Garden Magic

I don't usually write about the Master Gardener meetings, although it is a group that I'm pretty passionate about, and quite active with.  Tonight's meeting, though, had a great energy about it, which came almost as a surprise to me.  Since I'm in charge of booking programs for the monthly meetings, and spent almost 30 years as a caterer and event planner,  it's rare that I'm surprised like that.

Instead of our usual meeting space, we met in the "shed" at a large vegetable garden (about 7 acres in total).  The property is owned by a retired developer, and it's where he and many of his friends garden, simply for the love of gardening.  Most of them are executives in varying stages of their careers, one is the County Manager; in the garden, though, they are all equals.  The garden is a really special place in and of itself, since these guys can't possibly use the volume of food they produce; as a result, virtually anyone can come and do "chores" for a few hours just once, or they can come back whenever they want just to help in the garden.  They are encouraged to take whatever produce they can realistically use for their families, and the balance of the crops are donated to soup kitchens, senior housing buildings, the Boys and Girls Clubs, etc.,etc.

The meeting program was pretty loose, and since it was literally 96 degrees when the meeting started, I expected there to be a fairly small turnout.  Boy, was I surprised!  By the time the meeting was underway, we had at least 60 people there, all sweating like beasts, fanning ourselves with leftover paper fans from a County event in 2007.  All of this in a cinder block building in the middle of a field, with old fashioned fly paper hanging over our heads.

As dusk fell, we strolled the acres of gardens, petted the burros (and one orphaned deer fawn) they raise, pulled peanuts from the ground, and ate cherry tomatoes off the vines.  There was no pretense, there were no discussions of the proper way to prune, there was no plant snobbery.  It was simply a great evening in the middle of the vegetables for a group of friends who love to garden.

The heat lightning off in the distance as we wrapped up the event was the perfect end to the evening.  There really is a magic in gardens.

Perhaps It's Time to Prune?

The weather in metro-Atlanta has been just plain nasty lately, with temps in the mid-to-high 90's every day for what seems like months!  To top it off, every day the weather forecast is for a "30% chance of showers....as long as your house is facing east, painted blue, and a Dutch Colonial"....do I sound bitter?  Seriously, the weather pattern has been so bizarre, the Big House sometimes gets 2 inches of rain in an hour, and at home, we get none (or vice versa).  Fortunately the Big House (where I get paid to make it beautiful) has a great irrigation system; unfortunately the Stepchild Garden does not.  Every time I go outside at home, I am reminded of the Hefty bag commercial, but in this case it's "crispy, crispy, crispy...."

Certain of the plants, however, are delighting in this weather.  Here's a shot of one section of the perennial border at home.  Everything is toast except for Rudbeckia and Verbena bonariensis, which are about waist high!  Those other things are the tops of the Lythrum "Morden's Pink," which really need to be pruned, but they're going to need to wait for a cloudy day.

A little further down the way, here is the arbor that marks the entrance to the garden at home.  The moonvine and New Dawn rose are so out of control at this moment, they are both reaching out to grab unsuspecting children who walk by on the way to the bus stop.  I like my friends, and I want them to visit (no, really, I do.....but in August I really just like the moonvine more......)

                                

Have a fabulous and cool day.......

A Pretty Serious Container Arrangement

My sister took this photo of a "container arrangement" someone had done in her little town (Eliot, Maine).  It takes that whole wheelbarrow idea to a whole new level!  (As always, click to make it bigger....it's pretty fabby!)
                               
 

A New Favorite Cookbook

                                              
I've been doing a lot of cooking lately from Jamie at Home, since it suits my frame of mind during the summertime (and year round, for that matter).  I've always like Jamie Oliver's approach to doing simple foods in a simple manner, without the fru-fru.  It might be part of my aging, but I'd much rather spent a great evening sitting around the table eating and drinking with friends than put on a jacket and tie to go to the "latest and hottest" restaurant.  We only live twenty minutes from Buckhead, but most of the restaurants aren't going to allow my flip flops.

Last night I was dodging thunderstorms and grilling out some assorted chicken sausages from Harry's, and I served Jamie Oliver's Roasted Carrots with Orange, Garlic and Thyme along with Cricket's pasta salad.  All in all a pretty good, definitely not fru-fru dinner. (I'm not sure that's the name of the recipe, but it's in the book.)  Bon appetit!

Barefoot Contessa's Tuscan Grilled Chicken

As I probably should have guessed, I've already gotten two emails asking me to explain "spatchcocked chicken," so here's how it's done.  Once you've flattened a chicken this way, you'll see what I mean about Sadie's pose on the floor.....not really ladylike.

Place the whole chicken, breast side down, on a cutting board. Using poultry shears (or a knife, if you’re good), cut from the neck to the tailbone on either side of the backbone to remove it. The bird is now shaped like a file folder, for lack of a better description. Make a small slit in the cartilage at the base of the breastbone, and grab the bird with both hands, and open up like a book, facing down towards the cutting board. Remove the keel bone (it’s triangular, sort of), so you can open it completely flat, but it’s still one piece.

Now that you've done this to the chicken, you might as well make Ina Garten's Tuscan Chicken recipe, which is a favorite of mine. (Click on the link below...it's really a link, though Blogspot has made it some lovely shade of chartreuse.) For the record, I have a gas grill, and it works just fine.

Barefoot Contessa Tuscan Chicken

Weather Not Fit for Man Nor Beast!

Just got home from the Big House, and casually hooked the leash onto Sadie's collar for the afternoon walk.  We made it about ten feet from the porch when she made it clear I could walk by myself in this weather!  It's 95 degrees at the moment, and you can drink the air, with a "heat index" of 105.  Sadie is already back on the tiled floor of the bathroom, in her spatchcocked chicken pose.

This was one of those days at work when clipping hydrangeas for arrangements or watering the containers at the pool left us soaking wet. Sweat bands and bad hair are the look of the week.  By contrast, I have never seen so many butterflies and hummingbirds, who are just delighting in the heat! 

At least if we are going to melt, we might as well enjoy the sights!

To add insult to injury, I just got an email from the B & B where we're staying in England in September.  It's 67 degrees, dry and sunny at the moment.........

Please Pardon my (lack of) Post

It was already 90 degrees at 11:30 in Atlanta, so not the most perfect of gardening days.  One of those days on which I break into a sweat pulling a single weed, which won't even begin to make a dent in the Stepchild Garden!

As a result, it's the perfect day to just ENJOY the Stepchild Garden for a couple of hours.  Lemonade in my signature QT cup, sitting in one of the chairs that Chuck built, on the porch of the "Not Shed," reading some more of the book I'm reading about Sissinghurst.