June 16, 2010: Danger In the Garden


Sometimes it's scary to go into the garden!


See the big tree in Pat's Yard? That is one of her English walnut trees, and this one happens to hang over the "seating" area in my garden. At my request, she had two very large dead branches removed a couple of weeks ago, but there is still a huge area of dead wood right above the kennel. It's not only dead branches I find in the garden......


Unfortunately, on almost a daily basis, I find something like this. This large branch was laying atop the park bench. I'm sure glad I wasn't sitting on it at the time it fell! The red handled clippers are in the photo for size comparison. It wasn't windy, and the branch was definitely broken (not cut), so I can only assume the squirrels were getting too frisky and snapped it off. Gardening can be dangerous, I tell ya!


Last night's garden dinner was so good. We just had a large stir fry of pork, garden veggies and noodles, served with a lettuce salad with ranch dressing and a bit of crumbled bacon.


All the veggies were fresh from the garden, except the red peppers, which were frozen from last year's garden.


The finished dish.


18 comments:

  1. Looks delicious and glad you were not sitting on the garden bench eating your dinner.

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  2. Beautiful dinner!

    I was sitting outside the other day thinking how stupid I had been in a gardening decision when a squirrel litterally fell out of the tree behind me, hit the ground, shook himself off and scampered away. I felt better. Nobody's perfect. Even squirrels fall from trees.

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  3. Your making my mouth water, time for dinner!

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  4. yummy yummy that looks!!! as for the branches.. i do hope u wear a hardhat when gardening in that corner!!!

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  5. Gran that looks SO good! I'm planning on making stir-fired noodles tomorrow night. Now I'm excited!

    I've never frozen peppers before. How do they hold up? Hopefully I'll be able to freeze some myself later this summer.

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  6. Glad you were not under that big old branch when it made a landing!

    Your stir fry looks delicious and is similar to countless stir fry's we make using those same ingredients (including the frozen peppers!) and noocles. The veggies vary with what is in season but stir fry dinners occur are a standard on our weekly dinner menu.

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  7. Thomas, the frozen peppers work just fine in cooked foods. Of course, they aren't that great in uncooked stuff. They get a bit soft when they thaw. I use them in stir fry, fajitas, sweet & sours, casseroles....any dish that's cooked. Actually, I've never tried them in, say, tuna salad or an uncooked dish where they would be diced very fine.

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  8. Boy, it's a good thing I already ate dinner. Your food is still making me salivate...

    Our house in VA backs to the woods, and even on slightly breezy days, we could hear the "crack" of a large branch breaking, and then it breaking the branches below it as it fell. We used to joke and count it like a thunder clap ("one, Mississippi") to see how tall the tree was... Hmmm, guess there is something I miss about that house...

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  9. Maybe you should wear one of those construction hats when you garden - or sit on your park bench.

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  10. You be careful out there Granny!

    That stir fry looks so so so good. I hope that you ate it with that fine fork!

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  11. AG- You need a "watch for falling objects" sign over in that corner!

    Yummy stir-fry dinner- I love how much you eat out of your garden, I hope to get a smidgen of that one day.

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  12. Dang...that looks really good! You sure do use your harvest well, Granny...

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  13. I am officially down to my last little quart bag of frozen peppers! Stir fry is my favorite way to enjoy garden stuff besides the obvious salad. There isn't much you can't put in there, and it's always so yummy looking! Here in hurricane zone, I would lie awake nights stressing over that tree, that deep "V" fork in it wouldn't last through one!

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  14. To all:

    I never garden in the wind! That branch is small compared to what is still up there, and we get some really strong winds here. The last storm we had, that tree dropped some huge limbs into her yard. Thankfully it was blowing away from my garden! Like Erin said, that deep "V" fork is dangerous. That's where trees collect too much moisture, and rot sets in. That's what happened to our maple tree that was downed by the wind in 2008.

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  15. Granny, you stir-fry looks so good. I have never used noodles. Usually we just use rice but I think I am going to give this a try. What else do you add to mix for sauce or seasoning?

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  16. Debiclegg, for a good sized pan of stir fry, I use about 1/2 cup of cold water, 1/4 cup soy sauce and 1/4 cup Mr. Yoshida's Original Gourmet Sauce (this gives it some sweetness, you could use all soy sauce if you don't like the sweet), and 1 T. cornstarch. I add it to the stir fry right at the end, and cook and stir until thickened. Then I stir in the noodles, which have been cooked. I use a whole grain spaghetti, broken in half or thirds before cooking.

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  17. I am thinking that I might have a lot of pepper plants this year, becasue I keept thinking I needed to replace some plants becasue they looked like they were on their last leg. Well they are recovering. How do you freeze your pepers. I have read that you freeze them individually on a tray in the freezer then you put them in zip lock bags. Let me know. Your garden is looking great. I am growing tomatoes in buckets and in raised beds, trying to compare what is better. The buckets leave me more space in the beds, but we will see. Thanks.

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  18. Cynthia, I just wash and dry my peppers, then slice them lengthwise into about 1/2" slices. Place them on a large cookie sheet or baking pan that has been lined with waxed paper or a clean kitchen towel (I find the towel releases the frozen peppers easier). Put the peppers into the freezer, and freeze them solid. Remove from freezer, bag them in freezer bags (or containers of your choice) and return them to the freezer. I use the strips in fajitas and stir fry, or they can be easily chopped, while still frozen, for casseroles, chili, etc. This works equally well for sweet as well as hot peppers. I like to add chopped jalapenos to my cornbread.

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