Althouse: At the Allium Café...

April 4, 2011

At the Allium Café...

... we're seeing some progress.

13 comments:

MadisonMan said...: There's still a little snow in my back yard, in the shade of the neighbor's garage where the snow drifted a lot. When that goes, I'll see progress.

The rain last night helped though.; 4/4/11, 12:09 PM
coketown said...: I'm stoked for spring! I'm already starting my veggies indoors. Can't plant until June 1st, though.; 4/4/11, 12:09 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Meade planted some parsley and basil yesterday.; 4/4/11, 12:11 PM
Ann Althouse said...: That hail last night was crazy.; 4/4/11, 12:12 PM
Dose of Sanity said...: The hail stopped on cue - right when I got my car into the garage.; 4/4/11, 12:21 PM
Triangle Man said...: Parsley and basil are nice, but what Wisconsin needs is some locally grown baby ginger. It's the latest thing you know.; 4/4/11, 12:27 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "Parsley and basil are nice, but what Wisconsin needs is some locally grown baby ginger. It's the latest thing you know."

We're not mainly planting food, but we have 2 containers that Meade wanted something edible in. He let me pick, and I wanted something that I'd really cook with and that would be especially good to pick a little at a time for use. That way the leaves would remain decorative.; 4/4/11, 12:37 PM
coketown said...: I'm trying tomatillos again this year. Two years ago I tried it as an experiment without realizing you need, you know, two to actually set fruit. My first garlic harvest was last fall and hoooooooly moooooooly you have not eaten garlic until you've gotten it straight from the garden. I swear 1/2 teaspoon is as potent as a whole store-bought bulb! Yum yum yum.

We also had snow yesterday after two weeks of 60-70 degree weather. I planted potatoes three weeks ago and am worried they have sprouted since then. Does anyone know if that matters? If there are sprouts should I just cover them with mulch?; 4/4/11, 12:38 PM
Meade said...: Coketown, try just hosing off any ice crystals in the morning before sunlight hits the leaves. Even so, a little frost damage won't stop potatoes.

And speaking of garlic... softneck or hard? Hard is the way to go. Ten times more flavor (although not as good if you're storing for winter.; 4/4/11, 12:47 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: Last night I had a dream entirely in ASL. It started out by being necessary because the people were hard-of-hearing and deaf, but then it changed to being just the way that all the regular ordinary people spoke. I woke up thinking, "Okay, that was strange."

A few linkies.

I think this turned out funny. The cartoonish face of Angry Bird is not photoshopped. The source pic was The Telegraph picture of the day. The submitter of the photo said the bird attacked him.

You might be interested in these recent food posts, and maybe not:

banana ice cream with chocolate biscuit.

I'm on a masa harina kick. I'm adding it to things in nonstandard ways to see how familiar things are improved.

Mexican eggs This turned out really good, and you should try it.

Corn fritters. This is made with frozen corn processed to bits and masa harina. It's a significant improvement over ordinary corn fritters and will soon sweep across the world if ethanol doesn't use up all the corn.

Poached eggs on a chocolate biscuit featuring masa harina hashed browns with cheddar cheese. These cheesy hashed browns turned out really good. I made them again to refine the technique but I didn't post them. I'm thinking about baking these in little piles so that they can be served to a group. They're especially good when the cheese burns a little. This could be the next new brunch item seized upon by hosts everywhere.; 4/4/11, 12:57 PM
coketown said...: Meade, that's good to hear! I figured potatoes were pretty resilient. But this is my first year gardening at such a high altitude so wanted to double-check. It's a terrible thing to lose a potato from frost.

And so far I've only grown softneck varieties. I only learned of the difference a couple years ago, and when I went looking for hardnecks my only option was to order from a catalog. If the difference is as awesome as you say, I'll definitely order some for next year. But I do prefer garlic that stores well for a considerable time.; 4/4/11, 1:13 PM
MadisonMan said...: Two years ago I tried it as an experiment without realizing you need, you know, two to actually set fruit.

I did not know this. I'm glad I have about a dozen of them planted.

That, mini-peppers and zinnias are the only things I'm actually growing from seed inside.; 4/4/11, 3:04 PM
Simon said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/4/11, 3:36 PM