Columbine Munchers

I have had a bumper crop of columbine this year. The four double "Barlow" columbine that I planted five years ago have propagated nicely (the columbine pictured is actually the common columbine - not the double). They are coming in nice and plush. At least they were until a few days ago when my husband and I noticed that some of the leaves were stripped. I didn't give it much thought until yesterday when I noticed that a few of the plants had been stripped of all their leaves. I took a closer look and found tiny green caterpillars greedily munching away. In fact, some of the leaves were nearly covered in them.

I called my husband over to help me pluck them off. As I figured, this was a treat for him. Together we must have picked several hundred caterpillars. This bunch in the cup came from the one columbine plant pictured above. Holy Caterpillars, Batman!!

I think we were just in time for some, maybe a little too late for others, but I am definitely putting this on my spring-time TO DO list!!

MN Landscape Arboretum Part 3

Here is another waterfall. This one you can see a little of the plantings that are around it. I think that they use mostly shrubs and such around waterfalls because of the scale.



Rock gardens rock! This picture does not do this garden justice. I have started a rock garden of my own and took a few notes from this one.



Here's my honey in the Japanese garden. He is creating his own Japanese garden this year. Too bad we don't have room for a waterfall!



Here is the waterfall in the Japanese garden. Well, OK, this actually just looks like a bonsai on an island, but in the upper right you can see the waterfall. But that bonsai is fabulous too!

MN Landscape Arboretum Part 2

This was one of the very natural areas. They have planted these daffodils among the grasses next to the pond. I just thought this was very lovely.



I really like pergolas. I would very much like a pergola off the back of my house, but it is not in the budget, so I will live vicariously.



I thought that this was a very good grouping and I like this color yellow.

MN Landscape Arboretum

A couple of weekends ago my family and I visited the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum for the first time. We had lived just twenty minutes away from it for two years and never went. That was probably for the best because we were apartment dwellers and it would have just made me sad that I couldn't have my own garden. In other words, if you live near the Twin Cities I highly recommend a visit.

I took a ton of pictures , but I will only put a few here. I have picked out what I thought were the most interesting.


This was one of the first sights as we entered the arboretum.



This is the front tulip display. I loved the amount of tulips that they had packed together. If I had enough money, I think I might do this too.



There were several water falls. This was one of my better pictures of one.


These pictures will have to serve as an appetizer. Due to the fact that I had a very busy weekend doing home repair and I desperately need some sleep, I will post some more pictures throughout the week.

From the Street

It's Looking Like a Real Live Garden

I have never been really happy with the look of my garden. It has always seemed a little sparse, disjointed, thrown together. But this year may just be the year that it all pulls together. Other than the truckload of weeds that need to come out (I have major problems with grass and creeping charlie that seems to keep growing over the winter), I am feeling it this spring. When I look out at my garden, I now feel pretty good.

Potatoes and Parsnips in Four Cheese Herb Sauce

OH.MY.GOSH!!

I made the most delicious sauce today!
Seriously, I almost cried.

It was getting late and I needed to make something for dinner. I didn't have time to look for a recipe, so I just decided to totally wing it.

I needed to use up some sweet onions. I've been compulsively buying them every time I go to the store. I even bought some when I went up to my parents - it is THAT bad.

I chopped up and sauteed a whole medium size onion in olive oil. While it was cooking I thought a little garlic would be good so I added three minced cloves.

I thought potatoes would go good with it, so I sliced a bunch of potatoes into 1/2" slices and put them in a baking dish.

I remembered that I had bought some parsnips a while back meaning to try them, so I peeled one and tried it. It was kind of like a spicy carrot. Yeah, that will go with potatoes, so I chopped up two and threw them in with the potatoes.

For the sauce, I threw 3TBS butter into the onions over medium heat. Once it was melted, I mixed in about 1/8-1/4 cup flour. Once the flour was thoroughly mixed in with the butter, I mixed in about a pint of half and half. I added 2TBS thyme and sea salt and pepper. Then I remembered that I had bought an Italian four cheese mix and sprinkled some of that in too.

O.M.G!! It was YUMMMMMY!!! I wanted to eat it right then.

But I poured it over the potatoes and parsnips instead, mixed it in, and baked the whole thing at 350 degrees for an hour.
It was delicious!! I will definitely make this again. My son and husband weren't so sure about the parsnips (although they each had two huge servings), so I may omit them in the future. I think they just weren't expecting them.

In any case, I definitely have big plans for that sauce!

SPRING IS HERE!!

Just one month after I took the pictures of the snow storm, I took these pictures of my garden finally waking up for another season of color.

I planted these Pickwick crocuses about five or six years ago. There were just twenty of them then, now they are filling in just I had hoped that they would. I like the way that they brighten the front of the house.

I love crocuses because they mulitply so well and are the first thing to bloom in the spring. I tend to not buy them though because I get too caught up in tulips. This fall, though, I am going to make an effort to get more.

These King Alfred daffodils are to the left of all the crocuses (when facing the house) in my "woodland" bed. I am trying to create a light woodland area where I can have tea and read. I planted these daffodils about six years ago. There were just three of them then. I had piled leaves over this entire area about a foot deep, because I am trying to widen the bed, wanted to protect some of the plants that I planted last year, and really was just too lazy to bag the leaves up. I hadn't had time yet to rake them away, but that isn't stopping these daffodils.
I like daffodils, but they are another victim to the tulip mania that hits every time I go bulb shopping.

I can't remember the name of these tulips, but I think they are Kaufmanniana. They are species tulips. Species tulips are good for naturalizing since they multiply well and maintain their vigor. Many species tulips also have beautiful patterning on the leaves, which you can just make out in this picture. They are low growing, though, so they are best for the front of the bed and look really fantastic in rock gardens. I like to use the species tulips under larger tulips. The species tulips tend to bloom first and by the time they are dwindling, the larger tulips are starting to bloom.

I'm not sure what these are called. I looked them up a couple of times, but I keep forgetting what they are called. They came with the house. They naturalized wonderfully in the yard. Before my son got older and we got the dogs, they would bloom in a great swath across the yard. Now they get trampled too much, and so have contented themselves to taking over my garden instead. That is fine by me. They bloom very early so the only thing that they compete with really are the crocuses. Their blooms outlast the crocuses easily. And they are just so darn cheery!

And, yes, I even got my first dandelion of the season. It is a bit early for them, so I'm hoping that means that I can get an early start on planting too.

YAY SPRING!!

Northern Pike in a Caper Sauce

I got some northern pike on sale last week and wanted something quick for dinner tonight, so pike it was.

Northern pike is a fairly common mild-flavored predator fish from where I grew up. It has a loose skeletal structure which makes it very difficult to get completely bone-free. But this was professionally filleted, so I was good to go.

I actually took the recipe from the package the fish came in (but of course I made a few changes). It had capers in it and I had bought a jar of capers months ago, but didn't have any recipes to use them in. Mmmm... capers!!!

Mince two cloves of garlic and saute in a couple tablespoons of olive oil. Chop up one small tomato and throw in the pan with the garlic. Throw in a tablespoon or two of wine (I actually used sherry), a couple tablespoons of basil, and a tablespoon or two of butter. Cook until the butter is melted. Salt and pepper to taste.

I used my clay pot cooker for the fish. It works great for fish too! I put a little olive oil in the bottom of the pot, But I don't think this was necessary. I put the fish fillets in frozen and poured two tablespoons of lemon juice and the caper sauce over the top. I sprinkled on two tablespoons of an Italian four cheese mix. I baked this for 20 minutes at 500 degrees.

It was DELICIOUS!!!! This is going on my favorites list. And now I have a recipe to use up those capers on. Mmmm... capers!!

If You Don't Like the Weather in Wisconsin...

Whoa boy!! It was a good thing that we got all that gardening done yesterday, because look what came down over night. You might not be able to see it very well from this picture but we got about 15 inches of snow. Power went out around town and it was very tricky traveling today.

I love snow!! And that is a good thing, because we are scheduled to get some more in a couple of days.