Musings from the Junque Pile

Good Morning!   The weather might cooperate today. It is supposed to be 60 and mostly sunny. Not quite shorts weather, but after the insanity that comprised of this past week, I'll take it.  We had 3 days of almost 100 degree weather earlier in the week, then temps plummeted to the 50's with lots of fog and rain. My poor tomatoes have no idea what do with themselves. My peppers are growing, though not as fast as I would like.

The rains damaged some of my strawberry blossoms, and I'm hoping they were already visited by the bee fairies and were already fertilized. I will be checking on them later today to see if there are any burgeoning berries. If I don't, I will lop off the damaged blossoms and see if I can coax the plants to re-bloom. These strawberries are heavy producers, and I can usually get them to bloom 2 to 3 times during their month of production.

The bin of potatoes that was constructed by DaMan has sprouted! I am so excited about this as it is our first time growing potatoes.

I am serious need of hacking back some of the more over-zealous herbs. The oregano, as usual is dominating the sage. I need to take it down a peg or twelve.

This year I planted borage, a lessor known herb. I want to see what it does, and it is purported to bring in bees and butterflies to our yard. We get a pretty heavy traffic of butterflies, which are always a joy to watch.

I need to get off my duff and plant the rest of my containers. I want to put chamomile in one, dill in another, and loofa in another.  That's right, I said LOOFAH!  LOL. Those sponges that you scrub yourself in the shower with?  Those! I saw a packet of seeds at the store earlier this spring, and I amazed. I never gave a thought to loofah, or if I did, I thought it was a sea sponge. But no, it's a squash!  You can even eat it. The packet says that if you pick it early, it can be sliced and sauteed like a zucchini. Or you can let it mature on the vine, and dry it for your very own personal scrubby.  How amazing is that? Anyway, I can't wait to try it. And report back to you, of course.  :)

I also need to get my booty to the nursery for a couple of flats of marigolds. DaMan and I like to plant them in between the veggies we are growing as a deterrent to rodents and some insects. Since we are not usually overrun by either, we want to keep up the tradition. Plus, it's a little bit of flowery colorfulness in and amongst the veggies. They have a strong menthol smell to them, which, I believe is part of the deterrent.

In other news, I spent a couple of hours trimming up our dog, Muffett, yesterday. The poor old girl had lots of winter coat that needed to be shed. She's got a very Wooky like coat, but her undercarriage and legs grow silky hair that doesn't take well to being buzzed with the electric clippers. So we sat outside yesterday afternoon, and she let me attack her fur with the scissors. She looks pretty good. Now, I need to clip her nails. She is NOT going to like that at all.

I also spent a good portion of yesterday cooking for the week.  I made a hugs vat of spaghetti sauce, that will also do double duty as pizza sauce. A loaf of bread was made, as well as a double batch of chicken curry salad for sandwiches.  We will be eating well on the micro-mini ranch this week!

Junque Food - Put a little spice in your life

I used to be a mail order catalog Ho. Yes, I said HO. Back in the day, you could see me at any time perusing catalogs for clothes, housewares, etc. I would look and look and wishfully fantasize about all the stuff I could get. Occasionally, I would buy something, and pace in front of the door waiting for it to arrive, gleefully tear off the packing tape, and rip through the packaging peanuts when it finally did.

Those days are over. Economics and a little bit of maturity have caused me to give up the majority of my catalogs. It is too depressing to constantly look at shiny pages of items I can't afford. Besides, my  life has gone in a different direction, and I constantly tell myself that I'm trying to downsize my "stuff" not add to to it.

But there is one catalog that I get and still relish. Penzey's spices. What a great catalog this is! And no, they aren't paying me to say it (but they could if they wanted!) They work hard at making it more than just a catalog in that they invite readers to share stores about their families, and the cooking that they do, using (of course) Penzey's Spices. Some of the most heartfelt stories are published in their catalog. People reminiscing about growing up in their mother's kitchens, learning to cook, their father's time honored recipes for batter frying fish caught on a lazy weekend. I get choked up a lot. It's not uncommon to see my blowing my nose while reading this catalog. How amazing is that?


What kinds of memories does cooking bring back for me? I thought about it, and I have to say not so many of my youth. I had no interest in learning to cook as a child. My grandmother did most of the cooking for special occasions, and mostly, I was just interested in eating, than I was about the prep for it. It took me many years of trial and error before I learned to enjoy cooking and baking. Now, smells coming from the kitchen mean more to me than they did as a child. Coming home from work, and smelling a curry that DaMan has created that afternoon will positively make me swoon as I come in the door. Baking a loaf of bread overnight will give me sweet dreams, and a happy wake up call in the morning.

Does spices affect your lives? Is there a smell or a taste that brings back fond memories? Tell me about it.  And go sign up for that catalog.. You will love it. I know I do!

Penzey's Catalog Request Page

Junque-yard

One of my local nurseries has the most amazing selection on unusual herbs in the spring time. I was wandering around last year, when I saw they had a patchouli plant. I had never before even made the connection that  patchouli was a plant!  If I even thought about how Patchouli was made, I figured it was by squeezing whacked out hippies really hard (I KID! I KID!) No, I never really thought about where patchouli oil came from, so when I saw it, I marveled at it, but didn't buy one. And then I kicked myself, hard and often, because my mother loved patchouli oil. I went back later that summer and see if they still had it in stock, but they didn't.

So this spring, I knew that I was going to get her a patchouli plant for either her birthday or Mother's day. Her birthday, which is in early March, was too early for the nursery to have their plants out yet. We were still in the grip of winter at that time. So last week, I headed back to the nursery, driving with my fingers crossed that they had what I wanted. And they did! As I was doing cartwheels down the aisles (no easy feat with a plant in my hand), I decided to see what else unusual they might have. Something that I could grow as a challenge to myself, and my poor little herb garden. 

I ended up grabbing 2 awesome challenges!  The first is a stevia plant. I'm going to see what it's like to grow, dry, and crush it as a sugar substitute. The second is a curry plant! How cool is that?? I always figured that curry was a mixture of spices, and not it's own plant. And it smells heavenly too...just like a warm golden curry sauce.

I have no idea about the care and feeding of either of my new charges, but I plan on researching and learning. And sharing with you!

BTW, Mom loved her new little patchouli plant. And it smells nice too. Much lighter than you'd expect.

No hippies were harmed in the making of this blog post.