Blueberry buckle

Blueberry buckle is basically a coffee cake made with blueberries and a streusel topping.  I've heard it described as so good it could make a bulldog climb a marble wall.
I made one this afternoon and darling husband wanted to know why it was called "buckle."  I said I didn't know--maybe because it was so good it would make your knees buckle.  He wasn't buying that, so I said maybe you would eat too much and have to loosen your belt buckle.  And while I was at my brilliant brainstorming, I said maybe it's from a German word.  (The recipe I used was supposedly from someone's grandmother in Pennsylvania...  Pennsylvania... Pennsylvania Dutch...  which is really German; okay that's how my mind works.)  The internet tells me it is because the topping has a buckled appearance.  I thought my etymologies were a little more interesting.

 

Bested by beetles

I took a look at my daily journal from a year ago.  It's the same as today: "picked off beetles."
Here's a look at the number I picked off this morning.  My neighbor's chickens liked them.

I picked off more this evening.  What a pest!  

Yukon Gold potato

This evening I dug one hill of my Yukon Gold potatoes to cook for supper.  The yield was better than the Adirondack Blue.  The potatoes were tasty.  (I also picked a few squash for supper.)

You can't get any fresher than that.

A resilient glad

I remember Mama used to gather her gladiolus corms in the fall into a bushel basket and overwinter them in the cinder block well house.  I liked the way the brown corms looked, and the dark red glads, which were my favorites, had a darker corm.  They would be replanted in spring, and in summer there would be a row or two along the upper edge of the vegetable garden.  It seems I remember how we would look at the row as we were leaving for church on a Sunday morning to see which colors were blooming. 
Years ago, I got a few glads myself.  It's been so long I don't even remember where I got them, but I probably ordered them from a catalogue such as Henry Field's.  Only a white one still lives, but it survives the winter in the ground and comes back every year even though it is getting shaded out by the Japanese maple and crowded out by honeysuckle, poison ivy, and leriope that the birds "planted."  I remember once, ages ago, a neighborhood kid yanked the glad out of the ground just for meanness.  At the time, I cut the bloom off and put it in a vase; I replanted the corm, and it just kept going.  I'm amazed at how it has managed to survive.  I think there have been some years that it didn't bloom, but it did this year.

Great grey slug?

Just in the last few years, I've been encountering some giant slugs around here.  I view them as pests.  Here is one I found on the house siding this morning.  If this is a great grey slug, it is not a US native, but an accidental introduction.  Sometimes those introductions can have a dramatic impact on the ecology of an area.

Blue potatoes and color on the dinner plate

Eat your colors.

I guess it's a sign that I'm still a novice that I brag, "This was from OUR garden," but it might be a sign that I want credit for the hard work I put in.  Anyway, the cuke, tomato, blue potatoes, and squash were from our garden.  Classic summertime fare.  Darling husband was a little leery about the potatoes, but I love expanding an old man's horizons!

The cuke was the first one of the season in my garden.  Just a few days ago, I had glanced and only seen little 1 to 2 inch prickly nubbins, so I was startled to see this 6 inch cuke.  I had better check the vines more closely today.  (Those muffins are the second batch from my own blueberries.)

 

I wasn't terribly impressed with the blue potato harvest.  I had started out with 3 seed potatoes.  I had cut 2 of them in half at planting.  This is the harvest.

 

It's more than I started out with, but it's a poor yield.  I don't know if the rodent that was in the neighboring Yukon Gold potatoes got any, but there is no evidence of teeth marks on the potatoes here.  (There are some fork marks where I accidentally pierced them in digging.)  So if a rodent ate any, he ate the whole kit and caboodle.  Also, the potatoes I cooked had just a little slit or opening in the middle, a "hollow heart" in potato speak.  That is supposedly caused by environmental factors, but some varieties are more susceptible to it than others.  The flavor was good, but I've had better.  I may try to keep a couple of the potatoes for seed.  (They say the early ripening varieties don't keep as well, and this is considered "early midseason.")  If they rot over winter, I'll probably not buy any to plant next year.  Overall, a bust, but the novelty of it was worth at least a little. 

I hope you're enjoying a colorful plate this summer.

 

 



Daylily blooms

The ample rain we've had lately has been a boon to the daylilies.  Here are the first blooms on this lily that opened yesterday.

This one can have blooms as late as October.  It's a winner, in my book.