Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, Dec. 7

Happy Saturday! Anything like the above where you live?

Neal in Israel:

When the heat of summer began to break, the green of the hibiscus's leaves strengthened and it began to flower more vigorously.

Wow. Beautiful.

We have heavy fog here right now, so the contrast is welcome.

Edible Gardening/Putting Things By

Julia Child's favorite soup has just 3 ingredients (plus chives) and you can grow two of them in the garden.

Update: The recipe at the original link (no longer working) included milk as the liquid. This version includes chicken stock or broth and cream. Be fancy.

Perfect for winter.

DANGER: Don't eat extra-bitter zucchinis. Or bottle gourds.

Who knew? Someone died from eating garden zucchini!

Curling up by the fire with some garden reading

Don in Kansas has some recommended reading about plants, as well and literature which references plants in Botanica Links:

Excerpt:

Most horticultural writers live in places where the climate is temperate and gardening is easy. This is understandable; if you are obsessive about plants, you would probably choose to live in a place where many plants grow well. The books they write are for readers in similar areas, where the same plants flourish. Such books are of little use to gardeners in Kansas, where it is either too hot or too cold, usually too dry and always too windy. I have yet to find one I can recommend. However, I discovered a downloadable pamphlet that actually is of use to people in Flatland: Garden Design with Native Prairie Plants.

Looks like it is well-written. The opening photo is beautiful.

There is also some interesting trivia about Nero Wolfe and growing orchids, and a great blog by a former Oregon nursery owner.

Don goes beyond the typical internet searches for botanical information.

Have you received any plant or seed catalogs yet? I have two so far. So fun. I've been thinking about the remarkable diversity in beans available to gardeners. Do you have a favorite variety or catalog source for beans?

I have found beans to be more climate-sensitive than some people would expect.

If you plan to can, freeze or dry beans, you need to get varieties suited for these uses. Ever had Leather Britches cooked with potatoes and sausage?

Last year, I posted directions, with photos, for a double batch of of the Green Beans with Tomatoes from Pioneer Woman Cooks for a church party. A switch from green bean casserole with soggy canned onion rings. You can use garden produce, but this time I used store-bought ingredients. You don't need your most delicate, delicious green beans or tomatoes for this recipe. There are other recipes for those. I think of this recipe as more of a "Putting Things By" recipe. The ingredients are all things you can keep on hand.

Great for big buffets. You start with bacon and onion in a skillet. Be sure to cook with the green beans and tomatoes (and a touch of cayenne) for at least 45 minutes. You can also finish in a slow cooker. A long cooking time will give you a tastier dish. Think Southern green beans or even Leather Britches with potatoes and meat. They similarly benefit from long cooking, unlike delicate skinny little haricots verts.

Ah, Nature

The gang making their nightly bar crawl

Mike

Looks like the deer in your part of Texas are well fed.

Adventure

NorCal Sierra Foothills Lurker here.
Haven’t got out much lately due to an injury so today Honey took me on an outing to the Indian casino in the valley. On the way home we were treated to a gorgeous sunset behind the Sutter Buttes, the smallest mountain range in the world. That was until lately when they decided they aren’t actually “mountains”. They take the fun out of everything! We grew up with that cool bit of knowledge and they snatched it away. There was also an awesome huge full moon but our cameras couldn’t capture it very well. BTW we came out ahead at the casino so great day!

Mountain Range! Fun trip.

Puttering

Raise some sheep, make some wool cloth, tailor some great men's pants. I knew an actual tailor from the Netherlands once who worked as a school janitor because in the USA a real tailor couldn't make a living. His family had lived under Nazi occupation in the Netherlands. My mother learned some tailoring from him, including the fancy use of pressing with a heavy iron to shape pants, described here.

He was an egg-shaped man in his janitor's uniform. In a suit he tailored, he actually looked quite impressive for an older gentleman.

I think very slim trousers in a tailored outfit can work on certain men, but the percentage is much smaller than many believe. It often doesn't work in real life for a variety of reasons. Here are some. 🧵 https://t.co/ATH9bUsb3W

— derek guy (@dieworkwear) December 5, 2024

Indoor Plants

Thirteen best indoor plants

According to folks who urge you to think of plant containers as art.

Gardens of The Horde

Rescued a little sad rose from a commercial nursery near our house going out of business; brought it home and put it in a big pot with water and soil and a little fertilizer…a week or so later it looked like this:
Nan in AZ

Great rescue! Love that rose.

Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

If you would like to send photos, stories, links, etc. for the Saturday Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, the address is:

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Week in Review

What has changed since last week's thread? Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, Nov. 30

Any thoughts or questions?

I closed the comments on this post so you wouldn't get banned for commenting on a week-old post, but don't try it anyway.