Amy Pollien

Pesto season

admin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 02:04:10 +0000

Pesto is one of the barometers of a Maine summer. Basil requires long days and hot afternoons to truly grow fat, glossy leaves that give off a distinctive, almost skunky aroma and some years we just don’t get that. 2010 is shaping up to be the best garden year in recent memory, and the pesto so far is A+.

I picked almost a kitchen-sized garbage bag of basil, mostly because I wanted to be able to start the recipe off with “a garbage bag of basil”. I prefer to harvest in mid-afternoon (the plants are free of dew and at their most fragrant), and I simply cut them back by two or three nodes. I use the stems and all, but I do remove blossoms and buds. They seem to make the final product slightly bitter.

Stuff the bowl of a food processor with leaves and stems. Drizzle with olive oil. Add 1/2 tsp sea salt, 1 clove garlic and 2 Tbs pine nuts (toasted in a frying pan first) per batch. If you will be adding all the batches together you can keep track and add all the seasonings at once at the end, but I find doing it by increments is easier. Process until smooth, adding more olive oil if necessary.

I have been amazed at the number of people who comment about the photos on this blog – generally about the objects in the background. Turns out food photographers are all about isolating the product – setting the stage with your recipe as the star, and not so much with the bottle of Chinese black vinegar that has nothing to do with the current recipe. As long as you read this blog, you’re going to see that vinegar on the back of the counter. Also the red wine, cassis, port and probably a roll of paper towels. I don’t set these photos up, sadly, I just live here.

Cook your favorite pasta, drain and pour into a large serving bowl. Mix in about a cup of pesto per 6 servings, and some grated parm or asiago cheese. If my mother isn’t coming over we like to add hot pepper flakes. Freeze the remaining pesto in freezer jelly jars to remember summer come some winter dinner.

Garden Tour

admin — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 23:44:23 +0000

Today was a perfect day for a garden club tour; a bit of rain and clouds to discourage the casual observers but not enough wind to damage the white begonias, cool enough to walk energetically in a heavy skirt and sensible shoes, misty enough so that I didn’t regret forgetting my hat. This particular garden had not previously been open to the public. The cutting and kitchen gardens are visible through the wrought iron fence from the street, but it was wonderful to get up close and personal with the sunken Italianate formal garden, the mossy pergola that faces the cove, and some really lurid roses that were nevertheless enjoyable under the low, gray clouds. Oh, and the shingle style dog house with slate roof, dutch doors and window boxes was just the right touch of surreal.

My pen dropped out of my pocket somewhere along the 1/2 mile entrance road, and my batteries ran out before the kitchen garden, but here are what notes and images I managed to take away:

Artichokes – beautiful plants and evidently productive here. The head gardener went on at length about daylight and temperatures requirements for full maturity, but honestly I wouldn’t care if I didn’t get a whole lot of fruit – the plants were striking in themselves. Of course, he doesn’t have that luxury.

Cold frames extraordinaire: I went over to look at some cold frames – 15′ x 2′ high on the short end, rising to 4′ and faced with glass panels. When I looked in to the frames, I realized that they had been excavated to a depth of 10′. There were ladders built into the walls at either end for access. With that much berming they must be very cozy even in early spring, and if I thought I could dig a hole 12′ deep on my lot I’d try it out.

Smoke bush in bloom with Madonna lilies rising through the mist of blossoms – quite a striking effect.

Datura was everywhere, and lent an exotic air to the otherwise common assortment of border flowers: ligularia, phlox, mulliens, begonias and thalictrum.

THIS is the forest primeval.

admin — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 02:40:40 +0000


. . . The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it
Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman?
Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers —
Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands,
Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?
Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed!
Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October
Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o’er the ocean.
Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pré.
Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient,
Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman’s devotion,
List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest;
List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – Evangeline

Omphaloskepsis

admin — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 02:34:34 +0000

Time for some navel-gazing. Below is a collection of search terms that brought readers to this blog over the past few months:

Raspberries (also razberry, raspberrys, rasberry), jam, pie, bush, growing

Still life (also still lives, stull life and still)

Hamburger stand inventory spread sheet. (Really?)

bad composition painting

bed construction (presumably garden beds)

Cinder blocks, cinder block construction, use cinder blocks, cement blocks – one of my biggest referral sites is a cinder block construction company in Arizona.

Blue mason jar

Screw down trivot photos

Amy Pollien, amy pollien, amy pollen, amy pollen bees

Time is but the stream

Poverty cake

Dumping bees into a hive at night time

George Dorr’s caretaker’s cottage

Yokkana seeds

Bonsai sisr

MDI Skate Park

Painting like Janet Fish (Thanks!)

Certificate of Promotion

admin — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 02:27:39 +0000

On June 24, 1934, my mother was promoted to the “Primary Department” at the Bloomfield Federated Church. It’s a lovely certificate, with copperplate handwriting and the picture of the young Savior. She was 6 years old. And she kept this for the next 75 years in a paper bag with her first mortgage and a picture of her mother.

Big Rock redux

admin — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 02:52:04 +0000

Last month our neighbors gifted us with a Significant Rock. It came on a Big Boom Truck – possibly the biggest vehicle to ever climb up our gravel road and I’ll stop with the capital letters now. The rock has a rather formal placement exactly perpendicular to the front of the house and lined up with one of the window bays. People have actually stopped their cars in the road and commented on it. Then they go on to mention the garden, and their garden back home, and then inquire after lobster, and really, it takes an awesome rock to stop tourists in their pursuit of local seafood. This weekend our neighbors called; “Did our rock want a life partner?”. Of course we said “Yes!”.

K’s boom truck showed up on Sunday afternoon in the pouring rain. I was on my third pair of shoes and already soaking wet, so a little more water wasn’t a problem.

Now reach into the truck. . .

And pull out a rock. . .

And confab on the placement. Because it’s not going anywhere after that webbing comes off.

A beautiful rock, nestled in blueberries. Note the worked edge – this might have been part of a foundation for a Bar Harbor “cottage” lost in the Great Fire. Now it resides with us, forever or until boom truck do us part.

Buoys, or not.

admin — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 03:01:00 +0000

Today I went down to Southwest Harbor for a concert. The Southwest Harborites were also celebrating the annual Pink Flamingo festival (the lawn ornaments are considered native fauna) and the Coast Guard base was having an open house so it was a high time on the village main street. I took the back road down to Clark Point and stopped at this stand to buy a jar of pear jam.

The sign is quite well designed, with the whole positive/negative space thing going on, and “Antiques” is spelled correctly. What happened to “bouys”? Curse those pesky diphthongs!

I bought a jar of pear jam. I’ve tried to make it myself, and could possibly make gallons of the stuff from the Seckel pear tree’s bounty, but my trial batches were gritty and insipid. This jar from Maine’s Own Treats has a nice clear color. The contents list includes: Pears, Sugar, Applesauce, Apple Juice and Pectin. Applesauce sounds like it might be the secret ingredient. We’re going to try the jam out tomorrow on Sunday waffles and then I’ll decide if this combination is worth another experiment.

I like the “We’re Open” sign, too. There wasn’t a soul around – what changes when they’re closed?

Sambucus

admin — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 02:47:14 +0000

2010 is shaping up to be a legendary garden year. Two years ago I dug a large Sambucus canadensis out of the dooryard and transplanted it to the lower garden. I laid plastic sheeting down over the bottom of the hole to keep it from re-generating, and here it is today. Perhaps I should have used steel plate. The Wikiepedia article lists the height as 3 meters or more, and that’s a 6′ step ladder at the right. This is going to be a great year for the elderberry harvest.

Sambucus (elder or elderberry) is a genus of between 5 and 30 species of shrubs or small trees in the moschatel family, Adoxaceae. It was formerly placed in the honeysuckle family, Caprifoliaceae, but was reclassified due to genetic evidence. Two of its species are herbaceous.

The genus is native in temperate-to-subtropical regions of both the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere. It is more widespread in the Northern Hemisphere; its Southern Hemisphere occurrence is restricted to parts of Australasia and South America.

The leaves are pinnate with 5–9 leaflets (rarely 3 or 11). Each leaf is 5–30 cm (2.0–12 in) long, and the leaflets have serrated margins. They bear large clusters of small white or cream-coloured flowers in late spring; these are followed by clusters of small black, blue-black, or red berries (rarely yellow or white).

New work

admin — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 01:54:14 +0000

This is a study for a larger work that also features with roses, watermelon, green grapes and tiger lilies. I thought I ought to be familiar with some of the basic parts before I start on the larger chaos.

Tea Pot Study, 14" x 14", pastel on board

The Green Season

admin — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 02:33:22 +0000

This has been the perfect year to grow lettuces. It was an early spring that warmed the soil and the hot afternoons have been broken up by cool rain at night – just like Camelot, as my mother used to say. I grow salad ingredients close to the house. They are convenient to pick at the last minute before dinner and the location makes it less tempting to the deer. So far.

I plant the lettuces very thickly to discourage weeds and keep the roots shaded. The picture above features Red Salad Bowl (very aptly named, in the bowl), Fedco’s mesclun mix in the front of the raised bed and Bull’s Blood beet greens in the back. My dooryard can be hot on a sunny afternoon, so the bed below is shaded by a young “Good Barn” sambucus.

Greens also make a good cover for larger and slower-maturing plants like these King Siegfried leeks. We have harvested quite a few heads of “Flashy Green” lettuce from this bed and I plan to replant this weekend with seedlings from the hoop house. I try to start a new batch every week to keep the rotation going.

While I often stop and consider whether growing my own produce is cost efficient, lettuce is always a no-brainer. One eighty cent “A” sized package from Fedco produces a season of nutrition with very little effort on the part of the gardener. Five packets of different varieties extend the season to the absolute limit with types that will grow (under mulch) until Thanksgiving and flavors to please everyone in the family. Go green!