Manure Tea Report

I found the perfect project for a cold Sunday afternoon. Today I made hot pink horseradish. This weekend it was time to put the garden to bed. I spent most of the afternoon dumping flower pots, chopping down sunflowers, rolling up chicken wire and filling the compost bin. The last task of the day was digging horseradish. I missed the opportunity last year and I was determined to put some horseradish away for the winter. My Dad used to make horseradish. I remember him grinding it on the back porch. "Mom, why is Daddy crying?" It didn't look like fun. Our horseradish was here when I moved in. We have a well established patch at the north end of the garden. I waited too late last season and I couldn't dig through the hard, frozen ground. The soil in that area is hard and thick but this year I had a secret weapon- the tiller. I mowed the patch down and zipped through it with the tiller in just a few minutes. From there it was just a matter of picking up the pieces. I bro...

10/08/09 After several days away Lucky and I finally made it back home last night. We've been away most of the last two weeks so it was nice sleeping in our own beds again. I woke up a little before 6 am and thought I heard Lucky eating his Iams in the kitchen. It wasn't Lucky. As I walked into the kitchen I found an opossum having breakfast out of Lucky's dish. He trotted off towards the porch through the dog door. Lucky watched it all go down and didn't bother to react. It was like they were acquaintances, or at least familiar strangers. I expected a couple of "get out of here damn cat" barks. I made my coffee and started some long overdue housekeeping. The temperature is supposed to drop to the low twenties tonight. I had the day off so I decided to pick and put away the last vegetables of the season. From the edge of the garden ther e didn't appear to be much left. I found a few peppers but most of the tomatoes were mushy. A light frost must have ...

老干妈 !!! Put this on your shopping list for your next trip to the Chinese grocery store. Lao Gan Ma Oil Chilli is a brilliant and tasty mix of "crunch" red chili pieces and peanuts in vegetable oil. Cost: under 2 bucks. Oil Chilli makes a great dipping sauce for dumplings and a wonderful addition to almost any meal. This is more than a condiment. You can use Oil Chilli in a variety of ways. I tried oil chilli with Ping's baozu (steamed pork dumplings a/k/a Chinese hamburgers) in Shenzhen last winter and I was hooked. The flavor is subtle and seductive. It's hot, but not painfully hot. The oil helps bring out the deep rich flavor of the red chili pieces and the chili oil soaked peanuts are a special treat. The Lao Gan Ma Company in Guiyang, China specializes in "chilli foods" and there's an interesting variety of products on store shelves. Their website has product descriptions and company information in English/corporate Chinglish. They have been cer...

L ate Augus t is a peculiar time to start writing about gardening. The summer is coming to an end. The days are getting cooler and the nights are getting longer. The garden is dwindling down but now I finally have a little free time to write. Today I transplanted Chinese onions and "Red of Florence" onions . I started them in pots and today they graduated to rows in the garden. I planted some white onion sets last week. I should have onions well into November. Every summer I try to save a quart jar or two of chopped, dehydrated green onions. They are so handy for cooking and they keep very well. Today's bounty included a five gallon bucket of cucumber, a bucket of tomatoes, purple yard long beans , a dozen lemon cucumbers, Chinese cabbage, patty pan and scalloped squash. My lovely and talented Chinese wife, Liu Li Ping is back in Shenzhen, China so Lucky is my garden helper. Sometimes he helps me dig. He's also the official garden greeter when kids and neighbor...