Giò's Tea pot

One happy day, the Panduro hobby catalogue was dropped in my mailbox. So many neat things in there, I could spend twice my salary every month on everything in there.... And one of the things I saw was a tea pot with built in cup painted with golden and pink colours. I do not know why, but my first thought went to Giò. I got that weird, maybe not even reasonable idea, that I should paint something similar to her. So off I went and purchased the tea pot and the colours.

6/12-2011

 Actually, the pattern I went for was nothing like the original one I saw in the catalogue, but, guess what, copying stuff is not really my strong side. I remembered I had some nice stamps with some cute flowers and I thought of actually "stamping them on" to the cup and then paint it, which is quite obviously a worthless and impossible idea. So I simply did flowers by hand. The idea would be to start from the bottom of the cup and let flowers go from there to the top of the cup and in some cases to the bottom of the tea pot part of it.

If you look below, you see how the stems go through.

6/11-2011

It is even possible to turn the pot around compared to the cup and still have stems matching up in some points.

6/11-11

6/11-11

The top part has also got small flowers all around. The knob is also pink.
Every detail has been bordered with golden relief colour.
This project has been done by using Pébéos Porcelaine 150 colour, Shimmer pink #107 and a similar stick colour for the relief.
After painting, the colour needs to rest for about 1 day at least. As the relief was thick I let it dry somewhat longer. Then you can simply bake it in the oven at 150degrees Celsius for about 35 minutes. I am unsure of whether this is necessary, but to make sure I put it in the cold oven (if I recall it correctly) and let it in there until completely cold again.
Theoretically, you should be able to wash it in the dish washer. But you never know....

I personally felt it was very difficult to get a "sleek colour" really. When painting the colour would go away. But well... who says you need a sleek colour?!

Hope Giò likes it! Actually, her colour is blue rather than pink but you never know! Could not stop thinking about her and a pink tea pot so it had to be pink :O)

Mommy's birthday minicake...

Background
Mommy does not really like cakes that much. So I thought instead of making a big cake, I could bake a lot of muffins and cupcakes of different kind for her enjoyment but still make a very little cake for her, just for the tradition... :O) Well, that was theoretically a good idea, but making a small cake is really far from easy. And as a matter of fact, it looked pretty ugly... Poor mommy... :O(

11/8-2011

 But on the other side, she seemed to enjoy the cupcakes/muffins with Nutella, her favorite! And she did not complain about the cake. Maybe as I had been baking for her the whole day basically and she did not dare :O)

And on the positive side of it, I got to use my brand new cake plate!

11/8-2011

I used the same sugarpaste that I used for Janne's birthday cake. I took the orange color as she likes orange a lot. I also found quite cute "candles" that fit mommy.

11/8-2011

Honestly, I can't really remember what I had in it.... Thit is what happens if you wait that long to write a post about something... :O( I'll try to think some more.

Barbro's Birthday Cake

Background
Barbro's birthday had to be celebrated. She mentioned she liked chocolate and berries. Then well, this was the result based on her statements.

25/10-2011

The cream used to decorate the external part was an Italian marengue butter cream.The chocolate decorations were made with regular 70% chocolate and the cake was then topped with blackberries. The idea with the chocolate decoration was to look like "paint" spots on the side and as a grid on the top.

25/9-2011

I wanted to write "Happy birthday Barbro", but the chocolate was giving me a hard time: tried to "temperate" the chocolate to get a good result without a thermometer, but it did not turn out as desired: the chocolate melted as soon as you touched it. So I just tried to minimise the touching of course. But it was not easy to move around those very big letters. Also the "space" was not enough to put the name on it also. So Grattis was all that got space... :O)

In the inside, I did a raspberry "Jelly/jam" and a vanilla sauce (which I burned while I got distracted) mixed with whipped cream.

This was a very very heavy cake really. After one slice, you were more than full. Personally, I have eaten better, but I cannot state I did not try to do something good. But sometimes, trying is simply not enough... :O( I guess next time I ever come up with the idea of doing a butter cream, I will have to make sure I will use butter without salt. But then I did not have a choice as there was hardly any butter to find in the shops.

Almond maringue

Background
In Italy, sometimes you can purchase wonderful soft almond cookies made out of what they call almond paste. How they do it has always been a kind of secret to me. I have tried many times but I never got even near the original. This time was no exception, but it does not need to be like the original to be good... So it was indeed very enjoyable. Trying to remember the exact recipe, and this is my best try. They tasted a lot like soft meringue.

25/9-2011

Ingredients
3 egg whites
1,75dl sugar
125gr almonds (a little bag)

Procedure
Cook hot water and throw in the almonds. Remove the skin. Mix the clean almonds until you do not have any pieces left.
Whip egg whites.
Mix with sugar and almonds.
Continue whipping for a long time until the mixture seems to keep its form. Actually it is not easy and it takes some time, but at the end it will work.

25/9-2011

Put in the oven at 140 degrees Celsius and bake 30 minutes. Turn off the oven and let the cookies in there until the day after (or at least until the oven is cold).

Panang curry

Background
November 2011 we were on Koh Phiphi in Thailand and one of the last days there, we landed in a "hole in the wall" restaurant with the best food ever. There was a guy standing in the door producing pad thai and other very good food. Then there were a few ladies in the back doing curry on demand. We ordered panang curry and were so positively surprised by it, we were forced to simply try it at home. We even decided to start a chili production to guarantee the supply of chilis for panaeng curry.

Ingredients
The dish
1 can coconut milk
1 tablespoon shredded lime leaves (I did not have this)
1/2 teaspoon palm sugar
200gr sliced pork or beef (actually I had double as much and it worked anyways)
2 teaspoons fish sauce (original recipe said 2 tablespoons, but that was not correct. I tried it with that amount last time and I thought I was about to die of salt excess!!!! So 2 teaspoons is just right)

The curry
1 chilli (original recipe says 1/3 big dried chilies) soaked with seeds removed
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons galangal, cut into small cubes
2 tablespoons lemon grass, cut into thin rounds
1 tablespoon coriander root (I did not have this)
1 teaspoon roasted coriander seeds (could not find whole seeds so I used grounded ones, 1,5 spoons to make up for the missing coriander root)
1 tablespoon roasted cumin seeds (actually should only have been 1 teaspoon but I like the taste of cumin)
2 tablespoons garlic
2 tablespoons shallots
2 tablespoon roasted peanuts (actually should only have been 1 tablespoon but I love peanuts)
1 teaspoon shrimp paste (make sure you do not use more as it tastes like fish food...)

For a different recipy for Panaeng curry, also refer to the Curry paste post. The only Panaeng curry I tried to cook was this one though.

Instructions
Preparing the curry

1. Start by soaking the chillies in water until they’re soft. This could take up to a half hour. When they’re soft, cut them open to remove the guts & seeds. If you have fresh chilli use that, of course, so you skip the soaking and waiting
2. Toast the cumin seeds, coriander seeds and peanuts separately in a pan over medium heat. Roast each until fragrant, about 3-5 minutes.
3. Grind up the seeds together in a stone mortar and pestle until powdered. Remove and set aside. I actually used a grinder as it was quicker.
4. Add your chillies with the salt to the stone mortar and pestle and pound until a paste. This will take awhile — the skins are difficult to mash indeed.
5. When your chillies are a uniform paste, add the lemongrass. Pound until a paste. Then add the galangal and coriander roots, and again, smash until paste. Actually tried to use the grinder but it was not so easy to grind.
6. Add the peanuts, shallots, garlic and your powdered cumin & cilantro seeds. Mash until paste. Add the shrimp paste and pound to mix well. Set aside. As it did not really mix so well in the mixer, I added some of the coconut milk, which was a good idea. Not really the thai way, but who cares... :O) I have a good excuse: my mortar is too little and the whole amount does not fit in it... :O)

Preparing the dish

1. Cut your meat cross-grain into thin slices (about 1.5″ (4cm) long x 1/2″ (1.25cm) tall x 1/8″ (.25cm) thick).
2. Heat up your pan first on medium-high heat, then add 1/2 cup of the coconut cream. It should sizzle right away and boil. Add all the paste and mix well.
3. Fry the paste. You want to keep the paste dry, but not too dry that it sticks and burns. Keep adding a little bit of coconut milk when it gets too dry, maybe about 1/4 cup every minute or two. Keep stirring so it doesn’t burn.
4. Keep adding coconut cream about 1/4 cup at a time, every minute or two. You should start to see a lot of oil coming to the top of the curry. This is normal and a sign that you’re doing it right! Personally, even though it is not the real thai stuff, I am no friend of oil swimming around so I actually tried to keep it emulsionated and not that thick as it is supposed to be. I think it tastes better. The one I got in Koh Phi phi was not completely thick either.
5. Your paste should start to smell really good after 4-5 minutes. You’ll start to see a lot of oil rising to the top, especially where it’s bubbling. When it does, add your meat. Myself, not being a fan of the oil floating around, I actually added the meat earlier, and I am indeed happy for that.
6. Cook the meat until cooked, add the lime leaves, fish sauce and palm sugar, then keep going about 3-5 minutes so the meat is soft. The consistency of the curry should be similar to the photo. If it’s too dry, add a bit more of the coconut milk. Remove and serve.
7. Feel free to garnish with shredded lime leaves and a few leaves of Thai basil. In the original recipe, it says that some fancy restaurants serve it with a bit of thickened coconut cream (thickened with a bit of tapioca flour) which you’re welcome to do too! I personally could not bother... :O)

Took some pictures, but I first need to upload them on my computer. There will be more to come!
Note to self: doubling up the sauce amount instead of the meat could be a better idea.

Caramel sauce

This is the best recipe so far for caramel sauce. This sauce makes good competition to the McDonald's caramel sauce in the McSundays. Might sound geeky, but it is really very good.
Actually, the last time I did caramel sauce, it was not this real recipe but the taste was not as good either.

Ingredients
2dl sugar
2dl sirup
2dl cream
2 teaspoons vanilla sugar

Note: If you use white sirup, it will take ages to get to the right colour... if ever. One tip is then to use maybe somewhat less than 0,5dl brown sirup. It gives the right result much quicker.

Preparation
Mix all together and cook slowly until the mixture becomes light brown but rather thick texture. It might take quite some time.

Tips

• Can be used for ice cream, over fruits or, of course, over both :O) Ate it with tofu line ice cream and raspberries.
• Even though it contains cream, it seems to resist for a long time in the fridge. Found some in the fridge left from Christmas time and it still did not look anything quite a few months afterwards. I then left it outside the fridge for over a month and nothing started growing in it anyway. Surprising how easy it is to preserve caramel sauce. Well, to tell the truth, I did not dare tasting it any longer, but it did look pretty fresh.

Rhododendron Catawbiense 'Grandiflorum'

Latin: Rhododendron Catawbiense 'Grandiflorum'
Swedish: Parkrododendron
English: Rhododendron Catawbiense 'Grandiflorum'
Purchased at Plantagen quite a few years ago

7/6-2011

This plant requires sour soil and is therefore to be planted in peat. At the beginning we actually dug a hole and filled it with peat only. Reading about this plant, you are supposed to really only have peat in the area.

7/6-2011

And the hole should also be rather large, otherwise the plant will grow well until the roots reach the "normal soil" and then stop feeling well. Which is more or less what happened here.

One other issue with this plant (and also this I found out the hard way) is that you really have to water it properly in Spring time. Being an evergreen plant that never looses its leaves, it has quite a large area (all the leaves) to evaporate water through. When it is not humid in the ground and maybe also is rather frozen in the soil, the sun will burn the leaves and for that matter also the blossoms/potential blossoms.
This year only a few rather small blossoms bloomed. But it was never how it should be. This is when the shrub had its maximum period of flowering this Spring. Not much indeed.

31/5-2011

I will try again next year with watering at an earlier stage of the Spring. A lot of sources recommend covering the leaves with tissue to avoid evaporation. I personally do not feel it looks very good so I do hope watering will do it.

2/7-2011

This year we have actually refurbished the area around the rhododendron as we felt it was not very practical as it was. The grass (especially the couch grass) could not keep away and grew in together with the plant all the time. In a few days after removal, it was there again. Furthermore, it is said that grass takes away nutrition from the plant itself. So we decided to do a whole flower bed for peat plants. We removed a whole deal of ground and refilled it with peat. The plant seems to have recharged its powers since then. Maybe with good watering, we'll have some enjoyable blooming next year?!

Producer's information
Normal watering and fertilizing
Distance to other plants: 3m
Height: 2,5m
Prefers half shady to shady location.
Blooms in May-June
Winter hardy up to Swedish zone 5

Dahlia 'Catherine Deneuve'

Latin: Dahlia 'Catherine Deneuve'
Swedish: Dahlia 'Catherine Deneuve'
English: Dahlia 'Catherine Deneuve'

This dahlia is one of the most lovely dahlias I have seen. It lights up the place. Really no kidding.

14/8-2011

We have now had it two years in a row, that is we purchased it twice.
Last year, 2010, it gave very large amounts of flowers and it lighted up my Automn. It really even survived the first frost until October. It was a pleasure to see it.

This year, 2011, I was forced to purchase a new bulb as I enjoyed last year's so much. I am though not sure why: it might depend on the fact that it does not have enough space, or it might simply be that it was not its year. Or maybe I put it outside too early. Though the current amount of flowers is far from satisfactory: there are a lot of blossoms, but they haven't developed to flowers yet. So far we have only seen one only flower at the time. Still lighting up my everyday routine, but I wish more flowers were to come.

Product description
Single orange flowers (8 cm. across) and beautiful dark foliage, height 80 cm.

Dahlia Gallery Matisse Purple

Latin: Dahlia "Gallery Matisse Purple"
Swedish: Dahlia "Gallery Matisse Purple"
English: Dahlia "Gallery Matisse Purple"

14/8-2011

This dahlia is a tricky one. She will though land again on my purchase list: the flowers, even though not even near to what they looked like in the catalog are very beautiful, colourful and happy. Well, why tricky, you might wonder. The answer is easy! It is the only dahlia whose flowers actually grow under the leaves... So if you want to see them, you'll need to do serious research... under all those leaves. It is very small compared to other dahlias. Right now it has maybe around 2-3 flowers but there are more to come... somewhere under all those leaves... :O)


Producer's description
rather large (13 cm. Ø) orange flowers, height only 30 cm. Purple colour.

Ficus carica 'Brown Turkey'

Latin: Ficus carica 'Brown Turkey'
Swedish: Fikon 'Brown Turkey'
English: Fig 'Brown Turkey'
Purchased from Graines Baumaux spring 2010 by post order.

21/8-2011

The description gave a very positive impression of the fruit. And as it seemed to be giving very good figs as well as being suitable for containers and cold areas, we ordered it. It arrived with 2 figs on it. Both of them fell off while trying to "replant" the guy. We purchased a rather large pot and let us see how far it is enough.
I do not believe the plant can stand outside in wintertime in Sweden so it still needs to have an acceptably light pot so we can move it around.
In 2010 the first figs were gone but quite a few more came back. Unfortunately all of them far too late. The winter came and they never became ripe. In Automn we covered it with a little "plastic house" and wrapped the pot in bubble plastic. It looses all leaves in Automn. But in Winter, we put it in Jannes parents garage that was supposed to keep over 0 degrees but not much higher. The garage did not have any windows but theoretically the plant does not need windows when it does not have any leaves. Indeed it survived. We took it back in March or April again and placed it on the Southern side of the house against the house wall. I removed the figs that were on, maybe it was not necessary or maybe it was even a bad idea? Unsure. Next year, I'll leave them there if there are any and see where this leads us. It is never too late to remove them if it turns out to be a bad idea.

21/5-2011

The plant has grown and has given more branches. The size has increased also, but it is still rather small.

21/7-2011

Today we ate our first fig ever: it was very very sweet and very tasty.

21/8-2011

21/8-2011

The figs you normally buy around here taste like nothing compared to our first fig from our little plant! It was not very big, but it was very good!!!! Maybe not like a real Italian 10cm fig, but I am very happy anyways! Two more are about to become ripe.

21/8-2011

And quite a few more are to be seen on the plant, but they are far from large or ripe unfortunately.

26/7-2011

14/6-2011

Hope they will make it before Winter comes. It is very special though to see a plant without any leaves but with figs on it. Funny!

Producer's information
In catalogue: It produces fruits twice a year: once at the end of July/beginning of August and once in September/october. The fruits are formed as a pear, with a colour going from golden to brown (40/45 grams). The meat is read. It is the fig plant that is supposed to be most resistent to cold and is recommended for the Northern and Eastern areas (My little note: of France, of course.... Do not think this applies to Sweden). It is perfectly suited to be grown in containers.


On the tag: Place in a sunny position. Gives big and juicy fruits. Ripe for picking: July-August. Trim: March. Height approximately 150cm.

Pyrus salicifolia maybe...

Latin: Pyrus salicifolia maybe...
Swedish: Silverpäron
English: Willow-leafed Pear, Willowleaf Pear, Weeping Pear
Purchased probably in 2009 at Blomstertorget

We purchased this tree as a grown tree as we wanted to have a tree from the beginning and not start from a small thing. It was rather expensive and not easy to transport, but it got home and we created a flower bed around it to crown it.

8/7-2009

The stem was nearly 2 meters but it was not very thick. We had to use three stocks to stabilize the tree.
The tree looses all its leaves during winter time but it can become very beautiful anyways when the snow freezes the branches.

30/12-2009

In two years time, the stem has not grown in length as I think it is not supposed to as I have understood it, but it has become thicker and we are considering removing the stocks now.
Also the amounts of branches has increased.

21/5-2011

Personally, I felt like it was "weeping" too much so I came up with the idea of cutting the branches so that the growth will go upwards. The idea was good but I did it too far down. Will repeat the process later in September but starting further up. Let us see if it becomes beautiful then. I have some picture in my head about how it should look. The idea is to get it grow in width rather than downwards.
This tree gives beautiful white flowers in spring, but they are not very visible from far as the leaves are green-grey. In July-August, it gives unedible (really, unedible, I tried) small pears.

6/8-2011

6/8-2011

Less than a two-day absence....

... does miracles.... Yesterday, we left for a short trip to Stockholm with mom and dad and when we came back, things had changed in the garden... :O)

More strawberries were ready to eat and more blueberries from our favorite blueberry plant. Not a surprise... But:

• two very large blueberries were spotted on the one blueberry plant that did not seem to give any blueberries for this year
• the "wild strawberries" had grown to a huge amount and some of them to a size of nearly 3 cm...
• the rhododendron Cunningam White had bloomed (!!!) again. Please note it is the 13th of August...
• the newest miniature rhododendron has bloomed (!!!), too.
• The first Dahlia Catherine Deneuve has bloomed.
• The Dahlia Honka surprise has given 2 more flowers and there seem to be quite a few more on their way 
• The dahlia in the hosta flower bed has now two neat flowers
• Nearly all sunflowers have now flowers (yesterday, there were only 2...)
• The roses had bloomed again (at least two of the white ones, but also the orange one)
• Nearly all nigellas have bloomed now
• At least 3-4 tomatoes were spotted on the green tomato plant outside!
• I spotted beetroots sticking out of the ground
• The salad, which we have been eating 4 people from the last 10 days, seems to be increased to a humongous amount...

Am I forgetting something?! Hehe... Coool!!!!!

Sedum oreganum

Latin: Sedum oreganum
Swedish: Oregonfetknopp
English: Oregon Stonecrop
Purchased at Blomstertorget 6/8-2011

Now where the rockery is nearly on place, we were out looking for what plants that are available for rockeries and saw this plant. It was very "little", but promising so we purchased 2. And not to underestimate the value of the sticker picture... :O) Let see if it holds the promise in reality, too.

6/8-2011

Producer's description
Dark red-green, fat rosettes that spread to low, thick, winter green carpets about 5cm high. It blooms in July and August with yellow flowers of about 10cm. It prefers well-drained, dry places. It is very resistant to lack of water. It is well suited for rockeries, very dry slopes, walls, etc.

Brasato

This is a typical Italian dish that my grandmom used to do on Sundays and we used to eat it together with Polenta.
This is not the traditional recipe, but something that tastes and smells pretty much alike and has very similar ingredients.

Ingredients
3 teaspoons oil
25gr butter  (but if you ask Mom, you'll have to at least double the amount of all mentioned fat :O) )
1/2 carrot
1/2 celery stalk
5-6 leaves of sage
3-4 small pieces of rosmary
500gr small steak onions (originally, the flat onces should be used, not available at ICA though)
3 cans of mashed tomatoes
500gr prime rib (Swedish: Högrev)
1 solo garlic
1 can of water
1 teaspoon salt
2,5dl red wine

Instructions
Grate the carrot and the celery stalk. Do holes in the meat and chunk in sage, rosemary, garlic in them. Salt (and pepper if you wish. I don't). Put carrot, celery and possibly sage and rosemary if you haven't chunked it all in the meat already in the oil and butter. Let it go slowly so that the fat catches taste. Brown the meat in it. Put onions in. Through the wine in and let the alcohol evaporate a little.

Put everything in a croc pot including the tomatoes and the water and let it cook for about 6 hours starting with 3-4 hours high heat and the rest low heat. Grandmom would actually cook it in a pot for 2-3 hours instead. Of course, Grandmoms tastes better, but I am not sure what more magic she did on the stove. :O)

Actually, I did brown meat first and put it in the crocpot and then reused the fat for the onions. That worked fine, too.

I do recommend to eat it with sliced hot polenta and gorgonzola.

Lemon Pie

A little background

Not sure why, but I got really into eating lemon pie. Nothing that usually happens to me. It was mom's exam party and we needed a dessert anyways. Found a recipe on Tasteline. Following it gave a rather weird result: the crust mixture became too dry and crumby and it was far too much for one pie. Actually, I managed to do two pies with it and still have too much in each and have mixture left to do cookies with. So this is the modified recipe I will follow next time I bake this pie. This version serves 6 people well after a well-fed dinner. There won't be anything left though... :O)

6/8-2011

Crust
50gr sugar
1 good teaspoon vanilla sugar
120gr flour
100gr butter
1 egg yolk
1 good teaspoon lemon zest

Filling
For those that desire a lot of filling look at the numbers in parenthesis instead...

2 tablespoons lemon juice (3 tablespoons)
1 teaspoon lemon zest (1 good one)
80gr sugar (120gr)
40gr flour (60gr)
2 eggs (3 eggs)

Instructions
Mix sugar, vanilla sugar, lemon zest and flour in a bowl. Add butter and yolks and mix. I used my KitchenAid with the blender tool.
Butter a pie mold and distribute the mixture in it evenly. Put in refrigerator for 30 minutes.
If you desire to have a perfect cake, you might want to use e.g. cheek peas to bake the crust: put aluminium foil on the crust, put 300gr cheek peas in it and bake for 10 minutes at 200degrees. I skipped that part as such fuzz bores me, but I am pretty sure you get neater results if you do.
Whip eggs for the filling with sugar until fluffy. Add flour, zest and juice and whip some more.
Put the filling in the pre-baked crust and bake for some 15 more minutes at the lowest level in the oven to avoid the pie to burn.
According to the original recipe the pie should rest over night in the refrigerator. I did not really saw this until I had already eaten the pie, and I can tell that the not that cold version was very good anyways.

I served it with blueberries and raspberries at the top and sprinkled some confectioner's sugar at the top.

6/8-2011

Tasted great to be a lemon pie really!

Pinus mugo 'Gnom'

Latin: Pinus mugo 'Gnom'

I once saw at a plant shop the most amazing tree. It was a Pinus mugo 'Gnom' over 1 meter tall and pruned to give it a very exotic look. Only downside that stopped me was the price. After some time I saw a little plant of the same kind and had to purchase it. I would let it grow myself and take care of the pruning myself.
So home we went with this little guy and planted it towards the neighbors border as it would contrast wonderfully with the white garage of the neighbor.

7/6-2011

Little downside to it: I do not have the heart to actually prune it in reality. Only a few cuts have been carried out so far, but a few though is more than nothing... :O) The plan is though to keep a maximum of three branches on each round of branches. Each second round, I might either cut or keep 3 branches but turned in a different way compared to the ones below.

In the meantime, the neighbor planted some hedge on their own and the tree kind of disappears with that background, sadly enough.

The tree has kind of doubled its size since we purchased it, but is still a little cute tree.

2/7-2011

We even spotted one cone on it this year :O) Neat! We have used fertilizer for conifers, which kind of gave it a growing boost. I believe it kind of enjoys water, too. The less it rains the less it thrives.

Producer's description
Shiny dark green, long needles. Buds are very decorative. Ball-shaped, very dense, up to 3 m high and wide.
Tolerates frost.
 
Producer's instructions
Soak plant in water before planting. Dig hole of twice the width and depth of the ball. Insert plant and fill up with soil. Water well after planting.
Enjoys sunny position and has no specific soil needs. Normal rain is sufficient. Use customary commercial fertilizers in spring and summer. It needs no pruning and requires no special care.

Tulip Maureen

This is a very beautiful tulip: long stemmed, with a clean white colour.

21/5-2011

It is though as any tulip very tasty for bunnies and bambies so it can be a good idea to protect them with some stinky substance that keeps those guys away.
These were presents from Janne, but I guess he purchased those at Schiphol Airport. I got them twice (actually three times, but I happened not to plant them correctly the last time - or actually not at all as it snowed before I made it). The first time I put them in the grass. That is not a really good idea as you are not supposed to cut them away until the leaves have become yellow and that impedes grass mowing for a far too long time. Plus if you have a robot mower, it will cut them when they are in bloom  :O(((( The other bunch was put in a specific bed, which was much smarter indeed. We'll have though to refurbish the bed as it has become rather "crappy".

Polenta

When I was little, I used to eat polenta nearly every Sunday lunch with brasato that grandmom used to cook. That was a real tradition. As you were supposed to continuously stir the polenta while cooking it in a copper calderon for around 45 minutes, the whole family made turns to cover up the long 45 minutes.

Now the world has developed and with the caldron you also have a stirring device, so no manual stirring is required any longer. I got to take over the copper caldron as my parents do not use it as often any longer.

So today we tried to cook the "original Italian Polenta" in a Swedish kitchen with a copper caldron. With stirring device:

Polenta in copper caldron - 8/8-2011

Ingredients (per person)
100gr Old style polenta flour (the grounding is rough)
4dl water
1ml salt

Instructions
Cook the water. Add the salt. Stir for 30-40 minutes depending on the flour cooking instructions. If it says less than that, you probably have some strange precooked type of meal that does not give the perfect results.
Heat should be slow, but the polenta should bubble at least once every few seconds.
It is done when tilting the pot yields the meal to separate itself from the pot.
Do not worry if a patina builds up around the pot. It is also normal that it burns lightly.

Serving
Serve it hot with brasato and with gorgonzola. I normally slice up polenta, put gorgonzola on it which leads to obvious melting and add some brasato sauce. I then pile up more slices that way and eat!

Blueberry bed

Some basics about American blueberries

• They need peat to grow and don't like regular garden soil so you need to change the soil where you want them to grow
• They like to be watered regularly
• You need more than one plant to get berries as they are not self-fertile.
• Blueberries grow on (at least) last year's wood
• They are pretty much liked by bunnies and bambies... which does not go together with the fact that blueberries don't grow on the growth of the current year. If you can, just keep away those nosy animals from the plants with a net or similar wintertime.

The blueberry bed
This is our newly furbished blueberry bed. I do expect it to give us blueberries in large amounts by one year or two. Right now, it is mostly one of the plants that make sure we do not go hungry... :O)

The construction
The construction was at the end the following: Dug about 10cm over the board. Dug also for the new blueberries more in depth (around 30cm). Also we dug for a future grape plant in the right corner.
The area was then covered with peat.
We installed an automatic watering system where a hose goes along the back of the bed and hoses are then drawn from there to each and every blueberry shrub. The main hose is without holes, but for each plant, there is a "hole" hose for water distribution.
This whole bed was then covered with wheed  fabric to avoid weed coming from the ground itself. This action payed out for this year. It might create issues later but that I do not care about now. Right now, it is indeed keeping weed to grow there. We finalized the construction by covering the fabric with bark.
As you see, it looks little "empty" right now, but I expect the plants to grow with the years.
The edges were a little of a problem: the original idea was to actually use concrete to define the edges clearly. I realized it would imply a great deal of work and cost to do so. So what we did at the end was to border the bed with bark only and have fabric under it. The automatic lawn mower should be able to go over the edges and cut all grass completely. Let us see how this works.

The Scheme
The blueberry plants we have now are:
Vaccinum corymbosum 'Goldtraube'
Vaccinum corymbosum 'Elisabeth'
Vaccinum corymbosum 'North Country'
Vaccinum corymbosum 'Northblue'
Vaccinum corymbosum 'Darrow' 

This is the "map of blueberries".

Historical background
We started out with three blueberry plants quite a few years ago. We dug holes in the grass. This is how they looked in May 2007, when we first planted them.

May 2007

Fact is, the grass and weeds just grew into the plants and they were very hard to remove. To be honest, it was a real pain in the cakehole....
Blueberries are one of the best plants to have in the garden. They give good and healthy fruits (or so we hope... ;O) ). Even though you might think 3 blueberry plants give enough blueberries for the whole family, I personally wanted more. So I convinced Janne to purchase 2 more. But digging two more holes did not sound very attractive and the idea of skipping the grass between them seemed like a good idea. We were going to build a bed for the blueberries.
We actually hired a guy to do the digging. Quite a few stones had to be eliminated from the area.

May 2011

After a lot of discussions with the idiot we hired, and a lot of back and forth and tough work from our side, we managed to get up the bed as we intended it from the first beginning: with a lot of peat and over the grass level. This is the result after altering back and forth.

Vaccinum corymbosum 'North country'

Highly recommended plant of blueberries!!!! Sweet and large berries!

Latin: Vaccinum corymbosum 'North country' 

Swedish: Amerikansk blåbär 'North country'
English: American blueberries 'North country'
Purchased at Plantagen (I believe) a few years ago


Of the three blueberry plants we first purchased, this is the one that we highly recommend.
It gives very large amounts of blueberries. Very good ones: sweet and large (up to 2 cm). Here you can see a few, not completely ripe ones. When they are ripe, they are larger.

21/7-2011

Also this year, where the other two plants hardly gave results (especially Elisabeth), this one did not have any whatsoever issues. We are enjoying large amounts of blueberries.
2011-08-07: We have been picking good bunches of blueberries nearly every day for over a month now. Really incredible. Hard to understand where they all come from. And there are much more to come it seems.

26/7-2011

It is also the first plant to give blueberries, starting out in the beginning of July. According to the producer's description, it says "august-september". I do not see this to be true. Maybe we got the wrong "name tag"? :O)
It is also has a nice rounded shape that makes it rather decorative.
According to the producer, it should survive up to Swedish zone 5.

Planted in the blueberry bed.

Vaccinum corymbosum 'Elisabeth'

Latin: Vaccinum corymbosum 'Elisabeth'
Swedish: Amerikans blåbär 'Elisabeth'
English: American blueberries 'Elisabeth'
Purchased at Plantagen (I believe) a few years ago

2/7-2011

This is the latest of the three blueberry plants we purchased at the same time. When all other plants have no blueberries left, then this one starts producing a few, not very sweet but still tasty blueberries.
Though, this plant has never really grown to reasonable size and it has not either given a reasonable amount of blueberries. Summarizing, it has been the least productive of all blueberries.

My theory was, we probably got tired of digging and did a too little whole for it. Which might have caused the bad growth. Now we did a new peat bed, and if it had potential and my theory was correct, we'll notice the coming years. Otherwise, we'll have to be ok with the limited amounts of blueberries it gives.

Planted in the blueberry bed.

Vaccinum corymbosum 'Goldtraube'

Latin: Vaccinum corymbosum 'Goldtraube'
Swedish: Amerikans blåbär 'Goldtraube'
English: American blueberries 'Goldtraube'
Purchased at Plantagen (I believe) a few years ago

This blueberry was the one that has actually grown the most. At least in size.

26/7-2011 (sorry about the incredibly ugly tujas behind.... they are the neighbour's.... :O( )

In previous years, it has also given quite a few blueberries. It was the middle blueberry plant, starting to give blueberries somewhere end of July, beginning of August, if I remember it correctly. They are not as sweet as the ones from North country though.

This year we wanted to have more blueberries so we did a whole peat bed around the plant. So hopefully, it will grow more given the additional space for the roots and the fact that it will not have grass and weeds growing around (and into) it.

Producer's instructions
Water normally. Fertilize normally. Should be placed in a sunny position. It will reach a height and width of 1 meter. Tolerates Swedish zone 4

Pinus parviflora 'Schoons Bonsai'

Latin: Pinus parviflora 'Schoons bonsai'
Swedish: Silvertall 'Schoons bonsai'
English: White pine 'Schoons bonsai'

We purchased the pine as we were looking for a pine that could be "bonsai"-like. Given the name, it had very good potential. We planted it in the are that was to become the rockery.

17/5-2007

It never developed and it actually never looked very good. Mostly dry and with branches where you would prefer them not to be. This is as bad as it got really:

21/5-2011

This year we decided. Let us throw the little ugly guy away and purchase a brand new Japanese maple.
But again, none of us had the heart. During gardening 'refurbishing', some spot came up where we could 'dump' the tree temporarily until we collected the courage for throwing it away.
Since we moved it there, it seemed to enjoy the more moisty soil and has thrived (compared to before). Very likely it won't be thrown out any longer.

26/7-2011

I personally think, the rockery was simply too dry and maybe even too sunny. Maybe it will even grow better now? I might maybe even dare cutting it a little for a good result. Any suggestions on where to cut exactly?! :O)

Producer's instructions
Water normally. Fertilize normally. Requires a sunny location.
Will become 1,5 meters high and also 1,5 meters wide.
Tolerates Swedish zone 3