I tried something new Thanksgiving Day 2016 and added loads of flavor to the meal. I used all the inside stuff from the turkey – the neck, kidneys, etc – not the liver, throw it away (that’s what recipes said).
Brown all that stuff in oil in a large pan for 5 minutes.
While it’s browning cut up a carrot, celery stick, and onion, into bigger chunks.
Crush garlic cloves. Pick parsley & basil from garden and rinse.
After 5 minutes add the veggies to the pot and cook for another 5 minutes.
Add chicken broth – 2 cups because it tends to be too salty. And 4 cups of water. Total 6 cups however you want.
Boil on medium for 45-60 minutes, uncovered.
Strain through a colander and dump out veggies. Use the broth for making stuffing and gravy. (We used 2 Publix packets of gravy, and Stove Top stuffing.) I had just enough stock to make both. It added great flavor.
I also made my own cranberry sauce since no one eats it but me. I’m not picky, and it was pretty good. I’ve never worked with whole, fresh cranberries before. I though they were only used to make garland for the Christmas tree!
On a recent visit to Pells Nursery in Osteen, we came across some unique honey called “Black Mangrove” that comes from bees in the Mosquito Lagoon! The Lagoon is widely known for it’s fishing, but I’ve never heard of honey coming from there. We had to buy it.
The Black Mangrove honey is darker in color and not as thick as other types I’ve had, but it’s delicious. It’s made by Sun Splash Nursery of New Smyrna Beach. They are an organic farm and the place is not too far from where I live now. Their Farmer’s Market is open 8am till 3:30pm Monday thru Friday. I must go there soon and see what they are selling for produce. (Update – this place does not seem to exist! We drove over and found nothing there. Site must be old.)
Back to the honey. Raw honey is far superior to store bought generic brands and I love to find new types to try. This one also has an interesting story behind it. The company has the right to access the islands filled with black mangrove trees in the Mosquito Lagoon. All during the Florida summer they collect honey while the mangroves bloom.
We have fished out on the Intracoastal, and have heard bees buzzing on the islands. Now I will be able to picture them working away to make us their fabulous honey! Below in my photo from another blog of mine (Seashells by Millhill), you can see what those mangrove covered islands look like.
There are many, many islands like this out on the Intracoastal Waterway, which includes Mosquito Lagoon.
What a great idea to collect honey from that area! The Sun Splash company will ship their honey to customers, so click the link I provided above if you are interested in trying some for yourself.
Read an article by the Daytona Beach News Journal, written September 2016 about the owner and how he came to help out the bees (and himself) by putting beehives out on the remote Intracoastal islands.
As a side note, I noticed that the Sun Splash Nursery website also has a page containing gardening advice, which will be helpful as I plan my vegetable gardens. I look forward to visiting their nursery soon.
Today I did something that I have waited a long time to do. I began work on my flower garden beds. I am finally in my new home! The big move began way back in January, and has taken the whole year. There is still more to move from storage, and all the boxes need to be unpacked, but having a chance to work in MY yard again is a wonderful feeling.
We have merged two households, and I went from a three story house (including the basement) to a single story, no basement and small attic. So finding space for everyone’s stuff is challenging. There is a GoodWill nearby which I will be visiting often in the months to come.
Last night we bought garden dirt – 4 bags – and this morning I added it to two gardens. These are gardens which already have plants in them and I plan to add flowering shrubs to brighten the landscape. The raised vegetable gardens are coming soon (fingers crossed).
All three planting beds have black fabric in the bottom, which I hate, and have removed from two beds. I don’t mind pulling weeds, and if a garden is done correctly, the weeds shouldn’t be a huge problem. So first thing I did was pull up the plastic fabric that is used for weed control.
Front Garden
The garden bed near the front door has one overgrown shrub – which I am pretty sure I used to know the name of – and it needs to be cut way back. If it wasn’t already so large, I would probably take it out completely. The bushy perennial blocks the breeze from entering my front windows, not to mention it mostly blocks the view out the front!
Since I am still busy with the house, my focus will be on the gardens already in place. Amending the soil and adding nutrients was my focus this morning. I pulled the old mulch out of the way to put the bagged dirt down, then mixed in some blood meal.
This Azalea needs some help.
I did the same thing to the little area containing a raggedy looking azalea bush. I may cut this thing back and see if it will fill in more.
My plan is to fill in these gardens as I find plants for them. I can’t dig through the black fabric, so it had to go. Since this yard is new to me, I have to watch it for sunny and shady spots and buy plants accordingly. The azalea needs light shade and usually does well under the trees. It also likes acidic soil, which also happens to create blue flowering hydrangeas! I may be able to add some blue-flowering hydrangeas to this garden area, which is an exciting prospect.
While reading my gardening book, I discovered this about Florida planting: *Plant SHRUBS in winter AND *Plant TREES and PALMS in summer. Now (almost November) is the time to begin planning my perennial gardens. After that, it’s on to building the raised vegetable garden beds.
I began this blog with the hope of sharing my gardening experience, like so many normal people do. But I am not normal. Or should I say, my life is not normal. By this time, I am probably a little off my rocker as well.
After closing on my new home just the other day, (it was delayed because of Hurricane Matthew, which didn’t surprise me a bit) I now have to face moving again. I am not young. There is a household of items to move, as well as a storage unit full. It will be up to me and my two sons to do all the heavy lifting. On the bright side, this keeps me fit. I am stronger than the typical sixty-year old woman, for sure.
Recently I counted up the times I had moved in my life and came to the extraordinary number of 14. I look forward to living in a nice home, and hopefully the last I will ever live in. It’s not anything fabulous, but it will be comfortable. Anyone who has moved to a new place knows that it takes time to get settled in, and I hate that I will have to waste more of my life doing that, one more time.
Many – no ALL – of my friends (or, past friends, I should say) are settled in life. People my age own homes that are paid off. They are not just now signing up for a 30-year mortgage! They have fun. Many of them spend time traveling and visiting their kids the grandkids. They go to weddings, go out to dinner, have parties, take vacations, and share stories of their fantastic lives on their FaceBook pages. They live. They have normal lives.
They live the kind of life I always expected to have in my later years. Why not expect that? But, for me, it went the other way. This is mainly why they are “past friends”. I have nothing in common with my old friends these days. And I can’t expect them to understand. I only visit FaceBook because I have a Store Page there, for my business. Yes, I will be working until I die. No retirement and slowing down for me.
I accept my lot in life. What else can I do? My posts here have become depressing, even for me, so I apologize. Soon, I hope to have some photos and info about building raised garden beds. I plan to have a few on my new property. That will make me feel more normal. In the meantime, I will be packing.
I’ve had a bad year. I’m not going further back than that, but these past months have been especially hard. After dealing with a drop in income and buying absolutely nothing extra for nearly three years, I was able to quickly sell my New Hampshire home and move back to Florida. I never wanted to come back here to live, but it’s more affordable. Also my older son is a firefighter here and my younger son is attending college here. It was my only option. Without money, there are few options in life.
There will be no basement storage in Florida
I had a big yard sale, gave items away, and called a local shop to pick up lots of my furniture before we packed up the Penske truck and took the three day drive from New England to Florida. All of that was a tremendous effort, not to mention the packing, showing the house, and my sadness at having to leave – move again.
Since June my younger son and I have been living with my older son in his rental house in east central Florida. I dislike the area and hate the heat. But I am sucking it up, and trying to make the best of it. I know it’s foolish of me to hope for a better future, but when that is all there is, it can’t be helped. We began looking for a house to buy together right away. We found one and began the buying process.
Yesterday we were scheduled to close on the house. Everyone has been watching the path of Hurricane Matthew and it seemed to be headed straight for the coast where my new home is located. I wondered at the wisdom of closing on a home the day before a major hurricane hits.
My worries were lessened when one hour before the closing I got a call from the Mortgage company saying there was a moratorium on closings! It had been delayed because of the storm’s approach.
Depending on the damage left behind by this storm, it may be a while before we can close and get ourselves moved in. The house is only a few miles from the beach, so it may get some damage – and then what? The nightmare goes on.
I say ending the year with a disaster, but really there are a few months to go. Time for even more fun to happen in my life.
Standing in line at Publix with everyone buying food before the Hurricane.
I’ve been browsing my new Florida Gardening book and finally came upon a page that really tells me all I need to know for now. It is entitled “Cool Season Vegetables” with planting times – specifically for north, south or central Florida regions.
I will live on the edge of zone 9a and 9b of the cold hardiness zone map. What that means is that my area often gets frosts and sometimes freezes during December, January and February. Temperatures can get down into the 20’s. When that happens I will have to protect my crops. I can remember covering my outdoor shrubs and plants that were sensitive to cold when I lived in Florida before. I saved up old sheets and blankets and would cover them over night. Usually temperatures climb nicely during the day, but overnight it can be downright cold!
Anyway, the cool season vegetable planting list contains a lot of vegetables I love to grow.
Growing vegetables in Florida is new to me. I’m used to having everything pulled up from my gardens by the beginning of October, with the exception of some herbs, parsley and kale. It’s not a time for beginning to plant anything in New England. The fall season in the northeast is a time to enjoy the foliage and try not to think about what is coming.
I am delighted to find that many of my favorite veggies can be grown in the upcoming months. On the planting list for October onward, I see that I can plant carrots, celery, kale, lettuce, onions, parsley, peas and potatoes, to name a few. A couple of surprises on the list include strawberries and rhubarb! The rhubarb can be planted at any time of year, but I didn’t even know I would be able to grow it in the south! And I always thought strawberries were summer fruit.
Also most herbs can be planted this time of year. Of course I searched for parsley first thing and was astounded when it wasn’t listed in the “herb” section. After freaking out a bit, I found it listed under cool-season vegetables. I always thought parsley was a herb, so I researched it and found that it is considered a herb, a spice and a vegetable. Wow, I didn’t know that.
My current “garden”
When I first moved down to Florida in June, I went out and bought two green pepper plants. They grew one funny-looking pepper and then began to die. I still have one of the plants and it’s beginning to grow new peppers. (See it in the black pot in my photo.) I am hoping it may still produce a pepper or two for me.
Now that I see the lists of all these vegetables, I am wishing I had a bigger yard. I haven’t moved into my new home yet, but the lot is normal size. I’ll have to figure out how to best utilize the space for my gardens. (Update: I plant in a raised bed.) This gardening research will give me a good idea of what to do once the garden beds are ready.
Maybe I will continue to do some container gardening in the meantime.
I began this blog with the hope of sharing my gardening experience, like so many normal people do. But I am not normal. Or should I say, my life is not normal. By this time, I am probably a little off my rocker as well.
Hydrangeas Blue 