The Color of April and The Meaning of Flowers

17 Apr

Once the calendar turns to April here in New England, thee is always one color that comes to my mind… and no, it isn’t green… rather, the color yellow.

Between yellow crocus flowers, dandelions, daffodils and forsythia, everywhere I look I see these bursts of yellow among the leftover fallen leaves and twigs that accumulated over the winter.

As if to celebrate the anticipated arrival of all the spring flowers, I recently finished reading a book called “The Language of Flowers” by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. This book renewed my interest in looking into the secret message of flowers and what they mean. The book provides a little dictionary in the back that gives you the meaning of different plants and flowers. I decided to start a little blog project that will include posts of pictures of flowers that I find around my neighborhood and their meaning.

The first flower that I looked up was Forsythia since my son, lemon drop and I had just picked some forsythia branches from our back yard… Ironically, the meaning of forsythia is “anticipation”…Why the irony you ask? It is because I am due any day to give birth to our second son – the reason I have been a little MIA from posting about all my spring garden preparations :D

Forsythia (forsythia) - Anticipation

Forsythia (forsythia) – Anticipation

So here are a few flowers I found in bloom around our home this morning… It is interesting to see what kind of secret message we have been sending out to the world with our flower choices :)

Hope you enjoy this little side project of mine!…and, of course, I will be sure to add a little post about the arrival of our second little guy! :D

Dandelion (taraxacum) - Rustic Oracle

Dandelion (taraxacum) – Rustic Oracle

Daffodil (narcissus) - New Beginnings

Daffodil (narcissus) – New Beginnings

ivy

Ivy (hedera helix) – Fidelity

Phlox (phlox) - Our souls are united

Phlox (phlox) – Our souls are united

And finally, I will close the blog post with this one in my “anticipation” of our new arrival…

Moss (bryopsida) - Maternal Love

Moss (bryopsida) – Maternal Love

Happy Gardening! ;)

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More On Rooting Sweet Potatoes

4 Apr

“How to Root a Sweet Potato” has, by far, been my most popular post. I have also received a lot of comments and emails with questions about the whole process. As a result, I decided to conduct a couple of experiments to hopefully help those who are having a little trouble getting their sweet potatoes to root…

sweet1

First – Just to review, the most important step is to get good, healthy, fresh, organic sweet potatoes… If they are too old, they may rot before they root. If they are not organic, they may not root at all because of growth retardants.

For my first experiment, I went out and bought some organic sweet potatoes from Trader Joe’s. My first impression was some of the potatoes in the bag were not as fresh as I would have prefered but I would give them a try. I took two of the freshest looking ones and cut them in half placing a total of 4 halves in a cup of water… I wanted to see if there was any benefit to cutting the potatoes in half as opposed to just placing the whole potato in the water.

After a few weeks, I was a bit disappointed to see that only one out of the 4 halves actually rooted… and it took longer to root than what I was used to.

sweet2

Trader Joe’s Sweet Potato – Cut and Rooting

Just to compare to be sure I did not lose my sweet potato rooting touch, I went to a local winter farmer’s market and bought a fresh, local, organic sweet potato. I placed the whole sweet potato in a some water and only after a week or two, it already started to root.

sweet4

Farmer’s Market Organic Sweet Potato – Uncut and Rooting

My conclusion: Cutting the potato in half or leaving it whole can both result in a well-rooted sweet potato.
My other conclusion: Not all organic sweet potatoes are created equal.

Maybe the Trader Joe’s Sweet Potatoes were not fresh enough? Maybe the “organic” label still allows for some growth retardants to be applied? I am really not sure. BUT if you are having trouble rooting your potatoes, maybe give another brand a try or, as I have suggested before, try to track down a local farm that sells their produce and try one of their potatoes. So far, that has always been what works the best for me!

sweet3

Trader Joe’s Sweet Potato with a Sprouting Slip

Good luck sprouting those tubers! ;)

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*this moment*

18 Mar
signs

Signs of Spring

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Learning How to Make Maple Syrup at Ambler Farms – Wilton, CT

12 Mar

I am very excited to have had the opportunity to learn the process that is involved in making Maple Syrup at Ambler Farms this winter.

Ambler Farm

Ambler Farm

Ambler Farms is owned by the Town of Wilton, CT but run by Friends of Ambler Farms, a volunteer organization. Every winter, the farm offers a training session to teach people about the process involved in making maple syrup. After a brief training session, each family is assigned a sap bucket that they are in charge of collecting every week while the sap is running. They explained to us that the trees needed to be tapped within the first 2 inches of their bark… this was the “living wood” where the sap flows. Any further in and you would hit the “dead wood” and not get sap. Also, we were only able to tap trees that were 12 inches in diameter or larger. It was 1 bucket per every 12 inch diameter, so if you had a tree that was 24 inches in diameter, you could add two taps with buckets. The reason being is pretty simple… you don’t want to take too much of the trees food away from it.

Sap Collection:

My dear mother, who is gracious enough to join me on a lot of my crazy explorations in the past,  as well as my husband and 2-year-old son, came with me to collect the sap.

Each day when we approached the sugar shack, the air was filled with a smokey, sweet aroma of boiling tree sap. I reflected on the fact that something like the aroma is EXACTLY why I love to participate in the actual process to learn about how something is done. The full experience of all the five senses combined with obtaining the knowledge of maple syrup making from a seasoned expert is priceless…

our tree

Our Sugar Maple Tree and Bucket

little helper

Little Helper

 

walking Back

Walking towards the “Sugar Shack”

sap delivery

Delivering our sap to the “Sugar Shack”

We would grab our bucket and trudged through the snow and/or mud while a cold winter wind blew,  towards our assigned tree. We were surprised how quickly the bucket filled up with sap… And also surprised at how clear the sap was. The director had told us that the sap was running very well this year and informed us that if we found any water/ ice in our buckets to collect that as well. Sure enough, there was a thin layer of ice over the clear sap that had flowed into the bucket several times. The abundant sap this year is due to the weather – cold nights below freezing and warmer days – above freezing… but not too warm! If the days become too warm (in the 50′s) bacteria can begin to grow and eat away at the sugar in the sap, giving the sap more of a yellowed color. In the beginning of the season, we had the opportunity to drink a little bit of sap straight out of the tree after it was filtered. It tasted just like sugar-water and flowed like water… I had always imagined it would be thick, sticky sap that you see on trees sometimes but it wasn’t anything like that.

early season sap

Clear sap flow early in the season

sap tasting

Sap straight out of the tree, ready to taste!

Each time we collected the sap, we then poured it into another bucket and carried it back to the sugar shack where they were getting ready to boil it down. The boiler was heated by a wood fire which gave off that smokey, sweet smell we noticed the first day we arrived. You need 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup! We also learned that the different grades of maple syrup come from the time during the season that the sap was harvested. In the very beginning of harvest season, you get what is called “Vermont Fancy” and then Grade A syrup. This syrup is sweeter and lighter in color. Later in the season, towards the end, the sap produces a darker grade maple syrup – Grade B. This grade has a stronger maple flavor and is a favorite for cooking.

boiling sap

Sap boiling in the evaporator

Grade A Syrup

Grade A Syrup

Grade B Syrup

Grade B Syrup

Towards the end of the season, Ambler Farms held an “Open House” inviting families to come see, learn about and taste test the maple syrup. They explained how the Native Americans first made maple syrup – They would carve out a log, pour in the sap, and then, using deer antlers, take red-hot stones out of a nearby fire and drop them into the sap to evaporate the water until they were able to get the thick maple syrup… I can only imagine how long THAT took!

Native Technique

Native technique for making maple syrup

When the colonists arrived, they adapted the native technique but used a caldron suspended over a fire to boil the sap down to a maple syrup.

Colonial technique

Colonial technique for making maple syrup

Over all, this was a really cool experience! It could not get any more New England than this! A snow-covered farm with sap buckets hanging on every tree. A crisp, cold winter breeze blowing as we trudging through the snow with the fresh aroma of smoke and maple syrup making in the air… and the maple syrup?… Delicious!

A Small Winter Harvest and A Word About Carrots

16 Jan

It has been a while since I posted on here… raising a toddler and growing another can really use up your time! Taking a stroll out to the garden and picking a small harvest in the dead of winter reminded me that it was about time to write another post…

Collards, Kale, Carrots and Leeks are a few of the crops that do well in the cold climate of Connecticut winter… and that is just what I picked!

winter harvest

I left a  bunch of carrots in the garden to winter over as an experiment. When I picked the carrots in the summer they tasted bitter and I wondered how I could improve their taste. I heard that carrots like to be exposed to a little cold weather and it can improve their flavor so I tried it out… and you know what? Picking them in mid-January seemed to add some sweetness to them. a BIG improvement from the summertime taste. So, from now on, I am going to plan on planting carrots in the early spring (since those beautiful Black Swallowtail Butterflies to lay their eggs on the leaves and they cause minimal damage to the crop) and pick my carrots throughout the wintertime. If you have the same problem with bitter tasting carrots, give it a try too and see how it works!

Happy Gardening! ;)

Meet the Red Lily Leaf Beetle

23 Jun

Alright ornamental plant lovers, this is one nasty BAD bug! At least it is bad when it comes to your lily flowers…

I saw this little guy hanging out on my kale and collard greens so I was immediately suspicious at first as to what he was doing there. It didn’t seem like he was eating anything however. He was more-so scoping the place out, looking for lilies probably.

The bright-red lily leaf beetle, Lilioceris lilii, is a pretty easy one to spot. They are native to Europe and turned up in eastern Mass. in 1992. They LOVE to eat the leaves of lilies and fritillaria. If they are not controlled, they can kill your plants.

(An important thing to note is they only eat true lilies, those of the Lilium genus, including Asiatic, Easter, & Oriental lilies. Don’t worry about your daylilies, you know, the one that you see growing EVERYWHERE. Those are in the genus Hemerocallis and are not true lilies.)

Lily leaf beetles lay reddish-orange eggs on the underside of lily and fritillaria leaves. It is the just hatched larva that causes the most devastation so be on the look out! Because these bugs are imports, they have no native predators here. The University of Rhode Island researchers have traveled to Europe and collected some larva of the parasitic wasps, a natural predator of the lily leaf beetles. They are currently introducing the wasp to the region in hopes that this will help curb the population of the red lily leaf beetle. So far, it seems to be working out.

In the meantime, stay on the look out for these red little bugs on your lily plants and PLEASE! do not mistake lady bugs for the red lily leaf beetle. Lady bugs are very beneficial to have around in your garden! take a good look at the pictures and make sure you know your bugs!  Pick the red lily leaf beetle adults, eggs, and larva off your lilies, making sure you get rid of them. You can drop them in a can of vegetable oil or water with a lid.

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Protecting Your Young Seedlings – From Frost, Birds, Bugs and Crazy Weather

22 Jun

One of my readers made a blog post suggestion to me: How do your protect your little seedlings from inclement weather? They had just planted their little garden and then heard on the news that heavy rain, strong winds and hail were in the forecast…

When your seedlings first begin to sprout out of the ground or get transplanted outside, there are a few things you can do to help protect them from a variety of threats that can come their way.

For starters, frost. Sometimes we have those crazy days were there is a ridiculously late frost just when we thought our seedlings were in the clear. Or, the forecast predicts heavy rains with possible hail and high winds as we glance out to the garden and wonder how the tiny seedlings will survive. Then, if your seedlings were fortunate enough to dodge inclement weather, there are the occasional birds that mistake your bean sprout for  worm and scratch them out, the squirrels that tries to eat your seed pods or a bug of some sort that decides your garden leaves are the perfect birthing place for their little larva in the early spring.

So, here is something you can try…

Find and empty, plastic container. The best and most cost effective ones are soda bottles. Depending on the size of your plants, you may have to get a larger bottle (I am thinking of those large, plastic jars that pretzels come in). Cut the bottle in half and place it over your little plants. This will protect them from bugs, inclement weather, and frost since it acts as a mini greenhouse – holding in heat, protecting from frost and creating a plastic barrier from all the elements. There is one thing you MUST REMEMBER TO DO however. Remove the plastic cover once the threat has passed or is starts to really warm up outside. Otherwise, it will get very hot inside the container and your seedlings can shrivel up. This is really ment to be used for temporary protection, you don’t want to leave these on top of your plants all season long!

For this demo, I used a regular water bottle:

Once you have your plastic bottle, cut it in half with a pair of scissors ( TIP: It is a lot easier to start the cut if you puncture the bottle with something first)

Once cut in half, you bring the top half to the garden. I like to use the top half because it has the opening at the top which will still allow air in. carefully place the container over your seedlings and press it down into the soil to make sure a strong wind wouldn’t be able to blow it off:

And there you have it! A happily protected garden seedling :)

 

 

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