....but the books are so delightful. My hubby and I received many wonderful gifts this year. We especially enjoy anything to do with bees, birds, butterflies and growing our own food. I'm looking forward to spending the cold winter evenings by the fireplace- reading and dreaming of spring.
It has been a while between posts. We have been keeping busy with cleaning up the garden, enjoying our harvest and a new job for me.
Ground cherries have a subtle pineapple flavor and are great alone or made into salsas, pies and relishes. They are simple to grow and are fun to experiment with in recipes. I saw a few blog posts over the winter featuring ground cherries dipped in chocolate and couldn't wait to give it a try. The cute "paper wrapper" they grow in makes a great handle for dipping. I also rolled few completely in chocolate. Since I had the chocolate all melty and ready to go, I figured that a few raspberries should make the plunge as well. They were all delicious.
Ground cherries have been an interesting plant to grow. The first year we had them I bought a few plants from a garden center and they did well. The next year, I started some from seed and had volunteers all around the gardens from the previous year. Both the ones started early indoors and the volunteers did equally well. It was a bumper crop for fresh eating, wine-making and recipes. So this year I decided to just count on the plant reseeding itself. I left ground cherries where I wanted plants and figured they would take care of the rest themselves. Well, it didn't quite work that way.
We saw this on our travels through Chippewa County in Wisconsin today. Couldn't resist stopping for a picture. It was a gorgeous day for traveling through the scenic Wisconsin countryside.
a small white/yellow cucumber, mountain rose potatoes, salad burnet and a few other herbs from our raised bed gardens. I snacked on a few raspberries without sharing. Please don't tell my family. The grapes are Swenson Red and are nicely turning color. I'll share those.........maybe.
This isn't the first raspberry from our garden this year but it is the first one we didn't munch before we could take a picture. We planted these this year and so far we are pleased. It is called Autumn Britten and they are huge with a delicious tangy sweet flavor. It looks like we should have a good yield with plenty for eating and sharing with a little left over for wine making.
It can't be just a coincidence that the beginning of my potato harvest occurs within one week of the birthdays of the only 2 guys I know that would consider mashed potatoes to be a great birthday gift!
We think it is cool that we are finally getting grapes on the vines. I guess that the term vineyard might be overstating it a little since we have about 10 bunches of grapes. They will probably be for fresh eating this year.
The good news is that we have a lot of room to work with in our yard. The bad news is that the weeds can easily fill in the spaces before we do. Our lawn wasn't in great shape when we moved in and hasn't been worth the effort for us. We prefer our flower gardens, fruiting shrubs and raised bed vegetable gardens. Three of our favorite projects are pictured above. The hollyhocks bring back special memories because they are from seed collected by my mother-in-law years ago. The bee balm pictured in the center is a favorite of ours because the hummingbirds love it. The red currants are special because every year near our wedding anniversary, we pick them and make a one gallon batch of "Ruby Lady" wine to be enjoyed the next year for our anniversary. The yard is definitely a work in progress with much left to do. However, we are enjoying ourselves along the way.
I'm very pleased with how the gardens are doing. I've been picking a lot of peas, lettuce and herbs this week. The rhubarb is doing especially well. I haven't had time to try any new recipes but have come up with a tasty way to use it up. I have mixed rhubarb and dried fruit with juice and cooked it over medium heat until it begins to thicken. I add a little stevia or other sweetener if needed. Chill and serve. Tonight's combo was dried mango, cranberry juice and rhubarb. Yesterday I used dried apricot, rhubarb and orange juice. I didn't measure very carefully but it seems to work with a little more than a cup of chopped rhubarb, a little less than a cup of dried fruit and about 3/4 cup of juice. I look forward to experimenting with more rhubarb ideas until the tomatoes, beans and potatoes begin to take over the garden.
These pictures answer that question! Yesterday morning, I was able to walk bleary eyed out to our garden and pick fresh snap peas for breakfast. Add one deviled egg and it was the perfect start to the day. Just last weekend we saw the first bloom on the snap peas. A few days ago there was one lone pea pod to be harvested (I broke it in half and split it with my husband). Today they are really taking off. In theory I plant these mostly to give to my Mom. Giving them away seems like a great idea.......until mealtime :)
Some of our cool and rainy days this week weren't good for doing much in the garden but were perfect for wine making. We are getting ready to bottle our elderberry wine and have enjoyed a bit of it already. Its rich flavor went very nicely with grilled buffalo steaks. I'm hoping to be able to get some more elderberries this year for an elderberry grape wine. 
I spent an enjoyable day with friends making (and snacking on) delicious butter and ice cream along with a bit of Sangria (homemade and awesome) and breads. I had to head back home to sleep before working the night shift tonight. After all the good but rich foods earlier today, supper was light and fresh from the garden. We have been picking quite a few hailstone and french breakfast radishes. The greens are also at their peak. All I needed to add was a dressing made out of lovage, basil, salad burnet and chives. It was good with a glass of rhubarbade ( made with stevia). I'm still looking for good rhubarb recipes if you have some. I try to limit sugar (although I wasn't too good at that today) but it is hard to find good ways to use rhubarb without sugar. Of course, we will make rhubarb wine one of these days! We have bought rhubarb wine before but didn't like it much. We will probably try to make it with strawberries or raspberries.
We have had such beautiful weather the last few days that it is much more tempting to head to the garden after work than to the computer. However, I have been wanting to post a few photos. We don't grow many flowers because we concentrate o
n edible landscaping but we do have a few things planted for the hummingbirds and butterflies. We haven't seen any butterflies around the lupine but the hummingbirds have taken to the columbine. Now I'm headed back out to the garden to work in the last bit of daylight. Hope all is growing well wherever you are!
Today marked my official end of grad school for now and the beginning of gardening season. The yellow rose was part of the graduation ceremony and seemed just ready for a photo. 
tedious to pick but are a wonderful treat. Even though it is still early in the season, we have been able to harvest lovage, baby greens, asparagus and rhubarb. We are even thinking of "harvesting" the lilacs after having seeing a recipe for lilac wine. Sounds good or too weird to try?
A few days ago, we were concerned that our asparagus bed wasn't going to produce at all. Yesterday we were seeing little hints of greenish white poking through the soil and today we have a few lovely spears. The 80 degree days and rain have really helped. Now it will be wet and cold for a few days.
I was out working in the front yard gardens today and it is great to see many plants growing already. The loveage and chives are doing well and I harvested some of both that I will make into a salad dressing tonight. My seed starting has gone well too and the marigolds are just waiting for our last frost date before making their appearance out in the gardens.
Do two people really need 20# of seed potatoes? Apparently my husband and I believe that we do! Last year we grew Purple Viking and they were very good. They made especially tasty mashed potatoes but we enjoyed them roasted over the fire pit as well. We ran out of them in January but they stored that long fairly well. We also planted some Russets. We hadn't planned on that but our co-op had some on sale that were sprouting so we grew those too.
Gardening and yard work became much more fun once we decided to reduce the amount of lawn we have and add raised beds. However, I have been too busy with school to really use our gardens to their full potential. This summer will be my first in a while without homework so I am planning on really having fun with gardening. We especially enjoy growing fruit and vegetables. Here are the areas we have to work with. I hope to report much tasty success with this years projects: 
The weather in Wisconsin can be so weird and wonderful. Two days ago, all the snow had melted and it was perfect gardening weather. Last night we had a very pretty snowfall of huge, fluffy flakes. Today it is back to being comfortable gardening temperatures again. This morning I was out crunching through the snow and gardening in t-shirt and shorts. Happy spring!
Temperatures are in the mid 40's this morning and the sun is shining bright. I had no choice but to do a little work in the garden today! It was so relaxing to be out there again. It's way too early to plant but a good time to start cleaning things up. I will have at least 10 raised beds to work with this year and I'm really looking forward to it. We have a relatively small space but are trying to grow as much as possible in it.
This evening I was looking over recipes using some of the things we grow. We planted ground cherries a few years ago and are finding as we expected that ground cherries are forever. They reseed very easily but that is fine with us. They have been nice for fresh eating, wine making and chutney. I just ran across a recipe suggestion for chocolate covered ground cherries. I will have to give it a try. This year I will also make a ground cherry pie. I usually don't eat wheat but this looks like a nice recipe to make for guests. They can eat the pie while I sip on some ground cherry and pineapple wine. If you aren't familiar with ground cherries 
As I noted in my last post, my husband loves to have plants that attract butterflies. For me it's the Ruby-Throated Hummingbird I look forward to seeing. Sure a feeder placed on our deck has been an easy way to attract them but I'm trying to plant flowers they may like too. They always check out our hollyhocks that are by the feeder but avoid anything low to the ground that I would usually expect might attract them. This year we will add a few planters on the deck rails and try some new plants too. I've ordered Lonicera sempervirens (coral honeysuckle) 'Major Wheeler' from Niche Gardens and I have hopes that it will both fill in a large open area we have along a wood fence and bring in the hummers. I always enjoy watching their spring trek to my backyard at this site. 
