Rehab for house plants

Our previous house plant blunder was Edition Sansevieria. This one we shall call Edition Airplane Plants.

Chlorophytum comosum, commonly called spider plant, is a very common house plant. I have heard that they are hard to kill. HA! Those folks must have never met Kyle and his cats! We kept them outside last year, but brought them in for the winter. Knowing the cats would have a field day with them, we put them on top of the refrigerator. Basically no sun and many forgotten waterings. Then we figured out the in garage on the window ledge....it's an east facing window, but that would be better than nothing. Still forgot to water them. At that points the cats were not allowed into the garage, in hopes we could protect our seedlings. The plants started to recover. Then came the cats once our seedlings were put out in the garden. They chewed off all the top growth. And knocked the pots off the sill. These plants are sad looking. Out to the front porch for a hot summer of rehab.

Why Edition Airplane Plants? As a kid I always called them airplane plants. I am not sure if my grandmother had called them that (she had given us a set before she died that we kept going for years) or if I came up with it. Perhaps it's because the baby plants reminded me of the small airplanes on amusement rides. Not sure, but to me they are not spider plants...they are airplane plants!

Green Onions

Green Onions are just immature onions. Before they bulb out they grow their tall tops. I thinned a few just to see out they are progressing. The one on the left had been in the refrigerator so it looks white from condensation. I think these are white onions (maybe yellow) but we also planted some red onions that seems to be much further along and even starting to bulb out.

Pre-storm harvest

They warned of a perfect storm. The front...the humidity...the sheer. Winds..rain...baseball sized hail. So we figured we should harvest anything that was ready in the garden. Right now that basically means various leafy greens. This included the last of the bok choy and a final large strawberry harvest. And another huge bunch of mustard greens there on the right.

These are the various lettuces with the spinach in the middle.

These strawberries made another tasty (but ugly and runny) pie.

Oh ya...no storm. Just a little rain. All for naught.

Eat your green vegetables

That's kale on the left, spinach on the top right, and baby bok choy on the bottom right.

Spicy sausage, a bit of garlic and onion, and chicken broth I made from a the remainder of a chicken came together to make a great soup. The kale went in first to cook a bit longer, then the bok choy and the spinach last. My first time cooking kale....and first home cooked bok choy. The bok choy is GREAT as it absorbs the salt and flavor from the broth. I picked the rest of the bok choy and added it to the soup the next day.

Note on the bok choy: I don't know why ours did not form a true head. It grew super fast and started going to seed quickly. Mostly I just picked the bottom leaves off the stem.

Mustard Greens

Despite growing up in the South, my mother never ever made any kind of greens....ever. None. I don't think she ever even served any kind of spinach cooked in any dish. No canned spinach. Only fresh in salads sometimes. Perhaps its because we are only Southerners by happenstance, not by birth. Having lived in several places in the South that would be considered far more Southern than Fayetteville, Arkansas, I have been exposed to far more greens in my adult life than my childhood. About a year ago I started cooking greens on a more regular basis.

At first it was just cabbage (never had it ONCE as a child), which Kyle loves. Then it was collard greens, which take quite a bit of bacon grease to taste good....or you just eat them because you know they are good for you. Then came beet greens from the garden and radish greens as well. Those were actually not planned last fall, but mere after thoughts. I considered planting collards this year, but they were left out of the plan. This spring I have had three rounds of radish greens and Kyle planted some beets that are bred especially for tasty greens. That brings us to mustard greens. They were planted a bit later than most of the early spring garden, but they sure are producing! This is the first batch I picked, and there are several batches left.

While the other greens are often stewed in the crockpot to make them tender, the mustard green recipes I found called for wilting in butter (or bacon grease) then cooking with just a cup or two of water until they reach your preferred tenderness. The cooking process takes less than 20 minutes, though prep time includes washing. Luckily these greens had very little dirt on them. Supposedly I was supposed to harvest them when they were smaller, but these were tender enough and had a great taste. WAY better than collards or the other greens I have tried.

Strawberries

Our strawberry experience has been part blunder part success. The one's I planted last year did their job of spreading last year, but our friend had some in pots that over grew and rooted all around. I feared that the potted ones would not survive a cold winter, so I transplanted them all to make one full bed of strawberries. The first berries this year were eaten...rabbits?...squirrels? So we caged them. We still have a bird problem, but we managed to get a few harvested in spite of appetites of our animal friends.

From 5/14

From 5/17

Made today.....yum!

No, I didn't make the crust...two frozen Sam's Club crusts were fine enough. I believe this was the first time I have EVER made a fruit pie. I normally do pumpkin and pecan at holidays, but never fruit ones.

Black radishes and random ingredients

Black Spanish radishes that really didn't turn out. Perhaps they were not spaced far enough. The tops made great stewed greens.

The few Black Spanish radishes that turned out.

Not that big and Kyle says the taste bad.

Some cooking ingredients I gathered for an Indian dish. Broken green onion tops, chives, parsley, and cilantro.

Mid-May walk through

One of the potato cages. They have been mounded up with extra compost. The newspaper help holds the soil in the chicken wire cage.

The chives blooming

Red leaf lettuce

The patch of romaine lettuce. Big producer.

Mustard greens

First strawberries