Why I Oughta...

A week later and another Bar Pie shot below.  Last week, I showed a photo and talked about my Bar Pie Progress with a sausage and giardiniera 12-incher (well done, of course) where I talked about what I've been working on since early Spring this year.  This is a 12" bar pie loaded with cupped pepperoni.  I didn't run out for the *right* cheese, so I used what was on hand.  Learned a little bit there - and will go back to my traditional blend.  This one, however, created a little bit of frico that you can see on the bottom right of photo below. Nice Cups. Loaded with Pepperoni. Base chassis of: Crushed Tomatoes, cheese blend. Finished with a heavy hand of post-oven Romano and basil .  Hot Giardiniera added (pre-oven) to half. Menu-wise, I haven't quite figured out how to talk about adding giardiniera to the base bar pie names.  Does it become a different pie? Or should all the base menu pizzas be offered with giardiniera as a 'plus-up'?  Along with pre-ove

This post serves as the final 'tree planting' post for the year, but also lays out a little bit of the self-education process I've been through in terms of ornamental tree pruning over the past few weeks. I'm learning (everyday!) that there are many types of pruning - and I've tried one of them:  espalier. But, in addition to espalier, there's also pollarding, pleaching and topping. The espalier I've done includes some horizontal cordon work on a pair of Greenspire Linden trees . After four growing seasons, they're starting to come into their final form and I love them.  And more recently, set up a new pair of crab apple trees with a TBD form .  I've been exploring the other pruning methods to figure out if I should try to learn and get to know them. What I've settled on is trying my hand at pleaching. The first time i talked about pleaching was back in 2018 here when I was discussing trees .  At the time, I was using pleaching and espalier int

Depositing a photo here in the [ garden diary ] of the mid-bed-planted trio of Amsonia Butterscotch that I planted earlier this Spring after buying them from the Morton Arboretum Arbor Day Plant Sale.  These three plants are planted in between a row of Fanal Astilbes and some Oakleaf Hydrangeas.  These are/were billed as being "garden stars" during the Fall , so I thought I'd share what they look like in early Fall.  You can see them below: They're just starting to turn from green to yellow, so we're getting to that 'show', but the fine-nature of the foliage is certainly striking.  I'm excited to see these continue to grow up and out.  I planted them widely spaced , hoping to see them each get about 24" tall and 2-3' wide.   Excited to tuck them in for the Winter after they put on their show and sure hope they come back in Spring for year two.

I recently came across some #1 Hicks Yews on a massive sale (these were sub $5 each), so I grabbed seven of them (and some other items) you can see below.  These seven join the other ones that I already have in as a hedge across the back and the recently planted pair that I'm trying to grow into a topiary .  I've had good luck with all of the previously planted Hicks upright yews not having too much trouble with drought, but they've had a little bit of rabbit damage over the years. I took six of these upright yews and put them into a hedge that will span the back of this bed to the front and - when it grows - will be shaped into that 'swooping' profile that I'm chasing .  My thought is that this new section of swooping hedge will evoke the same feeling as the one in back and work to tie the garden together by repeating the look with upright yews.  Here, below, you can see some of the yews set up for placement below: For record-keeping purposes, here (below) is t

Yesterday, I posted photos of the Allium 'Christophii' bulbs that I ordered from Longfield Gardens and planted in the various beds around the backyard.  In that post, I mentioned a few other varieties of allium bulbs that I also included in my Longfield Gardens order.   Here's a look at the two other types of Allium bulbs that I planted.   First, there are 50 Allium Sphaerocephalon Drumsticks .   Now that I think about it, I'm not sure that I actually planted Christophii bulbs near the Fanal Astilbes that I mentioned yesterday.  I'm now pretty sure that I actually planted THESE Drumstick Alliums there. Here's the Astilbe colony that I'm pretty sure has Drumsticks now below: Next up are 15 Allium Bulgaricum that I bought on a whim.   I stuck these in the ground around the pair of espalier'd Linden trees: And in front of some of the Summer Beauty Ornamental Alliums that are right next to the Lindens: In terms of total numbers, I planted 45 Christophii b

Earlier this Summer, Erin the Impatient Gardener posted this reminder on her Instagram handle (it was spon con, but it still was useful) about ordering Fall bulbs and in particular, she called out ‘Christophii’ allium as a sport of Allium that she's a big fan of that she says 'steals the show' in her bulb blog post here .  I've historically bought my bulbs from big box stores or Costco ( Nat brought home these Pinball Wizard Allium from Costco this year ), so the idea of ordering direct from Longfield was something new for me.   View this post on Instagram A post shared by E R I N🌿The Impatient Gardener (@impatientgardener) Back in September, I finally got around to ordering some bulbs from Longfield Gardens and close to the end of the month, they shipped them out.  I bought a series of Allium bulbs from them (just Allium this year) including 3 15 packs of these Christophii bulbs.  Here's their product listing .  When they arrived, they were n

With Fall here and Winter coming, that usually means that I do *even more* pizza making than I do during the Summer.  The arrival of our Ooni earlier this year changed Summer pizza-making, but I've also been making a little bit of progress on my bar pies.  Here's a shot post-oven/pre-cut of fennel sausage across the whole thing and hot giardiniera on half.  Olive-free giardiniera, of course.    I was talking to Equation Boy/Man about this particular bar pie recently and he mentioned that (for some reason he can't quite explain) the little "orange spots of carrots peeking through make his mouth water".  Dare you to look at this and not have the same reaction.   Last time I posted about my bar pies was in August - when I showed a cross-section and a little bit of the undercarriage .  Back then, I was using a cheddar for the frico edge, but I've moved away from that (for now).  Feels like a Winter thing to bring back at Dorianell's , doesn't it?   I start