It May Be Christmas, But I Am Thinking About Gardening

This little calendar is for sale at my work.  I love it because it feels like something I "should" have made myself.  Little watercolors of the things I love.  Garden things.  And pickles.  I finished off the last three pickle halves in the half gallon jar of refrigerator pickles this weekend.  I only made the one jar.  The recipe is one that my mother and father made (in their separate homes) each summer.  My mom always had a plate of these pickles on the dinner table, no matter what was being served for dinner.

I wore my boots and used my trowel to plant 80 daffodils and 60 tulips in my daughter's garden.  And, I reverted to my favorite summer breakfast this week.  Tomatoes and fresh mozzarella with lots of good olive oil and Balsamic vinegar.  My grocery even put the tomatoes on sale this week.  Helping me to decide to continue eating tomatoes and cheese for a second week.

I found squash with a "certified" Kabocha Squash label.  They look very similar to the ones I have been baking and eating since before Thanksgiving but these have their name on them.  The real deal. I am looking forward to making a kabocha/lentil soup to take to work next week.  There are canned tomatoes, onions and carrots in the soup with some Spanish spices (saffron).  I found it in my weekly gardening newsletter from AWayToGarden.  I don't know which lentils to use.  I have red ones and black ones.  I don't have any of the cheap beige ones I usually cook soup with.I could go and buy new lentils.  I have to go shopping anyway as G asked me to make chicken soup and I need carrots, celery, garlic and noodles for that.  Soup always starts out the same.  Onions, celery, carrot.

Now that it's the season for latke, I am wanting potato pancakes.   I can't remember what time of year my mother made potato pancakes.  Was it Easter Eve?  She served them with tuna salad made with onions, celery and canned peas.  Really.  Christmas Eve was potato and sauerkraut pierogi.  Which reminds me that I have to tune up the pasta maker and make a double batch of cheese pierogi for my daughter for Christmas Eve.  I may even make some for G.  I LOVE them but they are SO not something a low carber can eat.

My Christmas tree is in the stand, out on the sidewalk in front of my porch.  Not in the house.  Yet.  The tree looks miserable and it's not what I thought it was.  Too tall.  Too Thin.  Too Sad.  My daughter had the same experience on Saturday.  She was so disgruntled (we both had our "dream" trees last Christmas so this is especially hard for us) while looking at trees that the tree guys (at my job) wouldn't come out of the tree shack to approach us. They took one look and listen and backed up and ran for the shack.  Because I am her mother (and possibly responsible for her behavior) I stayed out there and held up every wild tree (several times each) until she decide to take the best looking runt home.  Having a bad tree is sometimes a life learning lesson for those of us who love a perfect tree.

I ordered a seed catalog from Johnny's Seeds.  I stare wistfully at my closed down vegetable garden (all covered in leaves) and must wait patiently until March.  I will be saving seeds from my certified kabocha squash and from these breakfast "Backyard Tomatoes" grown hydroponically here in Maine.  And tending my citrus trees.  And waiting (for a long time) for my amaryllis bulbs to begin sending up leaves and flowers.  Only 90 days.  And Spring will be here.