FRIED GREEN TOMATOE RECIPE POEM

From Limericks and Stuff
By Leigh Collin Brandt

I make fried green tomatoes,
Sometimes with friend potatoes,
I slice them thick or thin,
Different tastes for different kin,

I dip them in the egg,
I dip them in the flour,
I turn on the stove,
I crank up the power,

When puffed up and golden browned,
That’s the best taste I have found,
There’s nothing better on Puget Sound,
Than fried green tomatoes all around.

HOT AND DRY WEATHER; WEED AND WATER

When it is hot and dry, you need to think about your plants. When it is hot and dry then you should take extra care to make sure that weeds are pulled up so that the weed roots do not soak up any water that can help you plants. Watering plants with weeds and grasses around the bottoms is silly. In fact it may harm your plants since the aggressive weed roots will soak up most if not all of the water and allow the weeds and grasses to just grow bigger plants and roots to soak up water and nutrients your plants need to mature and even survive. So, before you water your plants you should pull up the weeds around them. Perennials and annuals should have weeds pulled out a foot or more all the way around the plant. Shrubs and trees should have 2-4 feet of weed/grass free area from their base.

After the weeds and grasses are gone, water your plants heavily. Make sure the ground is well soaked with water so that the plant will be able to take in drinks of water until you water again. For some plants that produce fruits, a soaker hose is advisable for better fruits and yields.

Don't over fertilize when it is hot and dry. When it is hot and dry your plants might start to droop and look bad but, all they need is a good drink of water. Fertilizers, particularly those with high nitrogen numbers (the nitrogen number is the first number on a bag of fertilizer) your plants may be burned, stunted or even killed if you apply nitrogen when there is a drought.

HERB GARDENS: SAVE MONEY IN A SMALL SPACE

Do you have a small space and want to get a big bang for your buck. Try a herb garden. Herb gardens are easy to grow and many herbs are perennial in Northern Michigan(will come up next year without replanting. Fresh herbs are especially expensive in stores where a few stalks of oregano, sage, chives etc., can be $2.00 or more.

Some favorite Northern perennial plants you can grow in your herb garden are: sage, mint, chives, oregano and catnip. Basil is a popular herb to grow but, it is an annual in Northern Michigan. Dill will sometimes seed down and come up the next year but, I don't count on it.

All of these plants can be purchased in most garden centers (sometimes in produce departments in some supermarkets), and are easy to grow. Just plant in well drained soil and keep them watered enough so they won't dry out. Remember though, keep your basil plants covered when it freezes. Also, remember that oregano spreads by roots and is a prolific seed producer so, you will need to keep it contained from the rest of your garden and yard or, it will cover your entire property.

Herbs are great for container gardening so if you have a sunny patio or window sill, you are ready to start herb gardening. From window sill to sauce or frying pan gives you the freshest herbs you can get for your favorite dishes.

I like to plant my herbs with my other perennial plants like rhubarb and asparagus. That way, with all my perennial plants in the same area, I know which garden to clean off first in the Spring.

Overall, herbs are easy to grow, will save you lots of money, and give you a fresh garden to kitchen flavor in your cooking.

HINT: READ YOUR SEED PACKETS

Too often people figure out where they are going to garden, buy and plant seeds and, are greatly disappointed in the results. After planting seeds the two main things that individual gardeners can do is to water and fertilize the seeds. If seeds are just slightly watered and have a little bit of nitrogen fertilizer to start them to grow, then all should be well unless planting instructions were not followed.

Of course even with proper watering and fertilizing many gardens end up looking like the grim reaper of the plant world had just taken up residence in the garden. It is obvious that if after following the watering and fertilizing agenda the your garden plants were low or even non-producers then, a new approach to gardening might be what saves your business.

It would be good if I could write an article on how to plant string beans or how and when to plant peas if there was but one variety of string bean and one variety of pea. However, today there are a myriad of plant types for any particular type of edible fruit/vegetable. Each plant variety may grow only in certain types of soils with certain levels of sunlight and within certain parameters of temperature variation.

Potatoes are certainly a crop that I have found to be somewhat sensitive to the soil type. For instance, in Northern Michigan there is a great deal of sand and I have grown potatoes like whites, reds and yellow in almost pure sand. On the other hand, I have grown russets in pure sand however; the tubers do not grow to be very large whereas the colored varieties can get really big. Likewise, I have found that heavy clay soil tends to grow large russets however; my red potatoes in particular are more prone to disease in such soils because heavy soils tend to keep the tubers much wetter.

Peas are one plant that in general prefers cooler weather and does not do well n full summer sun. However, there are so many varieties of peas that you can pretty much grow them from early spring until fall as long as you plant the proper varieties to get you through the growing season. Again, reading the seed packets or going to a web site like the one put up by Burpee is the way you need to do research to keep you in peas throughout the growing season.

Overall, planting a variety of the same plant in various places in your garden at various times of the growing season will keep you in your favorite veggies for several weeks and depending on the time table of frost for the season, you might get your favorite veggies for months. Vegetables like lettuce, summer squash, peas, string beans etc. come in various varieties that can help keep your garden producing however; you need to at least read the seed packages you find in your garden store so that you can pick the proper varieties to satisfy your taste for veggies.

EARLY ON TOP CROPS; ASPARGUS AND RHUBARB

Two early, easy to grow crops are rhubarb and asparagus. Once planted, these plants take care of themselves as evidenced by the large number of wild asparagus and rhubarb plants gr owning all over Michigan. These plants start growing as soon as the snow comes off in the spring and can be harvested all summer and fall if watered, harvested and, weeded correctly.

Asparagus is a plant you can buy in any of the many garden centers in your area. The only trick to planting asparagus is to dig a really deep, wide hole that will allow you to stretch out the roots. It will take a couple of years before you will see real production in your asparagus patch but, if you planted the asparagus in a relatively Sunny area and you water it a lot, you will enjoy its tender shoots all summer long but, once established, don't let it go to seed. Most garden centers carry Asparagus starter plants in the Spring. In Northern Michigan, I recommend that you start out with the plants and not the seeds. The winters here are harsh and you need to have a strong root system established the first year for the plants to thrive and produce in the future. There are many recipes for asparagus but, I love it raw or slightly steamed with cheese melted over it.

Now we will talk about my favorite edible plant, rhubarb (or pie plant). In my neck of the country (Northern Michigan) rhubarb/strawberry pie is as important as pumpkin pie on the holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas. No one has a successful holiday party here without the wonderful sour taste of rhubarb on the menu. Make sure you never eat the leaves, only the stalks. The leaves are poisionous.


Rhubarb is one of the easiest perennials to grow in the North. You can grow it in Northern Michigan and many tell me they grow it in Alaska. It has lots of nutrients and vitamins.

There are several types of rhubarb, as there are most plants. The most important thing to know when starting out rhubarb is to leave at least three feet between your plants in order to get the thickest stalks. Another thing to remember is to split your rhubarb plants every 3-5 years. If you don't split your plants you might end up with very thin, unattractive stalks of rhubarb.

Although you can grow rhubarb almost anywhere which almost any type of soil, it is best to keep the weeds and grass cleaned out around the plants base and to add a Little bit of peat or other organic soil around the base of your rhubarb plants every year. This will increase the yield of your rhubarb plant and perhaps, make the stalks less tart.

Rhubarb is easy to store for the Winter months. I cut up my raw rhubarb stalks, after I clean them, and then just stuff them into quart sized bags and then stick them in the deep freeze. As to recipes, you can do anything to rhubarb that you can to any other fruit like apples, plums etc. The only thing is you have to sweeten to taste (add more sweetener for rhubarb). Apple crisp can be rhubarb crisp. Pine apple upside down cake can be rhubarb upside down cake etc. The point is, a true gardener can find ways to make an easy to grow simple plant, useful in their cooking.

BEST YIELDS: LEAVE ROOM BETWEEN YOUR PLANTS

It is so tempting to look at the plants in your garden and believe that the more plants you have the better you vegetable yield or the better your flowers will look unfortunately; the plants seem to have a different idea. Cramped plants will often not reach a nice size or produce an abundant amount of flowers and/or fruit. Even plants that do not have flowers or fruit will often become dwarfs and never reach their full maturity. Any experienced Michigan logger knows you must thin out your trees so you can grow some giants. That is all about managing a woodlot. I manage both gardens and a woodlot and in areas of my woodlot that I have kept the trees thinned out the remaining trees have become giants. The neglected areas of my woodlot have many stunted trees that are the same age as the giants in other parts of my woodlot.

My gardens adhere to the same law of management as my woodlot. When I plant my tomatoes plants two feet apart vs. planting them 1 1/2 feet apart the yields increase as the plants are healthier and simply produce more and heavier fruits when they are given just a bit more room. Likewise, all my other plants do much better when I keep them thinned. Now thinning to many implies you just pull up the extra plants to allow more space between the remaining ones. However, you can transplant some of these plants into other areas of your yard or even into containers so that you will still get some benefits. For instance, I always transplant my squash and pickle plants. Sometimes I have an area where the seed either did not take or the seeds were eaten up by varmints. So I fill the holes with an extra plant that was growing up too close to its kin plants. I also use container gardens as a way to make up space and hence, I fill my containers with extra tomatoes, pepper etc., and plants.

Most plants and seeds come with instructions on the distance you should plant your plants and information on future culling of plants to realize the best yield. It is important that as a gardener you make a commitment to reading and becoming more educated so that you can make the right decisions of life and death concerning the plants you have to cull.

DIRECT SEEDING OR TRANSPLANTS?

In Northern Michigan it is important to know what kind of vegetable or flower to plant, when to plant, where to plant and, what form of the item should be planted? The type of plant you can plant in Northern Michigan can be found on the back of most seed packets or from the little white instruction stakes that come with live plants you purchase in your local garden center. The seed packets and garden stakes will also often list when you should plant the item and where it should be planted e.g. full sun, partial sun, shade, well drained soil etc. If you cannot find this information on the stakes or packets that come with your plants and seeds, ask your local garden center manager, try the internet or, contact the nursery that packaged the seeds or grew the plants.

The one bit of information that may be hard to come by except by talking to someone with a lot of experience growing various plants is northern regions is whether or not you should sew your plants from seeds directly into your garden or if you should plant plants that are a few weeks old? Seed packets might tell you to sew directly into the soil however; this advice should be given with the following caveat: Many plants have very long growing periods and both the beginning of spring and the beginning of winter are very fluid in places like Northern Michigan. After about the third season of planting, people in Northern Michigan take a much more fluid approach to their planning and try to plan for very late and very early frosts that tend to doom the growing season just as plants are at their peak in the fall or, stunts the plants for a few extra weeks in the Spring while you wait for warmer weather.

A general rule is that plants that grow below ground like potatoes, carrots, beets, onions, radishes, parsnips, rutabagas and, turnips, can be seeded directly to the soil in the spring. Greens like lettuce, kale, spinach, collards and Swiss chard do very well in Northern Michigan when seeded directly to the soil. All forms of summer squash, pumpkins and hard shell squash, beans, corn and, pickles will do quite well when seeded directly to the ground however, you might want to start a few seeds of pickles inside or buy a tray of plants since, the pickles plants won’t grow until it is really hot and I like to get a few early pickles to go along with my other early vegetables. The pickle plants you start indoors, in your cold frame or green house will have a 2-4 week advantage over the ones you plant from seed. Just make very sure there is no chance of frost before you plant them to your garden.

Other plants that can be seeded directly in Northern Michigan but, tend to produce better results when planted as seedlings are: cabbage, Brussels sprouts, melons and, egg plant. These plants need lots of rich soil to grow quickly (manure). The normal top soil of Northern Michigan does not lend itself to growing these crops to maturity before the first hard frost. My neighbors who keep cows and horses have no problem growing beautiful crops of these vegetables from seed each year. Far be it from them to share any of their “gold” with their fellow gardeners. They want to keep their bragging rights for the giant ebony egg plants they produce.

Finally, there are the plants that just do not seed well in Northern Michigan and have to be transplanted from your indoor window, greenhouse or cold frame. A cold frame is a wooden frame constructed outdoors with glass or plastic doors you can lift up when it rains to water your plants or close to keep your plants warm. Many people have to heat their cold frames and green houses since it can get down in the 20 something degrees Fahrenheit range at night right up until Memorial Day.

The plants that should be transplanted are: tomatoes, sweet peppers, hot peppers
and large varieties of watermelon (the small round varieties grow well from seed if the soil is rich enough). In Southern Michigan you can get a few tomatoes from plants that come up from seed (volunteers) however, in Northern Michigan it stays too cold in the spring so the volunteer tomato plants never mature enough to produce anything.

FRUIT TREES BACK AND FRONT

In one of my previous incarnations I managed garden centers.  Gardening has always been one of my favorite hobbies as it was for my parents and grandparents.  My mother has a copy of a will that one of her ancestors left back in the 1600’s  in which the most valuable asset he had to leave his family was his orchard.  The second most valuable asset he had to leave his family was his collection of  household pots and pans.  In those days having something to harvest and eat was slightly more valuable than having something to cook your harvest with.

 With the brief history that I have noted above I think it should be obvious that having things growing on your property that are edible should be part of your planning as you develop your property.   Although having an orchard or large vegetable garden may not be the way you want to see your yard aesthetically, there are ways of blending in edible vegetation which might in fact compliment your yard’s overall view.

A strawberry jar on a porch might be one way of maximizing a small area for some niche delicious fruits.  Strawberry plants are really quite luscious looking when cared for properly and a nice red ripe strawberry is always beautiful either on the plant or on the table.

There are many types of  easy to grow fruit trees that have nice leafy vegetation, ample flowers in the spring and colorful fruits in late summer or fall. Dwarf varieties mature much faster and produce fruit much earlier that conventional fruit trees however, their harvests are equally limited by their smaller size  When it comes to fruit trees apple, plum, pear, peach and apricot are most peoples favorites.  There are also nut trees you might plant however, many nut trees take decades to mature to the point that they actually produce any nuts.

The great thing about fruit trees is that you can plant them in your yard just as you would any other tree that you plant for aesthetic purposes.  A nice apple or plum tree will add both shade and decoration to your front or backyard and in the spring the blossoms will add ornamentation to your property just as well as a flowering shrub or any other flowering tree. An added benefit is that your unwanted fruits will help feed the wildlife in your area.  Birds, squirrels, deer, raccoons and other creatures not often seen will no doubt visit your trees for their vitamin rich manna.

Finally, with the cost of food going ever higher it might be good to supplement your yearly grocery store harvest with some free or nearly free healthful foods.  Insects, bacterial infections and  small animals are the primary creatures who deplete your fruit harvest however, some lemon flavored dish soap suds applied sparingly to your trees about once per week will handle most unwanted consumers of your harvests.  And, a couple of bug bites or patches of  “scale” can be cut out of your fruit.  Furthermore, at least if the fruit has a bug bite on it then it is most likely safe for human consumption unlike the pristine fruits you find in some stores.  The toxins used to make fruit unblemished might do more harm to the human system then  fruit grown naturally with all the scars and bug holes that are common to a healthy environment.