Pantry cooking: kielbasa beans and rice

 I’m trying not to spend money right now and use up some of my older canned goods while I’m at it. I made this dish last night and am eating leftovers for lunch and I thought I’d share it. 

I had half a can of black beans I needed to use up so this is what I came up with.

I was using up some wild rice (2 servings worth, about half a cup.) It took almost an hour to cook so I started it first while preparing the rest of the ingredients. I cooked it in some homemade stock.

Next I started the kielbasa in a separate pan. I used about a tablespoon of olive oil and maybe a third of a link of turkey kielbasa which I cut in small pieces. While that cooked, I cut up half an onion, added it to the pan. Then I added a few cut up pieces of red sweet pepper and a few diced grape tomatoes. I cooked the vegetables until soft then added the rice and stock to my meat pan. I put the lid on it, cooked everything for maybe half an hour and walked away. I just cooked it until the rice was done then added my black beans. I also added a can of drained diced potatoes. I added salt, paprika, turmeric and cumin. Then cooked for about 5 minutes. 

And done! Easy meal I could probably have cooked in about 20 minutes if I had used a quicker rice. 

Have a good weekend and thanks for reading. 

Lessons in gardening 2024

 2024 was the first real year I was able to sit down and begin gardening so I thought I would share some of the lessons I learned the hard way. Maybe to help others, but also to remind myself.

My first lesson was in regard to our walnut tree. From everything I've read, many plants do not do well in soil beneath walnut tree because of a chemical in the tree itself which kills some plants such as tomatoes. So, my first lesson was to figure out a work around. I probably could have tried in ground gardening elsewhere in the yard, but I was beginning late in the season for all of that. I may try it in a patch here or there this year. For 2024, I just stuck with container plants. A lot of them.

Eventually I started numbering my containers so as to keep track of them more easily. My husband had suggested I use Excel to keep track of everything - and at the end of the season I realized he was right, and I suddenly found myself wishing I had done that. In December I started a spreadsheet to keep track of my crop rotation and its honestly kind of a pain trying to remember which container size I used to plant what, so I definitely need to keep better records of everything. Live and learn.

As I mentioned, I started later in the season so that's one of the lessons: Start early in the season. From what I have read, you don't want to start too early but starting too late isn't good either. Many of my crops didn't do well and I think it's just because I started them too late in the season.

Next, just because the internet says something doesn't mean it's true. Like pretty much everything on the Internet, when it comes to gardening, there is so much conflicting information out there and of course everyone claims to be an expert. I'm finding I prefer the "give it a try and see what happens" method.

Holland Farms was one of the Web sites I used to purchase bulbs from. I remember seeing their name around for years and I "thought" they had a good reputation. The first batch of bulbs I bought had a few decaying bulbs, while others were full of mold and just did not do well. It took several days of sending emails to them, but I did finally receive replacement bulbs for most of my orders. The replacement bulbs looked much healthier. But even after some time I noticed a few of those began to turn moldy as well. I planted them all except the heavily damaged bulbs. So, I guess time will tell whether or not they do well. I have since done some research on the company and found many, many complaints in regard to the quality of their bulbs. My experience does not seem to be entirely unique unfortunately so I may not buy from them again.

Squirrels enjoy eating ginger root. I would not have guessed that one, but it actually made me laugh when I found my unprotected ginger had been dug up by a squirrel. I suppose if you're going to plant ginger root, either protect it or start it indoors.

This one should be obvious, but I didn't realize my error until I had my garlic in hand and was preparing to plant it...and I realized I had way more garlic than I actually needed at the time. Garlic is garlic - plant individual cloves and not the entire head! (Duh!, haha.)

This year's favorite crops were tomatoes and tomatillos, lettuce and banana peppers. I was surprised by that, as I normally don't eat many banana peppers. I will definitely need to grow them again. Since I'm thinking on it, I also learned tomatoes are supposed to be a tricky plant to grow and not for beginners. I had started a bunch of seedlings in the house but none of them did well. I ended up buying some plants and they did OK. 

Hoops. Not a fan. I'm probably going to avoid using them this year if I can. If you're going to use them, set them up before the cold really sets in. I had a few which came undone with the wind, and as the ground warmed up again. By that time, the ground was still too frozen to stick them back in place correctly, so I had to shove the ends inside my containers. The clips I used were horrible and I really had to fight to get them in place. Not a fun task when it's cold outside. I found they were a bit easier to use once they had been on the hoops themselves overnight. If I do them again, I may just use garden staples. I'm really not sure if there is a proper way of using the hoops. 

Potato grow bags rip easily - I had many handles break apart as I tried moving the bags even just a little bit. I would recommend using straw if you're going to use them. It's lighter. Or just put them in place and don't move them.

Harvest greens early as microgreens! This includes spinach, arugula, bok choy, etc. Also watch out for aphids. Those guys devoured many of my crops.

I guess that's really it, from what I can recall and from my notes. I'm looking forward to a better harvest this year since I've learned a few things. Here's just a few bullet points to summarize. Thanks for reading and happy gardening this year!

1. Walnut tree soil can kill plants.

2. Organize, record, label.

3. Start early but not too early.

4. Don't believe everything you find on the Internet.

5. Do research before buying bulbs from suppliers.

6. Squirrels love ginger!

7. Plant garlic cloves, not the entire bulb.

8. Favorite crops: tomatoes, tomatillos, lettuce and banana peppers.

9. Tomatoes can be tricky, buy young plants.

10. Garden hoops can be more of a problem than helpful. Do research first.

11. Potato bags rip easily.

12. Harvest microgreens.

13. Watch out for aphids.

Nature Observations 2024

  I thought I'd use this space to make a more permanent and easily accessed record of my observations throughout the year. I live near a park, so some of these are in my own yard, some at the park which makes for some interesting observations.

- Reviewing from my old journals. 

January 26 - 58 degrees!

January 31 - bittercress and unidentified leaves of some plant coming up.

February 13 - It was 44 degrees and snowing. How??? The air temperature was 43.

March 7 - Cleavers coming up.

March 14 - tornado watch.

March 15 - crane flew over us as we went for our walk.

March 28 - ducks, geese changing colors.

April 2 - River flooded.

April 3 - park still flooded.

April 6 - muskrat spotted!

April 7 - first butterfly spotting for the spring.

April 8 - Eclipse. 

April 10 - We saw the muskrat again.

April 12 - Park still very flooded, past the tree lines and covering the walking path in low spots. Daffodils in bloom, tulips near bloom. Fruiting trees (plum or cherry?) in bloom.

April 16 - 70 degree weather.

April 18 - potatoes spouted. They didn't do well so I wasn't able to harvest them unfortunately!

April 20 - My aquatic lotus plant started sprouting again. I had thought the snails had killed it off!

April 28 - Common mouse-ear blooming. Mock strawberry blooming.

April 29 - Japanese barberry turning red.

April 30 - Lots of random weeds coming up. I'm still learning how to identify things in our new home. Violets blooming. Star of Bethlehem flowering. Speedwell spreading. 

Living near a park, the geese come by every spring with the baby geese. Today was the first sighting of the baby geese in the yard! I find it very exciting and enjoy watching them feed in our field. The dandelions were in full force by this time and the hostas were doing well.

May 1 - Groundhog in our yard.

May 7 - Mushrooms popping up.

May 9 - Groundsorel flowering. More mushrooms. Crownvetch made its first appearance.

May 11 - "Red tail" hanging out in our yard - we have melanistic gray squirrels in our area. They seem to be very common here. They're mostly all black with red tails.

May 18 - wild carrot growing. Pokeweed, crabweed sprouting. Wood sorrel spreading.

May 19 - Eastern bluestar blooming. More mushrooms.

May 23 - Tree of Heaven spotted.

May 26 - Morning glories sprouting.

May 27 - golden eagle spotted near our house, on Memorial Day! Further research makes me think it could have been a juvenile bald eagle, not positive. We're supposed to have a family of bald eagles near here. I started watching the skies more since this day and have spotted lots of hawks (we have a family of them near us also), vultures, etc.

May 29 - planted astilbe and bleeding heart.

May 30 - I found some Heal All growing in the yard.

June 5 - planted Coral bells. Nightshade starting showing up.

June 6 - First nasturtium sprouting.

June 7 - Bleeding heart blooming.

June 8 - Hollyhock sprouting.

June 10 - Ragweed. Day lily flowering. Rabbits started visiting the yard.

June 11 - Toadflax blooming.

June 13 - Hostas flowering.

June 14 - Coral bells flowering. White avens blooming.

June 20 - Purslane growing. Sow thistle showing up everywhere.

June 22 - Horseweed showing.

June 23 - First potato harvest but they were mostly too small to keep.

June 30 - Mallow blooming. Salsify blooming. Wild carrot blooming. Received my pepper plants, a few were flowering.

July 1 - Burnweed  and sow thistle coming up.

July 5 - Fleabane blooming. Raining season so lots of mushrooms were showing up. First lightning bugs! Nasturtium sprouting. Toadflax blooming.

July 8 - Lots more mallow popping up where the road crew redid our yard.

July 15 - sunflowers coming up; first peppers forming. green beans sprouting. petunias sprouting.

July 16 - Baby robin hanging out on our porch. Momma was nearby in my garden. Strawberries flowering.

July 17 - first tomato flowers. I found Flower-of-an-hour in our yard where the roadcrew sowed grass.

July 18 - groundhog hanging out in our yard again.

July 20 - Flower-of-an-hour blooming.

July 21 - Bunny sighting.

July 22 - first strawberry fruit. first bean flower, zucchini sprouting, peppers producing fruit, marigolds sprouting.

July 26 - Morning glories blooming.

July 27 - Zinnias sprouting.

July 29 - Tomatillo sprouting.

July 31 - tomatoes producing fruit.

August 3 - first bean harvest.

August 11 - beans flowering.

August 17 - Zinnias flowering, more morning glory blooms.

August 20 - Watermelon flowering.

August 22 - Cucumber flowering, kohlrabi sprouting. Nasturtium blooming.

August 24 - First pepper harvest.

August 27 - More nasturtium blooms. Cosmos blooming. Found my first quickweed in the garden, joy!
Tomatillos producing fruit.

August 30 - Watermelons producing fruit. Spinach and arugula probably near harvest.

September 8 - Cucumber producing fruit.

September 20 - corn flowering.

September 23 - Petunias flowering.

September 27 - First turnip harvest, tomatillo harvest.

October 1 - starting to get cold, with highs in the 50s. Seasonal anxiety setting in.

October 2 - Bean, tomatillo and pepper harvest. First cosmos seed harvest.

October 24 - Started seeing caterpillars in the garden.

October 30 - Yarrow sprouting.

November 7 - planted garlic.

November 12 - still harvesting tomatoes and tomatillos. Harvested catnip.

November 20 - first crocus bloom, ground cherry producing fruit.

November 21 - first snow.

December 12 - Woodpecker came back.

December 27 - Double rainbow.

Nature observations 2025

 I thought I'd use this space to make a more permanent and easily accessed record of my observations throughout the year. I live near a park, so some of these are in my own yard, some at the park which makes for some interesting observations.

January 11 - we had a fair share of snow by this point; my containers were covered in snow.

January 14 - temperatures starting to drop; record artic cold temperatures were on their way; we saw windchills around -25 F while the actual temperature was in the negatives for a few days (maybe a week after this?)

January 17 - blue heron spotted. We also saw about 12 mallard ducks. A few adults and several juveniles. 

January 21 - 22 - Freezing, subzero temperatures. Actual temperature this morning was -10 F
Indoor temperatures dropped to 62F.

January 27 - first robin spotted.

January 28 - Crocuses coming up.

January 29 - Pansies coming up.

January 31 - highs near 50. Geese returned. Fern, coral bells, irises, horseradish, strawberries, yarrow survived the cold.

February 3 - Sighting of bluebirds in our yard for the first time! There have also been a bunch of starlings, bluejays and a woodpecker. One cardinal spotted as well. Temperatures in the 50s. Garlic sprouting. Japanese barberry still producing berries. A number of weeds still showing up, including mock strawberry.

February 5 - Sky was much brighter last night, middle of the night (10 PM or so.) Odd, considering the waxing crescent moon. I woke up at some point and noticed the sky was a dark turquoise blue. Again, this must have been before midnight. Noting it only because it was unusual. Colder today - highs in the 30s, lows in the 20s. So all the plants coming up are no longer looking as happy as yesterday. Blackberry plants look to have survived the cold OK.

February 6 - Mallow growing; carrots seem to have survived the cold.

February 10 - Skunk smell the past 2 nights - smells like skunk mating season is here!

February 14 - We had a large flock of starlings today. I had read some areas nearby saw them recently so it appears they’re migrating. 

February 18 - weird weather this week. We woke up two days ago to snow on the ground. The day before it was around 40 degrees. The next day it was raining when we woke, and flooding, then quickly turned to snow. Last night the windchills were in the subzero temperatures again. Our highs are supposed to be in the low 20s almost all week. Looks like we’re about 20 degrees colder than the historical average today. The geese decided not to leave this time.