the way I lost mine. Don’t ask me how it happened. Somewhere along the way it just disappeared. If my ghost, Mr. George, could cook, I’d accuse him. Anyway, last spring on the yard sale that goes from Meridian, Mississippi on Hwy 14 to a far flung part of Kentucky, I found a well seasoned skillet in Cuba, Alabama. I always try to go on the part of the trail that comes through our region of rural Southwest Alabama. I can usually manage only one afternoon on Mother’s Day weekend. So I do the part of the trail that is in our own backyard.
I never fail to find useful things. Some art pieces of art or photography. I have found just the piece of pressed glass that I am looking for. Of all the things I have found, the seasoned iron skillet has to be the prize. Just in the past week some of the ways I have used it include: Making my cornbread for the Easter dressing, making a pineapple upside down cake, browning bacon, toasting a grilled cheese sandwich and sauteing vegetables to go in the same Easter dressing. How’s that for versatility?
Most people don’t have dressing for Easter, They reserve it for cold weather holidays. My family doesn’t feel that way. We don’t have to have a turkey or chicken being served to want dressing as a side dish. Ours is so full of vegetables that it counts as a vegetable dish. Don’t’ tell because nobody has realized it yet. My friend Patsy Sumrall taught me to finely mince the vegetables and sauté them in butter. Another friend taught me to put bell peeper in with the celery and onions for more depth of flavor. I put the vegetables in the food processor, so that they aren’t great big hunks. By the time they are tender before they are put in the dressing, then are baked in the dressing, they disappear, just leaving flavor.
I know there is a question in your mind about the broth. I have found the Swanson canned variety to be delicious. I know about all the people who simmer their own for hours, and they are welcome to do it. I buy the neat little cans and dump it right in. Some things like an iron skillet that can cook the vegetables over low heat in butter while I read on the porch, are essential to the process. Simmering chicken stock is not when there are good canned varieties.
It might be Easter without the dressing, but it wouldn’t be a Southern kitchen without my iron skillet.
Somewhere along the way I lost mine. Don’t ask me how it happened. Somewhere along the way it just disappeared. If my ghost, Mr. George, could cook, I’d accuse him. Anyway, last spring on the yard sale that goes from Meridian, Mississippi on Hwy 14 to a far flung part of Kentucky, I found a well seasoned skillet in Cuba, Alabama. I always try to go on the part of the trail that comes through our region of rural Southwest Alabama. I can usually manage only one afternoon on Mother’s Day weekend. So I do the part of the trail that is in our own backyard.
I never fail to find useful things. Some art pieces of art or photography. I have found just the piece of pressed glass that I am looking for. Of all the things I have found, the seasoned iron skillet has to be the prize. Just in the past week some of the ways I have used it include: Making my cornbread for the Easter dressing, making a pineapple upside down cake, browning bacon, toasting a grilled cheese sandwich and sauteing vegetables to go in the same Easter dressing. How’s that for versatility?
Most people don’t have dressing for Easter, They reserve it for cold weather holidays. My family doesn’t feel that way. We don’t have to have a turkey or chicken being served to want dressing as a side dish. Ours is so full of vegetables that it counts as a vegetable dish. Don’t’ tell because nobody has realized it yet. My friend Patsy Sumrall taught me to finely mince the vegetables and sauté them in butter. Another friend taught me to put bell peeper in with the celery and onions for more depth of flavor. I put the vegetables in the food processor, so that they aren’t great big hunks. By the time they are tender before they are put in the dressing, then are baked in the dressing, they disappear, just leaving flavor.
I know there is a question in your mind about the broth. I have found the Swanson canned variety to be delicious. I know about all the people who simmer their own for hours, and they are welcome to do it. I buy the neat little cans and dump it right in. Some things like an iron skillet that can cook the vegetables over low heat in butter while I read on the porch, are essential to the process. Simmering chicken stock is not when there are good canned varieties.
It might be Easter without the dressing, but it wouldn’t be a Southern kitchen without my iron skillet.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
The Last Fire of the Season
It’s a quiet Sunday afternoon in rural Southwest Alabama. I am sitting by the fire (yes, you heard me right, but the fire) with harp music on the CD player. We’ve been hot for weeks now, but I knew it wasn’t really spring because the pecan trees had not leafed out yet. They are the last to put on leaves in the sdpr8ing and the first to loose them in the fall. We’ve had torrential rains lately. They are most welcome to us gardeners. I went to Selma last week to a meeting and my friend took me to the Cahaba Mental Health Center to buy some plants. I got some perennials to put into my flower beds. The rains started that night. I put the plants out in the afternoon. I also dressed my antique roses and other plants with some rabbit fertilizer that I had gotten last fall from John Hall, a local rabbit producer. He has this contraption that turns the rabbit pellets and somehow takes the fertilizer smell away. I usually don’t get the plants out the same day as I buy them because I’m on the road so much seeing all the wonderful things in our area and helping to plan more. I did get them in the ground this time. I walked around the yard today as proud as punch of my budding babies.
When spring comes I have a morning walk through the garden every morning. I can’t help but pull a weed or two, so I have to go scrub my hands before I leave home. I just can’t resist getting my hands in the dirt when spring come.
Today, thought, we are having what our housekeeper, Susie always called the “Easter snap” of cool weather before spring really comes to stay. It’s not terribly cold, but since I live in an old house with high ceilings, it is a bit chilly. I’m having company for supper, so I built a fire. I went out and got some twigs that fell during this week’s storms for starter to go on top of the piece of fat pine that I keep for kindling. I know this fire is a good one because I hear it singing. When it sings, it has really taken hold.
My cousin is visitng from Belgium where he where he lives. I’m having a few family members to come to dinner and sit by the last fire of the season. I’m doing a down home meal. He travels all over the world, so there’s no need to try to impress him with gourmet cuisine. I’m cooking butter beans. I cheated on the pie, too, I heard some of the clerks at Wal-Mart bragging on a caramel apple pie they had in their bakery, and so I snatched one of those right up. I will heat it here and put ice cream on it. I’ll throw it in the oven with my great cheat biscuits. You make them with melted butter, self rising flour and sour cream. They can be dropped into muffin cups with not a bit of rolling and cutting. He will enjoy every bite. He’ll like it because it’s served with love and family by the fireside.
When spring comes I have a morning walk through the garden every morning. I can’t help but pull a weed or two, so I have to go scrub my hands before I leave home. I just can’t resist getting my hands in the dirt when spring come.
Today, thought, we are having what our housekeeper, Susie always called the “Easter snap” of cool weather before spring really comes to stay. It’s not terribly cold, but since I live in an old house with high ceilings, it is a bit chilly. I’m having company for supper, so I built a fire. I went out and got some twigs that fell during this week’s storms for starter to go on top of the piece of fat pine that I keep for kindling. I know this fire is a good one because I hear it singing. When it sings, it has really taken hold.
My cousin is visitng from Belgium where he where he lives. I’m having a few family members to come to dinner and sit by the last fire of the season. I’m doing a down home meal. He travels all over the world, so there’s no need to try to impress him with gourmet cuisine. I’m cooking butter beans. I cheated on the pie, too, I heard some of the clerks at Wal-Mart bragging on a caramel apple pie they had in their bakery, and so I snatched one of those right up. I will heat it here and put ice cream on it. I’ll throw it in the oven with my great cheat biscuits. You make them with melted butter, self rising flour and sour cream. They can be dropped into muffin cups with not a bit of rolling and cutting. He will enjoy every bite. He’ll like it because it’s served with love and family by the fireside.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)