Lily

6-23-08

Anyone know what kind of lily this is? It's about two feet high and has foliage that's similar to a tiger lily, though smaller of course.

Tiger Lily

Lilium lancifolium
5-23-08

Flower planting

I planted some roots and bulbs yesterday. Two each of Etna Astilbe and Straussenfeder Astilbe went in front of the neighbor's stone wall in the shade.

Six Grand Paradiso Lily bulbs were spread out between the telephone pole garden, the lily garden next to the front doors, and the garden in front of the fence and behind the grill. In the very back of the last garden went two Garden Pleasure Lily Tree bulbs. Still lots more to plant!

Mmmm...cheesecake

Here's the last slice of ricotta cheesecake I made from (mostly) local ingredients. I made the ricotta from Wake Robin Farm milk and added that to eggs from Two Hearts Farm in Morrisville and Organic Valley butter, which may have originated on Cobblestone Valley Farm, where I picked the strawberries we served on top.

I used Mark Bitten's recipe in How to Cook Everything and it worked pretty well. Lessons learned:

-Stir the milk less often while it's heating to result in ricotta that's a little less gritty.

-Get some heavy duty aluminum foil to wrap around the springform pan so the cake can bake in a water bath, resulting in more even baking.

-The orange zest was good, but it was stronger than I expected and distracted from the berries. Just vanilla would be perfect when you want to accentuate fresh local berries.

-Bittman says to double his graham cracker crumb recipe for this cheesecake for some mysterious reason, but it seemed way too much.

I picked another 16 pounds of berries this morning and hope to make one last trip to the farm before the season ends. All the rain we've been getting is starting to result in some overripe and moldy berries, but the picking was great today! I filled up the flat in less than two and a half hours.

Foxglove

6-23-08

Digitalis

Rose

6-12-08

A note about the photos: if you haven't tried it already, you can click on any of the images to see them much larger and in wonderful resolution. Try it with the rose, but especially with others, as there are many that I've already posted that are more interesting than this.

Mid-June Notes

6-12-08

Gold of Bacau Pole Bean

Planting is more or less finished after I finally got the sunflower and zinnia seeds in the ground today. I probably would have done those earlier, but we've got so many volunteer sunflowers that are stretching for the sky that it will nice to have these at their peak when the volunteers are petering out. Still left to do include planting some of the perennial bulbs, tubers, etc that I got for Kari for Mother's Day and arrived a week or so ago. I also still need to prune the lilac. By the time that's done, the garlic will just about be ready to harvest!

Cobblestone Valley Farm opened their strawberry fields on the 14th, the day before Father's Day. I made it down there on the 16th for an overflowing flat--16 pounds for $32. We've been gorging ourselves on berries at every meal since then. I also froze a couple quarts and gave a couple away. Today I made some ricotta cheese that I hope to use to make a strawberry ricotta cheesecake with tomorrow. If all goes well, I'll be back at the farm once or twice more before the season ends to make sure the freezer is stocked and we've had our fill of fresh berries for another year.

6-12-08
Thai Basil

After the terrible heat wave broke a week ago, we had a gorgeous four or five days of 70s/80s and sun. Now we're in the middle of a cool and wet week with temperatures barely getting into the 70s and showers scattered throughout each day. The peas love it and have recovered nicely from the woodchuck snack attack.

Today was all about the woodchuck. Every time I went outside I saw him scurrying out of the garden. This week's casualties include morning glory leaves, chard, lettuce, parsley, and (gasp!) some pole bean leaves. (The next set of leaves have started to come out, so I hope the plants will survive.) I repositioned the trap and tried a few different baits but still no luck. Right now we've got strawberries and some watermelon out there. I've tried carrots and even peanut butter and crackers to no avail. Any suggestions? I think it's a bad time to trap because he's got so much to choose from right now.