Category: garden

Recipe: Carrot Cake

by Diane, posted in garden, Recipe
This carrot is ready to walk away.

This year, I grew an abundance of carrots. I grew them in the multi-sowing pattern: three seeds in one hole. If you’re like me, you’ve been taught since your first steps in the garden to either drop one seed in the hole or (since this is carrots), scatter them and when they start to grow, thin out the weaker seedlings to give the carrot lots of room to grow.

Well, that’s not how Charles Dowding does it, and I’ve been watching his videos and following him for almost two years. He puts three seeds in and grows carrots (and other vegetables, such as onions) in clumps.

My experience with this has been extremely interesting.

I can’t say these deformed characters were the result of multi-sowing or the organic seeds I had sown. However, these are the most interesting carrots I’ve ever grown. My onions sown with this method grew normally.

More on this multi-sowing method and Dowding in a future post. This post is about carrot cake.

I pulled the last of the carrots from the garden on December 14th, the day before temperatures were predicted to drop below -10 Celsius.

I’ve made this recipe several times, starting in 2017. I found the original on the Internet and tweaked it to my tastes. The original didn’t include raisins, but I love raisins.

I’ll be honest, when I look at carrot cake, nothing in my body says, “Oh. Lovely. That looks so delicious.”

Then I take a bite, and my taste buds ignite with excitement, and I love this cake.

Carrot Cake

The last harvest of carrots this season.

In a sauce pan

  • melt 1 1/4 cup butter

In a small bowl, shred

  • enough carrots to make three cups – that’s about 4 carrots average size

In a small bowl, mix

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
Continue reading “Recipe: Carrot Cake” →

Thoughts on Plants and People

by Diane, posted in garden

As I strolled through the garden, I admired the deep green leaves of the thyme, parsley and creeping phlox, indeed some strawberry leaves were still vibrant and green. They contrasted sharply with the bare branches of plants that had long lost their leaves when temperatures dipped below zero.

I wondered what allowed some leaves to survive while others succumbed.

Then I wondered if people were like plants: some endured and thrived in hardships while others perished in a light frost.

The pansies still blooming beneath a thin layer of snow on December 10th.

Thyme, strawberry and dandelion still green on December 10th.

Winter is only 11 days away, yet these plants are still green. Given the lack of daylight, they’re probably not growing at any rate. They’ve endured temperatures as low as -5 degrees Celsius, freezing rain and snow.

My lettuce — the first time I planted a fall crop — is doing well. I cover it with a small frame with plastic. It’s doing fine, but there’s not much growth. I doubt it will survive the below -10 temperatures we’ll get soon.

Lettuce undercover. Photo taken December 8th.

The lettuce under the cover.

The garden never fails to entertain. I love being in it in every season.

Fall in My Garden

by Diane, posted in garden, Non-fiction, Photographs

If spring can spring, does that mean fall can fall? If so, it has fallen in the Maritimes.

Yesterday was a beautiful day in my Nova Scotia garden. While temperatures reached 13 degrees Celsius, grey clouds consumed the sky, a thin veil of fog perched in the distance and a slow mist fell throughout the day, there was no wind. I worked outside all day in shorts and a light sweater.

Here are a few photos of my garden that captured the season.

Red Berries

High Bush Cranberry

I planted this bush several years ago because I love cranberries, and I wanted the ability to pick some from my yard. However, these berries taste nothing like the low-growing cranberries that grow in Nova Scotia. The berries taste horrible. I’ve tasted them before the frost, after the frost and after may frosts, but they still taste horrible. However, the birds enjoy them in winter.

Ninebark

This shrub has been growing in my garden for more than two decades. Last winter, I cut it back hard because it had grown lanky and wild. This summer, if filled out better than the first few years of it living in my garden.

Continue reading “Fall in My Garden” →