Fruit Trees

Two things collide in the early spring of every year, dad's birthday and our secret supplier of fruit trees gets in their shipment. Now, to disclose the source would bring about unwanted competition, so it must be kept in the strictest of confidence. For years now, we have had the tradition of giving my dad fruit trees for his birthday, or more like giving the orchard at the cabin a fresh batch of new growth. I use the term orchard lightly because we have always pretty much just planted the trees, provided a plastic cover for the base (to prevent deer from rubbing them) and watched what happened. Yet, we seem to have some luck from year to year with production of various varieties of pear, peaches, apples, and plums. This past summer we had one of the greatest pear crops we've ever had. Luckily, we have made friends Mrs. Grace Dunn, the angel of home canning and preserve making, who ever so graciously made preserves from our pear crop.

We enjoyed the "fruits" of our non-labor so much that we decided to whip the orchard back in shape. First step was to remove the dead trees or those that have passed their prime (some were 14 years old). Then we moved to pruning and finally to planting our new ones. The goal is to create a spraying regime to stay on top of the gall and lichen growth that so many of the trees had issues with. Since orchard management was one of the only classes not taken in my 8 years of studies, this endeavor is going to be a self taught trial and error, so if you have any interest in fruit trees stay tuned as we progress into the trials of Meadowbrake Orchard Management.

 

 peach tree tag.

Fruit tree pollination: For those of you unfamiliar with fruit trees, they must be pollinated in order to bear fruit. Pollination is the transfer of pollen from the male part of the flower to the female part of the flower. There are two types of pollination that can occur within fruit trees, self pollination and cross-pollination. Self pollinating trees can use their own pollen. Cross-pollinating trees must have pollen from a different variety of the same species. Cross-pollination is necessary for apples, pears, most sweet cherries and Japanese plums.  For more information on fruit tree pollination visit here.

Planting your trees:

on a mission.

Note: We like to play with tractors at Meadowbrake, so loved the opportunity to hook up the soil auger and go to town...Should you not have a tractor with an auger implement,you can use a shovel. I would also recommend a shovel should your mom have a chihuahua who seems to be oblivious to tractor movement...

Now the same rule applies for all your trees, but we'll use our new fruit trees for example. There is a definite technique to tree planting, an easy one, but one that must be followed closely none the less.

The hole: the hole should be twice as wide as your rootball, and the same depth. The edges should be scarified, so the soil medias can intermix. 

 

mark the location of your trees 

dig your hole

voila.

Placing your Plant in the Hole: Backfill the hole with some of the soil to get your rootball at the right depth. Place the rootball in your hole, the top of the rootball should be flush with the surface of the ground. You need to be able to see the basal flare (where the trunk begins to flare at the base) at the base of the tree. Covering this flare, will suffocate your tree. In one year, you will be right back at square one.  This is the most common mistake in tree planting...planting it too deep. See the diagram below.

preparing the hole for your tree.

If your tree is "b&b", balled and burlapped, tear the burlap at the bottom and just place it in your hole. Burlap is an organic material and will eventually disintegrate. Make sure that all of it is buried because if one bit remains above surface, the burlap will serve as a wick and wick all the moisture away from the rootball.

If your tree is container grown, break up the rootball to loosen it, as you would with any other shrub.

Cover the root ball with the soil that has been removed from the hole. Often times, it helps to mix the removed soil with some soil conditioner.  Place a thin layer of mulch around the base of the tree, no more than 3". Without bringing the mulch in direct contact with the tree, create a depression in the mulch around the base of the tree to help direct water towards the rootball. 

 back fill the hole

Potential Problems & Solutions: 

Fruit trees are not problem free plants. They are susceptible to many insects diseases, which can all be treated through a routine spray regime. Click here for more information on potential problems and solutions for problems within your own orchard.

Now you're ready to sit back and wait on your own fruits of your labor or just stay tuned to see how mine turned out...

 plum blooms on an exiting tree struggling with lichen and gall.

 trusty sidekick.

tiny bird nest discovery.

 distracted sidekick.

  baying, distracted sidekick.

 tiny clusters of plum blossoms.

apple blossoms.

The Language of Southern Food...Brunch

Every language consists of parts of speech, such as your nouns, adjectives, and adverbs. In the South, our cuisine has developed into its own language; food is used to comfort, to welcome, to reminisce and to connect people to an often misunderstood region of the country. This language of Southern food consists of parts of speech, just like any other language, yet instead of adverbs, nouns, and verbs, the Southern food lexicon consists of brunches, bar b que, fried goods, sides, cocktails, and desserts. And rather than relying on teachers, grammar book or dictionary to teach the language, we in the South rely on our own mothers and grandmothers, and neighbors who have passed down recipes for decades. Instead of a dictionary, we have our own cookbooks, recipe boxes, scraps of paper, and our own handwriting scribbled beside these age old recipes. And instead of dialects, we have different renditions of our basic parts of speech that depend on where below the Mason Dixon line you reside.

 a key component of speech 

Our way of life, history, and cultural traditions can all seem be communicated through this Southern culinary language. Even when one I would put it as we cannot understand our the dialect, they we can understand a plate of ______ (everyone has their own iconic dish to insert in this blank)and for a brief moment understand with the culture and people associated with it. No, they may never understand the hows or whys ingrained in the dish, but the flavors and aromas allow them to literally taste a truly unique way of life. It's no wonder that Southern cooking has become such a buzz word in kitchens throughout the country. Therefore, to stray away from plants for a few articles, I've decided to focus on some key parts of speech in our language of Southern Food. We'll start at the beginning of the alphabet with brunch.

my frustrated sous chef

Brunch. Something we from the South are very familiar with. We know the best places to go, the best dishes to serve, and the best cocktails to go along with it. We have more variations of the breakfast casserole than varieties of Camellias. Hosting brunch is simply an understood talent that one must acquire to have any chance of survival within our Southern societies. Hosting is of course This hosting talent is easy when the guest list includes your closest friends and neighbors, but when it involves a guest list from across the country, brunch takes on an entirely different meaning. 

Margaret Affleck's Breakfast Casserole 

(Dedicated to all of Maggie's variations of breakfast casserole on Christmas Eve after multiple cocktails...)

• 1 lb. breakfast sausage
• 1 (13 oz.) can evaporated milk
• 1 1/2 slices bread, cubed
• 5 eggs
• 2 C. cheddar cheese, grated
• Season to taste

Prepare evening before. Cook sausage and drain thoroughly on paper towels. Beat the 5 eggs and evaporated milk slightly. Add sausage, cubed bread and cheddar cheese. Pour into 9 X 9 in. casserole and cover with plastic wrap. Bake uncovered for 45 minutes or until firm, in a preheated 350 degree oven.

A few weeks ago, some dear friends of the family were hosting this very guest list; a list that ranged from South Carolina to California. They asked the Pegs to help with the flowers for the evening party and to handle the brunch for the following Sunday morning. The idea was to represent the Delta through the flowers and the food. Given our past experiences, the flower part was easy, but the challenge was to communicate our way of life through our native tongue, brunch. 

a lighter brunch accent

To speak the language of Southern food for our guests, the absolute right recipes had to be utilized for the brunch. Pegs and I spent hours polling our friends, our cookbooks, and the internet to come up with options. We settled upon a quintessential choice in the brunch vocabulary of shrimp and grits. We also made a new introduction, a scalloped. These were to be accompanied by an assortment of homemade muffins, mini muffins because petite is chic when it comes to brunch, and fruit skewers, because despite certain prejudices people carry about the South, we want you to know that we can do "the healthy" too.

Scalloped Pineapple: 

• 4 cups fresh bread, cubed
• 1 20 oz. can pineapple chunks, drained
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup butter, melted

Toss together bread and pineapple. Place in greased baking dish. Combine remaining ingredients over pineapple. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Casserole can be made up and refrigerated overnight before baking. Reheats well.

Now, obviously if I'm writing an article completely on brunch, I have given it more thought than it probably deserves, but the shrimp and grits discussion became a discourse between my entire family;  my Dad, complaining that you ruin perfectly good grits with shrimp and the other "stuff:" that goes in there, my Mom, worrying that a group from across the country would only eat the shrimp, and me, theorizing on the entire concept while trying to keep the 8 cups of grits from sticking. Throughout this discourse, the idea was also brought up, that shrimp and grits has become almost a status symbol in the South. It is what you serve when trying to impress someone, which in this case we were. But like so many other quintessentially Southern foods, shrimp & grits represents the more humble history of our cuisine. I mean our humble beginnings cannot descend past grinding up corn, mixing it with water and eating it. Only when we added shrimp and white sauce did it begin to climb the ranks into a cosmopolitan, must have Southern dish.

Shrimp & Grits

Serves 4 (multiply according to your guest list)

Grits: 

• 14 oz. chicken broth
• 3/4 cup half and half
• 3/4 tsp. of salt
• 2 cups of water
• 1 cup grits
• 2 T. butter
• 3/4 cup white cheddar
• 1/4 cup Parmesan
• 31 t. cayenne pepper
• 1 t. paprika
• Tabasco
• Salt/Pepper

Bring first four ingredients to a boil in medium saucepan; whisk in grits gradually. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, 10 minutes or until thickened. Add remaining ingredients and keep warm. 

White Sauce: 

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk or 1/2 cup evaporated milk and 1/2 cup water

Melt butter in a sauce pan and whisk in flour and salt until smooth. Gradually stir in cold milk, cooking over direct heat and stirring constantly until sauce boils; reduce heat slightly and continue to stir until sauce becomes smooth and thick. When sauce thickens, simmer for an additional 10 minutes over very low heat, stirring occasionally. Stir carefully to avoid lumps. If sauce becomes lumpy, use a stick blender or rotary beater to blend out lumps or else press through a sieve. 

Shrimp: 

• 3 slices bacon
• 1 ound shrimp, pealed and deveined
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 1/8 tsp. salt
• 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1 c. sliced mushroom
• 1/2 c. chopped green onions
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Sprinkle shrimp with pepper and salt; dredge in flour. Saute mushrooms in hot bacon drippings 5 minutes. Add green onions and saute 2 minutes. Add shrimp and garlic for 2 more minutes, until shrimp are lightly brown. Stir in broth, lemon juice, and hot sauce3 and cook 2 more minutes, stirring to loosen particles from bottom of skillet. 

Combine Shrimp and White Sauce over grits. Top with crumbled bacon. 

*note: no pictures were captured of the shrimp and grits due to the fact that I was on a time crunch....

Personally, shrimp and grits is more like the great mediator between Southern cuisine and all the others. It gives us a chance to convince people to sample the most southern side of all, grits, by adding a recognizable protein to it...shrimp and in some cases (our case for sure) bacon. The shrimp is key because unlike beef or chicken that can come from who knows where, a pound of Gulf Coast shrimp ties the dish tighter to our region. Were we to just have a dish of hot grits, I am most certain it would have been bypassed by the out of towners. Instead, we provided a taste of both history, tradition, and regionality in a relate able manner for our interstate guests and they ate it up...Grits from a 300 year old mill (Sciples in Dekalb, MS), which one guest asked if the same person had been operating the mill for that long...and shrimp from our Gulf Coast, combined in a recipe that has been passed down and around for decades. And for a brief moment in time, we were all speaking in the exact same language and the exact same dialect.

So whether you're fully fluent in the Southern Food language or simply starting to translate, jump start your education with an early spring brunch and begin to utilize some of our most favorite parts of speech.

Bloody Mary:

Zing Zang's Blood Mary Mix

Vodka (proportion of mix to vodka is up to you)

Pickled Okra garnish (don't even try celery, it will only just get left on your side tables and stain your linens)