structure

I've been working a lot outside- the cooler weather plus my improving health makes me delighted to be outside for hours getting sweaty and sore muscles. It's great! But not a lot of work to do with plants, although I'm pulling weeds, raking, trimming stuff per usual. Straightening garden bed edges, where some bricks had fallen out of alignment over the past few years. And digging small rocks with flat edges into the ground, to make a "mowing strip" of sorts around the base of the beds.

A few days ago I started this task: putting a flat path in the one garden area the lawn mower won't fit. Between beds four and five (which is the small square one with just rue), straight down between beds three and six (the perennial herbs). It's the annoying area where I always end up pulling tons of weeds by hand, trimming grass with scissors or a knife, and getting struck by rue (from just brushing against it).

So I had all these narrow cinder blocks, the kind with two holes through the center. They're the same dimension as my garden bed edging bricks, but my husband picked them up (free) for me not realizing I couldn't use ones with holes. Various reasons. Had them sitting around for over a year, trying to think how to make them work for the garden edge- fill the holes with cement and make them solid? put in as-is with a flat stone cap? plant stuff in the holes (don't like that look)? never satisfied with any ideas so they'd been on my porch holding up a planks for a makeshift bench. (Useful, but not a nice look either).

Then I asked my husband to cut them all in half lengthwise with his wet saw. And I dug them into the ground with the flat sides up, packing clay and small broken stone under the hollows. One cracked in half because I dropped it, otherwise they feel pretty solid- firm to the ground and not rocking. Mostly. 

Next job -yesterday- was to straighten the bricks on the outside edge of bed 10. Which was the most crooked of them all. Quite a bit of work, but very satisfying. I must be a real garden nerd, I love pulling the edges off and seeing the darkness of the garden soil, from my compost enrichments. Even though in this bed it's kind of shallow (because of the initial stick layer, which has broken down by now).

I laid a string line this time to get the edge straight. 

It was also satisfying to see that, in spite of some wedges I had shoved under the bricks to level them the first time around being wood- which rotted away- the clay soil under them was pretty compact and smooth, flat surface once I brushed away the dirt that had sifted down through cracks. I think it was mostly the pushing of roots, motion of insects and shifting of dirt from gravity, that had caused the bricks to get crooked.

Now fairly straight- not perfect, but good enough for me.

I keep thinking I ought to dig all the edges out, make a narrow shallow trench around the beds, fill with sand or fine gravel, and set the bricks again on that, for a proper base. Just didn't have the energy, time, or want the expense of buying more materials the first time I did all this. Wonder if I even need to. The rest of the garden edges are in good shape still, only a few more I might pull off to straighten- and I am pretty sure they're all ones I had wedged with wood shims. Now I wedge with small flat rocks or just packed clay soil. It stays pretty firm. 

Also satisfied to see they've held up well, where the bricks are under/against the soil. The sealant and paint layers have not worn off (in four years). 

After all that, I went back to finishing the path. I'm really pleased with it- so I took a lot of pictures, from all angles! It's nice to walk on.

After walking on it for a day I realize I'm probably going to take the trouble to lift half the path again and re-dig so they sit deeper. It slopes down and then goes up again towards the outer edge of the garden- following the land- but is too shallow between the rue and bed four. Bed five with the rue needed almost all the bricks pulled off and re-set. They were very wonky. I had to chop a lot of roots- I think their pushing is what made the edge go crooked. 

Trimmed the rue back quite a bit before starting work, and even then I brushed against it too many times, so went inside and washed my hands, arms and face with rubbing alcohol and then soap and lots of water, hoping to stave off a skin reaction. Interesting to see when I exposed the soil in the rue bed, it was paler than in the other beds- not so black, but still darker than the plain red clay soil. Because this bed I don't feed compost, it just gets some grass trimmings and leaf litter mulch in fall.

Looking straight down it. See how tall the dill umbrels (green)! This is after I cut it back twice earlier in the season. It's really growing crazy in the cooler weather now.

From above. I spy another brick on the short edge of bed three, that needs straightening . . .

While doing all that digging, I pulled three large dandelions. Nice straight roots the width of my finger, so I cleaned, scraped and roasted them for tea. Hadn't done that in a long time.

reserved in the sideyard

I cleared the shaded slope (full of tree roots so hate mowing there) several days ago on my hands and knees, by hand. Pulling weeds, cutting grass clumps with scissors. Eyeing the nandina and wondering if I want to dig them out and give them away. I left these plants in place: clover. My husband doesn't like the look of it in the front yard, I let it grow everywhere else.

Mock strawberry-

Broadleaf plantain-

Purple dead nettle. I'm eating this one regularly now- every time out in the yard, pull one up and rinse it, set in a windowsill jar to keep fresh until I'm making something I can toss it into. Quesadilla. Cheese bagel. Soup. Stir-fry. Salad (although it's a bit of sharp taste- my husband likes it raw, I prefer it cooked some).

I think this is violets-

Maybe I will regret leaving this one alone, but I've always liked ivy, and the few I've tried to keep as houseplants died. So when I found this bit growing by the wall around corner of the front bed, I left it. It's a bit bigger this year.

The blue-green weed I still have not identified. There are more, and larger clumps of it, this year-

I pull the dandelion flowers, and now the seedheads, to keep them from growing too abundant in my yard. But in the back, mulched areas I let the foliage on them grow- so maybe next year I'll find time to dig their roots out for more dandy "coffee". Flower pouf dampened by rain-

greens for fish

It's crazy that one small dandelion leaf like this is enough for all my fishes (paring knife for size). I have to go even smaller now, and offer just half a tiny leaf, minced up fine. The cherry barbs (now re-homed elsewhere) used to gobble it all up but now Fabio is the only one so eager. Samblu of course, gets none. I've noticed with the serpae tetras only the smallest ones really eat the greens I offer, the larger fishes kind of mouth it and spit it out. I end up siphoning out quite a few leftover bits on water change day that the shrimps and snails didn't find. So must offer even less. I wonder if it's because younger fishes seem to need more greens in their diet? I've heard this about another species- that if they're eating the aquarium plants, to offer more vegetable-based food, especially for younger, still-developing fish.

dandelion

My first spring harvest is not from something I planted. It grows all on its own. And since I want to dig them out of the lawn anyway (at least for appearance's sake in the front yard) might as well make use of them. I don't like the bitterness of dandelion greens, so leaves just go into the compost pile.

Instead I take the trouble to wash, clean and roast the roots.

This year I also sorted them a bit by size,

so the roasting would go more evenly

Ready for a few weeks of dandy-infused coffee!

fresh herbs

I caught a cold and two days in made myself some rosemary tea.

Then a second mug.

I felt loads better the next morning, had one more cup of rosemary tea and this cold seems beat. Woke up the fourth morning with a sore throat, but the rosemary plant looks too small to eat more of it.

So I dug dandelion roots from the backyard and roasted them. In the toaster over, it's a lot faster than before when I used the big oven. Delicious nutty chocolate-like smell. All the kids kept coming into the kitchen: "mommy, what are you cooking? what are you making?" then disappointed it was something they actually wouldn't like. I steeped it half coffee/half dandelion root. For the extra vitamins. Later in the day, sore throat all gone, it's as if I never had a cold.

And turns out C. likes the dandy coffee, so I'll be making more of this. Maybe it will be a regular thing in cold-and-flu season. Except I've dug almost all the good-sized roots in the yard, have to let the rest grow...

okra glut

The Okra patch continues to just grow and grow and grow. I've quit picking the pods, though- I've got a gallon freezer bag full in storage and still haven't tried cooking with any of it yet. My little girl got hold of a pod that was too mature for eating- no longer tender- and splitting open the sides she found all the round seeds in rows. Kept her busy a while picking them out and eating them!

Ha! I just discovered an interesting fact- looked up "eat okra seed" and apparently it's another plant item you can dry, roast, grind and use for a coffee substitute. Now of course I'm curious to try that! Almost done using up my roasted dandelion root (haven't got ahold of any chicory root- the only ones I see around are growing on roadsides where it's not wise to harvest as the plants can absorb toxins from the fumes of cars- but I've been considering growing it). I've been using the dandelion root mixed in with the regular coffee beans, fifty percent each, ground fresh together. It doesn't change the taste much, you can just barely discern the herby flavor of the dandelion, and gives me the nutritional boost. (Also keeps my husband from drinking my leftover coffee- I drink so little that one carafe brewed last me several days but he really dislikes the dandelion root so leaves mine alone if I've added that!)

I also learned that okra is related to hibiscus- makes sense. The flowers look so similar now that I pay attention to them.

more dandy coffee

Dug more Dandelions from the patch that's destined to grow pumpkins, so I decided I might as well try roasting them again. A full bucket of plants

gets you remarkably few roots, although it was after heavier rain and I pulled slower so I got better, complete roots this time.

I roasted them longer, 2 1/2 hours this time, to get a darker flavor. Added a small Stevia leaf for sweetener

when I ground up a tablespoon with pinch of cinnamon and a bit of clove

It steeps in the french press for ten minutes

and comes out looking more like a tea than anything

tastes pretty good with a bit of sugar (half of what I used before; maybe a few more stevia leaves and I wouldn't need any sugar) and some milk.

dandelion coffee

I've known for a while that it's possible to make a drink out of roasted Dandelion roots that tastes like coffee. It doesn't have caffeine, and is chock full of nutrients (vitamins A, C, D, five kinds of vitamin B, iron, calcium, magnesium, potassium and zinc!) I've been very curious to try making some, but a bit dubious too, from the last time I tried eating something in my yard that I didn't plant there (I don't like purslane). But we have so much dandelion in the yard, and in one spot it has been growing where I used to garden, mulched heavily with leaves. My daughter has convinced me to clear that spot again for pumpkins, so I figured it was a good place to dig dandelions to try this. They come up easy, and they've had lots of rich stuff to grow in.

It's a bit of work. I spent probably twenty minutes digging up dandelions, slicing off the leaves to compost, the flowers and buds to throw out. Then it took lots of rinses to get the soil off them. Here they are washed and trimmed.

Next I chopped them up, rinsed a few more times

and then roasted in the oven at 250 for two hours.

I was pleasantly surprised at the rich aroma. At first it just smelled like carrots, if a bit more nutty. It wasn't until the final twenty minutes of roasting that the coffee-like scent came out. The next step is to grind the roasted bits further, and I steeped it in my french press, just like coffee. Treated it like coffee too, with sugar and milk (I don't like the bitterness). It doesn't quite taste like coffee and has a sharp aftertaste, but I found I rather liked it.

The first time I made it I used a cup of boiled water and a tablespoon of ground dandelion root. The second time I made it I added a pinch of cinnamon and a tiny piece of clove. It tasted better, but still not quite right. I think if I go to the trouble of digging dandelion roots again, I need to roast them longer to get the good flavor.