Rosegardenquilts

A Great Year for Sweet Peas

2011-07-13T09:47:00.000-07:00

On my way to the Farmers' Market today

2011-06-26T10:33:00.000-07:00

I heard this wonderful story on NPR Weekend Edition Sunday. It's vegetables. It's mediterranean. It sounded amazing and this is a picture I pinched from website.

It's Plenty, a new book by London chef Yotam Ottolenghi.

You can listen to the story or read it, too, and there are two recipes: Green Been Salad with Mustard Seeds and Tarragon; and, Burnt Eggplant with Tahini.

Julia Child

2011-05-11T17:38:00.000-07:00

New rose for my garden

Cinco de Mayo

2011-05-05T10:13:00.001-07:00

and the rose of that name

2011-04-27T18:13:00.000-07:00

Moraga, California

2011-04-25T12:29:00.001-07:00

Mazus reptans

2011-04-24T12:02:00.000-07:00

Cornus florida from Judy's garden

2011-04-22T17:30:00.001-07:00

2011-04-21T09:04:00.000-07:00

Cymbidiums in bloom on the porch

2011-04-20T09:44:00.000-07:00

2011-04-19T16:26:00.000-07:00

Wide-mouth Pint and a Half Jars for Canning

2010-08-27T17:12:00.000-07:00

Last jar of Crunchy Dilly Beans
It is almost 7 inches tall and 3-1/4 inches in diameter
Jar on left is a Classico Mason Jar for comparison

The Ball wide-mouth pint and a half jars hold 24 oz. with about a 1/4-inch of headspace. The markings on the jars are not very distinct. It looks like it shows 2 c. and 500 ml markings and a fill-to line for freezing (just below where the band rests when it is screwed in).

Last summer I put up some green beans using a recipe from Sunset Magazine
and the result was crunchy, garlicky, dilly beans.

I used some lovely Ball jars from my jar stash that are 1-1/2 pint capacity. They were perfect for green beans and would have been great for asparagus. Of course, they made wonderful spontaneous hostess gifts. Soon I had only a couple of these jars left. I went to my local Ace Hardware stores (and my True Value, OSH, etc) searching for replacements. All winter long I kept checking at likely sources -- hoping to get a jump on the first jars to hit the shelves for canning season. Guess what? These jars are no longer being made. I think I learned this first from the Garden Web Harvest Forum, a great source of information about what to do with the bounty of your garden.

I wrote several letters to people at Ball Corp. and Jarden, the current manufacturer of Ball jars, telling them what a great size this is for beans, asparagus, etc., and what a great gift home preserved food is, especially in their lovely jars. I reminded them that home preserving is experiencing a surge of interest. I told them how much I loved the cute, squat jars in the Elite Collection.

I received this note:

"We appreciate your interest in Jarden Home Brands products. The 1-1/2 pint size jar was discontinued several years ago and our inventory has been depleted. We received several inquires from consumers regarding this size jar. If enough interest is generated, our marketing team would consider bringing this jar back.

Please send them an email at

JHBFreshPreservingInfo@jardenhomebrands.com

It's too late for canning season in North America but who knows, maybe they will surprise us for next year?

June 17

2010-07-27T16:51:00.000-07:00

By now we've crossed and re-crossed many bridges, walked along La Seine, traipsed across Ile St. Louis for ice cream at Berthillon. Today the plan was to go by Le Metro to Montmarte. At Madeleine we managed to sortie when we were supposed to correspondance. But it was all good.

Sacre Coeur

We were mesmerized by this football guy doing his thing on a lamp post.

One of the remaining moulins.

Always a good idea to stop at a cafe.

Walking down from the heights along rue Lepic in search of Toulouse-Lautrec and Vincent,

and Julia Child's Paris.

June 16

2010-07-23T11:32:00.001-07:00

Pont Alexandre III (maybe?)

even the backs are beautiful

Cleopatra's Needle
Place de la Concorde
part of our Tour de France pilgrimage

Well, we had to visit La Joconde

one of many artists at work Musee du Louvre

Notre Dame de Paris

back

and lovely, peaceful behind the cathedral

June 15

2010-07-19T15:03:00.000-07:00

la coupe du monde de foot

now doesn't this sound much nicer?

just another front door

perhaps my favorite of the whole trip

Arriving in Paris

2010-07-13T09:56:00.000-07:00

It all seems like a dream. We'd been planning our trip to France since the beginning of the year. Now that we are back home it's hard to believe that we were really there.

We left San Francisco early Monday afternoon and arrived in Paris on Tuesday. It was an 11 hour flight and 9 hours time difference.

We took the train into Paris and then got onto the Metro. There was a wonderful story on NPR last weekend about Le Metro.

Of course I'm besotted by all things French.

On the street where we live

2010-06-24T07:54:00.000-07:00

Hotel de la Tour Eiffel, near the rue Cler, closer to rue Dominique and the Seine

We chose this Rick Steve's recommendation in the 7th because it is in the neighborhood where Alice stayed when she was last in Paris.

We couldn't believe that this is what we saw when we looked out the window.

A most charming member invited us into their space. The association has 15,000 members from across France. On the day we visited a small group was working on the Dear Jane blocks.

Paris!

2010-06-23T14:03:00.000-07:00

Linda, Alice and I flew from San Francisco to Paris on June 13.

More silk dyeing

2010-06-08T00:29:00.000-07:00

One more from the weekend

2010-06-02T09:54:00.001-07:00

Silk habotai 10 mm: dyed, discharged with thiox, dye painted and screen printed.

Three Days in the Dye Pots

2010-06-01T10:05:00.001-07:00

There aren't enough adjectives to exclaim about the amazing 3-day silk-dyeing workshop we had with Bonnie Wells at Walnut Creek Civic Arts. And now I need to get ready for my next adventure.

What I've been up to

2010-05-18T09:10:00.000-07:00

"First, you have to try to figure out which species of block is getting to you. As well as many subspecies, the main ones are fear of failure after previous success, fear of success due to a sense of unworthiness, lack of potential venue, jaded attitude, crisis of confidence, evidence of persistent poor quality, lackadaisical motivation and common everyday shortage of ideas." -- Robert Genn

I'm in the garden

2010-05-15T17:22:00.000-07:00

Love Apple Farm
Ben Lomond, California

Last weekend, Rick rode is his bike down to Santa Cruz and I was the designated picker-upper. Actually, we met at our favorite beach on the San Mateo coast. On my way down to Santa Cruz/the beach, I stopped in at Love Apple Farm to buy some tomato starts.

Usually I just bust open a couple of sacks of Bumper Crop and spread it around. I have some old but still-standing raised beds that we put in when we bought the house. Our native soil is heavy clay. I didn't know what I was doing then and I don't know much more now but hope springs eternal. The soil in the raised beds has a lovely texture but I suspect that it is quite infertile.

Linda told me about Cynthia Sandberg, an amazing grower in Ben Lomond, in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Her Love Apple Farm is the kitchen garden for Manresa, the Michelin-starred creation of chef David Kinch. This year she grew over 150 varieties of tomatoes, mostly heirlooms. She offers them for sale through the end of the month.

After strolling around the farm, checking out her pig and her chickens, I made the pilgrimage to Mountain Feed and Farm in downtown Ben Lomond. I have been fascinated with Cynthia's ideas for bed preparation and tomato planting. Mountain Feed usually has most of the ingredients necessary for the Love Apple protocols. Alas, I was too late get everything I needed. Next time I will call before making the trek. I did get some of the things on my list and resolved to try to secure the most daunting item for the almighty tomato hole: fish heads.

My test run was yesterday. Cynthia's method requires a deep hole. This is not because of the size of the tomato start, but because of the fish head. I was able to find salmon heads. Four of those babies weighed 10 lbs. I dug an 18" hole and threw in 1/2 a fish head per hole. Don't ask. Actually, that was the worst part. Next, she recommends bone meal, two aspirins, 2-4 eggshells, humic acid, earthworm castings, and an organic fertilizer. Am I the last person on earth to know about earthworm castings? That was the best part. This morning I couldn't wait to get up to see if the two tomato plants had been ravaged by marauding raccoons. So far, they don't know about the fish heads. I planted 6 more tomatoes and now I will take a nap. Je suis fatigue...

#88

2010-04-19T15:16:00.001-07:00

#87

2010-04-15T09:10:00.001-07:00