Pork and Beans Cake
Ingredients:

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup oil
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 (16 ounce) can pork and beans, drained
• 1 (8 ounce) can crushed pineapple, drained
• 1 teaspoon apple pie spice

Cream Cheese Frosting:

• 1/4 cup softened oleo or butter
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1 (16 ounce) box powdered sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup pecans, finely chopped

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Sift together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, apple pie spice,salt and baking powder. Add eggs and oil. Blend until smooth. Blend pork and beans with mixer until smooth. Add crushed pineapple and pork and beans to batter and blend. Pour into greased Bundt pan. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes.  Cool and frost with cream cheese frosting.
Frosting: Blend butter, cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until smooth.
Spread on cooled cake and sprinkle with pecans.

Green Tomato Chocolate Cake

2/3 cup unsalted butter
1 3/4 cup sugar
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups sifted unbleached flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

1 T. instant espresso
1 cup beer
1 cup pureed green tomatoes
1/4- 1/2 cup water (optional)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9-by-13-inch baking pan, or two cake pans, or cupcake tins. (I used two 8-inch square pans and had enough to also make 10 cupcakes.) In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar. Stir in chocolate, then, one at a time, the eggs. Add vanilla.
In a medium bowl, sift flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Add flour mixture to butter mixture alternately with beer, tomatoes and instant espresso. If batter appears stiff, add water. Turn batter into the prepared baking pan. Bake for 35 minutes, until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean.
Cool on a wire rack. Frost with cream cheese frosting recipe above.

We met at the library. It was a small gathering, with a three growers, the gal from the anti-fat group, and the manager of a large farmers market in the next town over. It was all sugar cookies and love for the first half-hour. This could work. Then, just as we were talking about how unique our farmers market would be, the other shoe fell and squashed our hopes into a slimy mass of ooze. There was a contract and a fee involved, of course.

The contract required that each farmer carry a one-million-dollar liability policy at the cost of $250 a year. Then, there was a list of restrictions and terms giving the market manager the authority to remove produce they deem unfit and limiting what items farmers could sell. Only a small percentage of merchandise could be handmade crafts. No live animals like chicks and no selling farm fresh eggs allowed. The list went on for two pages describing what farmers could and couldn’t do. To date, no one has signed it. Who would?

Some of you may know that I’m attending law school, and after looking at the proposed contract, it dawned on me that anyone selling a farmers market or running a CSA should have disclaimer for their customers to sign. I’m not kidding. If someone buys a tomato from you and gets a bad case of heartburn or slips on the tomato and decides to sue you, you could lose big time. That’s the world we live in. There aren’t enough obstacles to getting fresh, unprocessed food; some think we need another road block.

While I’m not a lawyer yet, I highly recommend having your customers sign something that indemnifies you. (How do you like that fancy schmancy lawyer talk?) I’m drawing up my own consent and release statement. It goes something like this:

You, the customer, agree to hold me, the farmer and seller, wholly blameless for any and all adversities that may befall you from buying and eating produce and other products from my farm. While we take painstaking steps to ensure the cleanliness of what we grow (unlike corporate spinach growers and dairy producers), you acknowledge that there is an inherent risk in consuming anything. Sign and date here or I won’t sell you a damn thing.

I leave you with a question. How can anyone hope to combat obesity when the people who grow and sell fresh produce are hog-tied by rules and regulations?

I taught my 20-month-old grandson the basics of quack grass yanking. We have a patch by the composter that we’re transitioning into a blueberry plot. Part of it is fallow, growing nothing but tall grass. After Aydan watched me pull weeds out of the peas and put them in the composter, he started yanking the quack grass. He thoroughly enjoyed himself, until it was time to go in. He threw a huge fit and resisted with every one of his 27 pounds of baby rage.

If he likes pulling weeds this much, he’s going to love picking green beans!

The pea patch—the watering can doesn’t hold water any longer. It just sits there next to the pitchfork.

What sticks with me about this man’s question is the fact that he was willing to try to grow something completely out of its element.

Watermelons at sea? Can you do that?

The answer is of course you can. No self-respecting gardener is going to let a little thing like being on an aircraft carrier stop them from growing what they want. Plants that grow where people think they won’t are sources of wonderment and awe. That’s the reason we garden. To see things grow.

Most of us are well versed in the USDA Hardiness Zones. We know what will and what won’t over winter in our area. But what if you really want to plant Pampas grass in zone 3? Obviously this plant which is rated for zone 6 isn’t going to survive even a mild winter in zone 3. This shouldn’t stop the creative gardener from trying.

Containers are a wonderful way to get around the zone limitations. Try experimenting with different types. I’ve seen people plant in everything from whiskey barrels to baby buggies. And who hasn’t seen a flowering commode gracing the lawn of some spirited gardener?

If the container is especially large or heavy put wheels on it before you plant into it. Caster wheels are available at most hardware stores and are easy to put on. These will allow for easy movement backward, forward, and sideways. When winter rolls around simply bring the container and contents indoors. (Except for the flowering commode which should definitely not be brought back in.)

If a plant is rated for a southern zone that borders your own it may grow successfully in your garden. Many gardeners in zone 4 have Hibiscus that over winters just fine even though it is considered hardy only to zone 5. Try placing these kinds of plants out of the wind in a spot with a good southern exposure. Heavy mulching will also help.

Another technique that works nicely is growing perennials as annuals. Basil is a perennial in southern zones, but it grows in many a northern garden as an annual. I have a friend who takes cuttings from her Rosemary plants each fall and propagates them indoors. In spring she takes the cuttings which have become well established over the winter and plants them outside. This is a great option for her since Rosemary is hardy in zones 7-11 and she lives in zone 3.

I answered the sailor’s email and suggested he forego the sea water. It is extremely salty and saline causes plants to dehydrate. I sent him some information on collecting rain water and wished him well.

I didn’t hear from him again, but in my mind’s eye I can see him on deck breathing the salty ocean air and enjoying a big slice of Persian Gulf watermelon.

I recently added two authors to my favorite classic author list, Don Engelbretson and Don Williamson. Don Engebretson is a four time Garden Globe winner and a University of Minnesota Master Gardener who has been featured on HGTV and PBS. He is a veteran garden writer with credits in a variety of gardening magazines. Don Williamson has co-authored several books on gardening including Best Garden Plants for Washington and Oregon and Tree and Shrub Gardening for Northern California. He has a degree in horticultural technology and is an experienced landscaping professional.

The pair has teamed up to write a series of garden guides specifically for gardeners in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Their last release, Tree & Shrub Gardening for Minnesota and Wisconsin, is an instant classic which I will return to often. This is a very well written guide for gardeners in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The authors combine their expertise to produce a very useful regional guide. Many garden books attempt to cover too wide of an area to be concise. The information in this book is designed to help local gardeners create striking landscapes with trees and shrubs.

The 75 plant profiles are to the point. Each tree or shrub is listed by its common name first. This is a feature I really like in gardening books. Immediately following the name is a short synopsis of the plant. It includes features, habitat, height, spread, planting and zones. Common pests and problems are noted in each listing. Engebretson and Williamson also recommend species, varieties, and cultivars uniquely suited for growing in the ‘Superior States’.

The pictures are inspiring and the text doesn’t drone on forever. This is my kind of gardening book. I even like the textured cover. It weathered a green tea bath remarkably well.

I plan to add the other books in the series, Perennials for Minnesota and Wisconsin, Annuals for Minnesota and Wisconsin, and Gardening Month by Month in Minnesota and Wisconsin. I showed the book to a friend and my mother-in-law, both immediately wanted to borrow it. They’ll have to get their own copies; I have some serious landscaping to do this fall, mine’s not going anywhere.