You can see it's nearly March, how did that happen, because the State extension people are out with their list of Banned Botanicals.
Quite a few of these around here, which I see when I'm out walking to the pond. Some are escapees from cheap mass landscaping, some were planted before people knew better, some just barged in.
There's a date by which you have to eradicate them if they're on your property and by which nurseries have to stop selling them if they ever did.
I doubt if this is the whole list, just the most likely.
So Know Your Enemy is a sign of spring to our extension crew.
And while I was knitting and eating breakfast, cheese muffin, and idly checking what's new on YouTube, I found Ash LG, making a surcoat.
Ash is a larper, always into creating historical costumes, but regularly remembering the keen followers with less skill than Ash.
So here's my summer sewing future
In previous summers I've handsewn skirts and a couple of sleeveless lined surcoats will go with them a treat, with a cap sleeved top. I have skirts and tops, now to check fabrics around the place for surcoat purposes. This is where my portieres find themselves conscripted into use. One is batik cotton, one Indian sari silk, and there are sheets..
You see the complete notes needed to do this including translating cm to ins, she's a Brit. I remember as a teenager making a thing like this. I also made several in the 70s to go with matching short skirts. We called them tunic sets and thought we were all that.
Meanwhile I'm dealing with having over-ordered eggs, by making a spinach quiche using five of them. With onion, garlic powder, shredded cheese. Started on top of the stove then baked in the oven, in trusty castiron pan. Amazing how spinach cooks down.
And here's lunch. I didn't cook the spinach ahead of time, just tore it up and added to the caramelized onions. Then thirty minutes baking and it's done enough for my taste.
Happy day everyone, spring might soon get here, after maybe a couple more snowstorms, we never know in March.
Had to look up larper. Now if I can only retain it for Scrabble...I remember your earlier forays with Ash LG, with very fun results.
ReplyDeleteA lot of NJ noxious plants are also noxious plants out here.
Your omelet looks delicious!
This is some of what's keeping us busy, in case any of your commenters are interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkWojjzCb5k
Chris from Boise
I wonder if it would count for Scrabble? Your YouTube owlcam is definitely worth a visit
DeleteThe owl footage is amazing.
DeleteI buy the same quantity at the "egg farm" but I guess we skipped breakfast a few times. I made egg salad for lunch yesterday and today and boiled a few to put on salads. Your quiche looks way better!
ReplyDeleteI purchased a flowering tree for my front yard a few years ago. Some kind of pear. It came out on the banned list for our state last year and I am still stewing about it. The tree is still here . . .
Was it a Bradford pear? Years ago they were popular street trees.
DeleteThe quiche looks wonderful. Wow! That’s quite a list of banned botanicals. I’m impressed with their efficiency. I’ve never seen anything like it. I wonder if we have a list here.
ReplyDeleteIt's originally from the school of ag at the State University, so they're into it. Wait till they start in on dangerous beetles!
DeleteI like spinach quiche too, but I also throw in some grated cheddar. I'm crazy like that.
ReplyDeleteLook again -- there's grated cheddar, a ton of it. Hence that nice browning.
DeleteWe have lists of invasive plants. Here at the nest we were infested with a pretty purple flower called, parsons curse. Well I think that’s what it’s called.
ReplyDeleteAnyway after many years of pulling them out and plowing them in we finally got rid of them. Animals won’t eat it.
Every now and again we have a few pop out. Mainly because neighbour’s haven’t
Dealt with the ones on their property. But it’s easy to just pull those out.
It certainly sounds like a curse. Some of the banned plants are poisonous to cattle, some wipe out native species, there's no end of crimes they get up to.
DeleteI had a breakfast for lunch on my travels today while Sue is away. Then the grandkids came over, and I snacked a little too much. You eat commendably well and moderately.
ReplyDeleteThat first sentence looked as if you were plunging into poetry!
DeleteCodex: They call that brunch;)
DeleteNo such thing as too many eggs. Fritatta di potate with veggies thrown in.
There are only three plants on the list I am familiar with. Ivy, and the two varieties of wisteria, and all three can be found widely here. I doubt the wisterias are pests here as even local councils use them in parks. Ivy should be illegal but the horse has bolted on that one, although I doubt it is deliberately planted nowadays.
ReplyDeleteIvy is a terrible nuisance, damaging to buildings as well as plants. But I have made soap from it. Wisteria strangles what it gets around.
DeleteOne of my many temp jobs was for the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, and so I sat across from a display of many banned weeds - always interesting. Amazing how many are sold through nurseries.
ReplyDeleteYes, nurseries are sometimes guilty of selling them.
DeleteI wish that they'd publicise and deal with our noxious "pretty invaders" , most brought in by Victorian plant hunters. Discover them yes..but leave them where you found them!!
ReplyDeleteIt's taken us a while to understand about not moving plants around the planet. Meanwhile look at the Victoria lily and other such rampaging invaders.
Delete
ReplyDeleteWe all suffer from invasive species, with roots or legs or wings. Amateur plant and animal collectors are too often to blame.
Spinach almost disappears when cooked - it always surprises me.
I've often wondered where spinach goes. And why it seems to dissolve.
DeleteAs you know, I spend half my life dealing with invasive plants. They, of course, will win in the end.
ReplyDeleteYou have reminded me that I could make a lovely spinach omelet this morning. Or, perhaps a crustless quiche like yours. Thank you!
Yes, you don't need bulletins from your extension service to point out invasives. Make yourself a quiche or an omelette, good idea. A crustless quiche is a kind of sturdy omelette, come to think of it.
DeleteI DID make a spinach omelet with onions and peppers and cheese and a little bacon. Although I only used two eggs, there were so many vegetables in it that it was my breakfast and later my lunch too.
DeleteOoh, I like the sound of your spinach quiche. Could eat a slice right now.
ReplyDeleteHere in Massachusetts, we have a lot of overlap with your prohibited species. Buckthorn is awful! We have 2 burning bushes in our yard that we're allowed to keep (we didn't plant them!), and they are beautiful. They haven't spawned at all, I don't think. We do keep careful track at the edges of our adjacent woods. They're very hardy plants -- we've cut ours down to nothing 2x in 9 years, and they grow back. Just like a rhododendron! Maybe a lot of those woody bushes are like that? Ah, the mystery of cooking spinach... I've doubled it in some recipes because it cooks down to about nothing. I put a lot in my yellow split pea curry. I had to look up "surcoat", though the French word "sur" gave me a good start!
ReplyDeleteI imagine your ecology is very similar to ours, and the pests likewise. Albeit them are beautiful as you mote. I expect that's how they came to be offered in nurseries.
DeletePredictive text is getting above itself! After likewise, I wrote "a number of them are beautiful, as you note." Etc. !
DeleteThose awful lantern beetles aren't here... yet! That's the only major difference I can think of between our pests.
DeleteThey're so beautiful, it hurts to kill them. But they're deadly to our trees I think you have the upper hand on blackfly? We have worldclass mosquitoes, and last year noseeums for the first time. No blackfly.
DeleteSo many of those banned plants look to be beautiful so it's sad that they're on the list. I suppose there's a good reason for it though.
ReplyDeleteTalking about creating clothing, I finally succumbed and bought the Tamarack Jacket pattern. Now, will I actually muster my courage to make one....or will it languish in my stash making me feel guilty every time I come across it? Time will tell.
It's true that a lot of banned plants look lovely, which I suppose is why they got planted. Some are poisonous to cattle , many choke out native species which are food sources for native birds and mammals, real destroyers, some interfere with grain crops.
DeleteGo for the jacket! You can do this!