Author: sylvie

Le Temps Des Cerises

It’s sour cherry time – or rather, sour cherries are just over here in the Virginia Piedmont. A kind cherry tree owner offered me their tree to pick, and I gratefully enjoyed the privilege. But as the garden is going gangbusters (with  planting, harvesting, cleaning 

In Strawberries We Delight

Picking up strawberries in the garden on a warm day is a true sensual experience. My eyes are attracted to the bright vermilion peeking not-so-shyly from under dark green leaves; my fingers reach eagerly yet carefully for the plump berries; I can feel the hot 

Memorial Day Poppies

flander-poppies

Shirley Poppies grow in my garden, prosaically in the asparagus bed, and next to the row of cabbages, and intermingled with the chicory. They reseed themselves in all kinds of nooks and crannies, next to the chard and the lettuce – so fragile looking yet so tough … and so tenacious. They were bred in the 1880’s, more than a century ago,  from the wild European field poppy – a weed that grow in the wheat fields and the meadows. A beautiful sight when you are lucky enough to come across a field of them; with increased herbicide use, fields of wild poppies aren’t as frequent as they used to be in, oh say, 1915. Yes,  Flanders poppies are achingly beautiful on Memorial Day.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

[…] — Lt.-Col. John McCrae (1872 – 1918)


Les coquelicots ondulent dans les champs de Flandres
Entre les croix, rangs sur rangs,
Qui marquent notre place; et dans le ciel
Les alouettes, chantant obstinément, virevoltent;
On les entend à peine parmi les canons tonnants.

Nous sommes les morts. Hier encore,
Vivants à l’aube, admirants le soleil couchant;
Nous aimions et étions aimés,

Et maintenant, nous gisons

Dans les champs de Flandres.

[…] — Ma traduction

Fast Food My Way (Tongue it is!)

We eat plenty of fast food here – especially for lunch. Don’t believe me? well… take a look at the picture of one of our not unusual lunches. Green salad from the garden (Pick early in the morning, wash, dry, refrigerate, ready to go in 

How Does Your Garden Grow?

I know it’s a little wild looking. but: the raspberries  are very strong and lush despite a very dry April (and I managed to put a netted trellis for them, so the branches stay upright, hopefully making harvesting easier) the Shirley poppies are absolutely gorgeous 

Post Card From The Garden

Aren’t they beautiful?

currants-green-2010-05-012

They are earlier than the last few years, I may be able to pick in late May. While winter was cold and snowy (which currants like), the ground was protected from extreme cold by the blanket of snow – something we don’t have very often in Virginia. So the ground may actually have been a little warmer thanks to the snow cover. And of course, April was warm. So… ripe currants soon!

Soon I’ll be making The Easiest Jelly In The World again. Oh, we’ll be eating them with a sprinkling of sugar and other berries too, a very refreshing little fruit salad, but red currant jelly is an absolute favorite here. I also freeze ripe berries to throw a handful when making jams with low pectin fruit later in the summer (red to go with cherries and strawberries; white currants for peaches and apricots).

Anybody growing currants out there? what do you make with them?

When The Garden Gives You Lots Of Greens…

… start a vegetable weekly subscription and make Mongolian-style sauce (lots and lots of it!) I certainly grow more than we can eat – and we eat lots of veggies! Yet I don’t grow enough for selling at a Farmer’s Market or to a restaurant. 

Roasting a Spring Lamb

Roasting a whole lamb in the spring is the epitome of the outdoor party (although a whole pig comes pretty close too). We just did that this week-end for the benefit dinner organized by Flavor Magazine to benefit the Rappahannock Food Pantry.

Sweet As Honey

Harvesting honey is – I hope – going to become one of our spring rituals. We just harvested out first honey: four medium frames, two people working two hours give 8 pints of honey (4 liters) or 12 pounds.

We are about to start our 3rd year with the bees. Last spring, at the  beginning of year two, we could have/should have had a harvest. We did not – for a number of reasons. Not the least of it was that we had a heat wave just as Keith put in new wax frames – which pretty much melted the wax frames which dripped all over the box, blocking access to the new areas of the hive. There was no room for the bees to expand; so the colony – a strong one in need of more room –  swarmed before we realized what happened.When bees swarm they load themselves with honey so they can start a new home with some food. Our harvest-to-be was depleted. We left the remaining honey to the remaining bees.

Going into winter we had two colonies. Coming out of winter we only had one. We knew one queen was weak, and she did not make it in this cold winter. And so no queen, no eggs, no replacement workers, no replacement queen With that knowledge and  no obvious signs of diseases, Keith gave most of the frames of honey of that hive to the remaining hive and saved four for us to extract. Finally! Long awaited honey….

And so last Friday on a beautiful balmy day, we extracted honey. Which proved surprisingly easy.

Remove the frames from the super (the box). The bees have capped the honey in the cells with wax.

harvesting-honey-003

Continue reading Sweet As Honey

Smoking Bacon

Bacon’s my friend (especially the kind that comes from a pastured pig). A few weeks ago I read Brett Laidlaw’s post on Trout Caviar about smoking bacon. He wrote  it just about 2 years ago, but I only recently read it. I knew we had