Rescuing Uncle Dillon's Wine Recipe

In a rare technological triumph, I have rescued Uncle Dillon's Wine Recipe. Between changing both laptops and PDA's, I thought I had lost the priceless wine recipe shared by my uncle at a family reunion a few years ago. But, in my efforts to find my equally lost cranberry tea recipe, I unearthed it on a backup on Love's computer. I've never made the wine, but I'm scheming to have my brother make it with the wild grapes that grow near his home in Texas. I just yesterday made another batch of jelly from juice he froze for me last summer. Uncle Dillon's daughter says that while she was hesitant to drink the wine -- afraid it would poison her -- it's actually pretty good. The cranberry tea isn't nearly so colorful, but it is a holiday favorite. It's not bad with peach schnapps added, either. Here are both recipes:

Uncle Dillon's Wine
July 30, 2006

1 gallon of grapes
3 cups of sugar

Mix grapes and sugar in a gallon jug. Tighten lid. Wrap jug in a newspaper & brown paper bag. Bury 3 feet deep for 120 days. Place board on top before covering, to prevent breaking when digging up. Strain through cloth -- don't mash or squeeze. May need to double strain. Makes 1 quart of wine.

Cranberry Tea
1 quart cranberry juice
small pkg red hots
3 cups OJ
2 cinnamon sticks
1/2 cup sugar

Mix over low fire until red hots melt. Strain. Dilute with water & serve hot.

August Ozark Gardening Calendar

August 1
Kitchen Garden: Plant southern peas, summer squash (in partial shade with thick mulch), carrots, collards, lima beans, cucumbers. Set out tomatoes, broccoli Plant snap peas & sugar peas. Take cuttings of perennial herbs to start new plants.
Berry Patch: After blackberry harvest, remove spent floricanes and fertilize. Prune laterals on primocanes to 4 feet to encourage branching. Replace thin straw on strawberries & blackberries. Cottage Garden: Order bulbs for fall planting. Plant autumn crocus & colchicum. Cut lilies to ground when stalks die back. Cut back annuals to promote fall reblooming.
Woodlot & Orchard: Order stock for fall planting. Keep windfall apples picked up.

August 8
Kitchen Garden: Transplant cabbage, cauliflower Plant beets, cucumbers, turnips
Roadsides: Check elderberries for ripeness. Harvest & mark for taking cuttings in spring.

August 15
Kitchen Garden: Plant bush beans, cucumbers, mustard, kale.

August 22
Kitchen Garden: Plant cucumbers, lettuce, radishes Start pinching out any newly set melons.

August 29
Kitchen Garden: Plant spinach, lettuce, radishes
Cottage Garden: Plant perennial and biennial seed.
Woodlot: Plant container-grown evergreens if weather is cool enough.

The Daylily Project

As I noted a couple of posts ago, I've been hauling daylily plants home from my mother's gardens for years. Some I've lost over the years, some have multiplied like crazy, some I've shared with fellow gardeners, some I have but have lost track of. I've lost the names of almost all of them, though my mother was most careful to give me the name of each. All of them have been moved around my gardens until I know longer know what is where. Now I've set out to at least label each plant as it blooms so that I can know where the duplicates are.

I keep reading that you can eat the buds, and someday I'm going to try that. But today, I'm just going to enjoy the beautiful show of color!

Here's my catalog. I'll be adding more as they bloom.

#1 -- In Pantry Garden & Cottage Garden -- I have lots of these to share.

#3 -- South of path in Cottage Garden -- not a great photo!

#4 -- Cottage Garden “Island” & Pantry Garden -- Lots of these to share, too!

#5 -- 'Delightful Lady' -- Center of southern section of Cottage Garden -- My absolute favorite. A much more delicate pink than this picture shows. Some to share, but not until the fall.

#6 -- 'Fat & Sassy' -- Along fence on south edge of Cottage Garden

#7 -- Double Yellow (description, not name) -- West of pink rose in Cottage Garden (along south fence) -- The picture doesn't do it justice!

#8 -- Along south edge of Cottage Garden, near cut-off -- It's hard to tell from the picture, but this one is peach-colored.

#9 & #10 -- New transplants from Mother's, no pictures. Both are in the Pantry Garden.

#11 -- Along south fence of Cottage Garden, between ‘Fat & Sassy’ and double yellow

#12 -- 'Redin Kilpatrick' -- in Pantry Garden

#2 -- Joan Senior -- In Pantry Garden

Spreading the Joy, Sharing the Wealth

This week has found Skye and me making our annual trek south to visit family. We spent three nights at my mother's, with day trips to my sister's and cousin's homes. It was wonderful to spend time with all of them.

This morning finds us at Love's parents' home in southern Arkansas. We're heading north again in an hour or so. But yesterday, we were busy spreading the joy, sharing the wealth.

I don't think I've ever visited my mother without bringing home plants, most often daylilies. This trip finds my trunk loaded with three daylilies, four irises, and a pot full of little oak trees -- and enough to share of each. So yesterday evening, my mother-in-law and I were in her back yard, setting out a bit of each. I hope they will do well for her. She always speaks of her mother's irises, and perhaps these will remind her of those.

July Ozark Gardening Calendar

July 1
Kitchen Garden: Plant bush & pole beans, beets, cabbage, carrots, lettuce.
Monitor tomatoes for stink bugs & spray with pyrethrin.
Pantry Garden: Dig potatoes. Plant beans
Berry Patch: Continue blueberry harvest.
All gardens: Continue beetle patrol.

July 7
Orchard: Patrol for webworms in pecans, cut, and burn.

July 15
Kitchen Garden/Pantry Garden: plant bush beans, collards, southern peas, Irish potatoes.
Indoors: brocolli, lettuce, cabbage

July – after blueberry harvest
Berry Patch: Fertilize blueberries with cottonseed meal (6-2.5-1.7), feather meal (13-0-0), fish meal (10-4-0), soybean meal (7-1.6-2-3) or alfalfa meal (3-1-2).

July 25
Kitchen Garden/Pantry Garden: Plant turnips.

July 29
pre-sprout corn to plant August 1

Upon the Laying of an Egg

February 18, 2009, marks a momentous occasion at The Realm. So does June 21, 2009. What's so important about those dates? Well, February 18 is the day that we brought home 10 Cuckoo Marans chicks to join the household, and June 21 is the day Skye found the first egg laid by our lovely ladies.

Time is short this morning, so just a quick overview. I'll write more details later. After returning the males to the neighbor who gave us the chicks, we have 5 lovely Cuckoo Marans living the the Chicken Tractor designed and built by Love. In April, 3 little Cinnamon Queens from a local farm supply store joined The Flock. This Sunday, someone laid her first egg, which Skye scrambled and ate for breakfast Monday morning.

More details of the Chicken Saga to follow, I promise. If you'd like to see more pictures, check out Fowl Friday over at Skye's blog. Right now, I have to fix sack lunches for the day and get ready to leave The Realm for another day at the library.

Counting Down

Yes, I'm counting down the days to my summer break, which starts Friday! I hope to get back in the writing mode. I've been in the mood for a while, but it always comes down to: do I garden or write? do I sleep or write? do I spend time interacting with my family or write? Somehow, writing never wins.

But as I was gardening in the early morning today (yes, I can get some gardening in before work if I get up at 5:00, and it's much cooler at 5am than 5pm), I finally realized why I haven't been writing. While I never write as much during the school year as I do during the five weeks I am "off" in the summer, this spring has been pretty much a desert. But Love went back to work in January. I had gotten used to those extra hours his schedule while working on his master's had allowed me. Now they're gone, and the house is the wreck it always becomes when I'm trying to juggle work, family, my gardens, and the house. The house always comes in last. And that's as it should be. I don't clean house for life.... I garden for life.

June Ozark Gardening Calendar

June 1
Kitchen Garden:
Plant bush & pole beans, carrots, celery, corn, cucumber, eggplant, melon, radish, & summer squash.
Transplant long keeper tomato and peppers.
Indoors:
Plant brocolli, cabbage, cauliflower, & fall crop celery.
Cottage Garden:
Cut sage back halfway.

June 10
Kitchen Garden:
Plant various beans & southern peas.

May Ozark Gardening Calendar

May 1
Kitchen Garden:
Plant beans, dill, sunflower, gourds, & winter squash.
Dust asaragus with rock phosphate for cucumber beetles.
Transplant sweet potato slips (throughout month).

When soil temperature is 65F and nights are 55F
Kitchen Garden:
Plant peanuts.

May 6
Kitchen Garden:
Transplant celery & cucumbers.
Indoors:
Plant long keeper tomatoes & fall cabbages.

May 15
Kitchen Garden:
Plant carrots.
Transplant melons.
Orchard:
Fertilize pecans.