Containers and Front Step Plantings

The front step area of our house was a bit of a mystery to me for a few years, I was never quite sure what to do with it.  I was new to the area and learning about which plants did/didn't grow in Zone 4, and our front steps faced to the North.  Adding seasonal plants to the steps was always seemingly on my to-do list, but never really a top priority.  Once I was done with other more critical matters like the garden, planting fruit trees, and planting pretty flowers, it was time to think about how to spruce up the front steps.

These are the front steps of the homestead.  They're pretty plain concrete steps with a black wrought iron hand railing on either side.  They get a bit of indirect light in early morning and late afternoon, but that's about it. 

This pot has "Sliver Falls" dichondra, "Big Red Judy" coleus, and begonias (the name escapes me).  I was dividing hostas along the front walk (more on this in another post) and ran out of not only places to put the extra hosta divisions, but space in the trash can as well.  So I decided to throw a half dozen of them in plastic pots to see if they lived.  They did.  This continues to prove my theory that you can't kill hostas.

The hostas provide some nice variegated foliage to soften the front steps and augment the plantings in the pot.  I'm not one for paying big money for pots, this is one of four that we received as a gift from our generous In-Laws.  They snatched them up pretty cheaply when a local hardware store was going out of business. 

I planted another pot that's located to the right of the porch, in the midst of "snow on the mountain" ground cover that has taken over the area.  This pot has "Red Star" dracena, coleus (not sure of the name), and impatiens.

How about you?  Does your garden plan include planting in pots?  What do you do to liven up the look of your front/back porch?

Shadowfax Having a Nap

It's a warm and muggy summer day here at the homestead in North Dakota.  The pups are napping up in expectation of a visit from Grandma and Grandpa.

You can never be too rested in preparation for a visit from the grandparents.

Homemade Sauerkraut Recipe and Instructions

It's sauerkraut season here in North Dakota.  We forgot to plant cabbages in the garden this year, but that's OK since cabbages are cheap and plentiful at the local Farmer's Market.  Let's make some kraut! This is truly one of the easiest dishes to make, you know, assuming you like sauerkraut and all.  Little more than cabbages, salt, a crock, and a couple of hours of elbow grease will have you up to your chin in kraut for months. 

This is a three gallon ceramic crock for fermenting the sauerkraut along with one of the two cabbages I purchased at the Farmer's Market in town.  The cabbage weighs about 4 pounds and cost me $3.  So for $6 and the cost of salt, I'm gonna have months of delicious chock-full-of-probiotics sauerkraut.

If you don't have a crock already, these are pretty easy to come by here in the Upper Midwest. Our In-Laws picked this up at a garage sale for $5 (I think) and gave it to us.  If you don't have access to used crocks like this, you may have to get one from Amazon or elsewhere online.  They're not too expensive and last for a long time.  And sauerkraut can also be made in any non-reactive container, like a glass jar. 

The key to sauerkraut is finely slicing the cabbage, about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick, and try for consistency.  We have a mandolin slicer, but the cabbage was too unwieldy and I just wound up cutting it by hand.

After you've finely sliced the cabbage, you're going to want to physically damage the leaves in order to coax out the cabbage juices that will ferment the cabbage into sauerkraut.  You're going to do this by beating the heck out of the cabbage.  My tool of choice is an old-school hand potato masher.

I did one round of squishing the cabbage (in the white plastic bowl in the picture above) and continued mashing them in the crock.  It helps at this point of the process to angrily yell "HULK SMASH!", or something of the sort.  Not only will this help your sauerkraut taste better, but it will also likely have the added benefit of forcing your significant other to shout "What the hell is going on in there?!?!" from the other room.

At this stage you're going to add salt to your cabbage mixture.  The general rule is 1.5 to 2 teaspoons of salt per pound of cabbage mixture.  You want the mixture to taste like you've added salt, but not oppressively salty.  After an hour or so after you've started smashing and adding salt, you should notice a decent amount of liquid in the crock. 

Continue with your potato masher and press the cabbage mixture to the bottom.  Your goal is to get every last bit of cabbage underneath the surface of the liquid.  I then took a plate and set it on top of the cabbage mixture in the crock, then added this one gallon jar filled with water to weigh it down to push the cabbage below the liquid.  The plate is turquoise colored, thus the odd bluish hue.

Again, the goal is to keep the cabbage mixture below the surface of the liquid.  Most people use a plate or a bowl and then have a weight on top to push the cabbage down and make sure the liquid remains above the cabbage. 

This is the ghost on our kitchen counter.  The crock is going to sit here at room temperature for 2-3 days, then I'll take it down to the basement where it's a little cooler.  I'll check it in a week, and weekly thereafter.  Usually at the three week mark, it has the right level of spicy/sour/crunchy for my taste.  You may want more or less fermentation time depending on the temperature and your personal taste preference. 

Once the sauerkraut is to your liking, you have a decision to make.  You have the option of canning it, which will make it shelf safe, but also eliminate most/all of the good probiotic bacteria, or you can store it in the refrigerator.  The sauerkraut will continue to ferment in the refrigerator, but at a much slower rate.  I store it in the refrigerator in a one gallon glass jar, and it's usually good for several months.

That's how you make sauerkraut.  A minimal investment for the cost of the cabbage, and few hours of work and you've got months of kraut for side dishes and toppings.  What about you awesome reader?  Do you make sauerkraut?  Do you pickle or ferment anything else?  

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Deaf Dogs on Squirrel and Rabbit Patrol

The squirrel and rabbit vigil never stops around here.  Whatever vantage point is available, it is generally used to guard against the ceaseless squirrel onslaught, and to a lesser extent, the bunny menace.

Shadowfax spent half the day today on her front porch lookout post, patrolling the area for any manner of varmint.

Once the varmint was spotted, a proper barking spasm (this one of her few offensive weapons) ensued. Tearing around the house and yard barking eventually led her back to her perch at a high rate of speed and she knocked the pillow off. We probably replace that pillow a dozen times a day.  

Shaak Ti is probably more anti-squirrel/bunny than Shadowfax, but her efforts are more focused when she's outside, usually on our walks.  Every once in a while she'll patrol from an indoor perch, but for the most part she yields the indoor security functions to Shadowfax. 

It's hot out, why not snuggle?

While Shaak Ti isn't big on snuggling with Shadowfax, for some reason she consented to it this afternoon even though it's pretty warm out.

Hope you have someone or something to snuggle with today. 

Shaak Ti on the Couch

We could probably have our own dedicated "Shaak Ti is Strange" section of this blog.  While there are plenty of examples to pick from, creating yet another page seems like a lot of work.  We'll have to settle for regular photos of Shaak Ti being the odd little deaf dog that she is.

The more squished the better.  Due to my allergies and other reasons, we don't allow the dogs on the furniture in the house.  This is my old couch that we moved to the covered front porch, so it's now not an inside couch, and is a very special exception to the "no dogs on the furniture" rule. 

What a perfect spot for napping.  Shaak Ti loves nothing more than wedging into a nice cozy spot and having a nap.  The fact that it's 80 degrees out doesn't bother her a bit. 

Luckily this doesn't prevent Alycia from getting any work done, she soldiers on bravely with her computing. 

Apple Tree Lost to the Wind

Earlier this week we had some strong thunderstorms roll through the area.  There wasn't a tornado or anything, but some very strong straight-line winds brought a few tree limbs down.  The storm didn't last long, about an hour, but there was a decent amount of storm related carnage in our yard and throughout the neighborhood.

One of our apple trees was snapped off right at the base.  The winds that came through were in the 50 to 60 miles per hour range, pretty significant winds.  This was a Honeycrisp Apple that was in its' fourth year and was just starting to produce apples, so it was a big bummer for me.

The good news is that this is not a grafted tree, so the shoots that come up should be true Honeycrisp Apple shoots, and should (eventually and in theory) become a regular tree again and produce apples.

So I'll throw out some questions to you knowledgeable readers:  Is it worth the 3-4 years it will take for this to grow back, or should I just replace the tree?  As a non-grafted apple tree, can a sucker grow up, be trained into a main leader and indeed eventually produce apples? 

Clematis Blooms and Garden Helpers

After three years, our clematis vines are finally blooming.  We have three of them; one is blooming profusely, one is blooming a little, and one is lagging.  I really like clematis and would enjoy getting even more of them, but I want to experiment with the locations that we have now to see what works in our yard. 

This is the clematis jackmanii, which is planted on the east side of the house, near our blueberry area.  It gets sun light until early afternoon and is on our visual path as we walk into the house.  It's a really pleasant pick-me-up to see the lovely purple blooms when we walk into the back door. 

Our garden helpers are always out with us in the yard "helping".  And by helping I mean getting in the way at every available opportunity and sticking their noses into the dirt.  Shaak Ti has a tendency to stand right where you want to pull weeds. 

Shadowfax inspects the new metal butterfly garden sculpture we received from Alycia's parents.  They purchased two of them at a recent Gardening Day event here in town and placed them superstitiously in our backyard while we were on vacation.  They're sneaky like that.