Fall at its Finest

early morning over ms river bridge at helena

Last weekend proved quite the weekend of firsts, of adventures, and a show of the Delta fall landscape at its finest. The weekend began with surviving my first Art Alfresco, Mainstreet Greenwood's annual fall art walk throughout downtown. Following Art Alfredo, as it was deemed due to the talent of the iPhone auto-correct, we loaded up the Q and headed to Helena, Arkansas for my first King Biscuit Blues Festival. And just like any true freshman, I was initiated with freezing temperatures, pouring rain, hours spent camped out at the local Mexican cantina, more ounces of bourbon than I care to repeat, and the absolute time of my life seeing Bonnie Rait live. It rained just too much to capture much of the actual weekend, but when the skies broke Sunday morning, it was if the Delta had exploded into fall color. What follows are images captured on the trip home to Greenwood; iconic images of the landscape that surrounds us during the fall.

 daylight over a towboat along the mighty missisippi

 

rust fall color of the bald cypress

  collage of fall color of a roadside cypress break along hwy. 49

even duckweed is beautiful in the fall...

 golden rod, cattails, &  johnson grass

 

fall colors all around

 nothing cleaner or crisper than a cotton boll

fluffy, white clouds.. of cotton

blue sky, sunny day

 classic roadside vignette

 

 hard to tell where the sky stops and the field begins

 dead end dirt road

 

 old cotton wagons in their retirement

 turn rows, ditch rows, cotton rows, and tree lines

 grain bins at rest for the season

 

one last stalk of green

nothing like it..anywhere on earth...

Fireworks of Fall

 a single firework of fall

In the summertime, we ring in the season with the bursts of bright fireworks throughout the night sky. With the transition from the summer season to fall, the season is ushered in with fireworks seen on a lower plane of vision. Instead of looking to the sky this time of year, we look to our neighborhood flower beds, countrysides, and ditch banks along dirt roads to witness little bursts of bright red firework- like flowers. Set amidst the dark green hues of the late summer/early fall landscape, the Spider Lily offers little explosions of vivid red color to welcome the fall season, as summer slowly fades into the background. 

And just like the summer fireworks that ascend into the heavens at their own free will, the Spider Lily seems to appear wherever its free will guides it in our landscape. There seems to be no rhyme, reason or logic to the growth habit of these bulbs. They are seen in clumps, as individuals, in shade, and in sun. Some are in beds, some are around trees, and some just pop up along a random roadside ditch bank.   

the lily spotting beagle

Whatever their reason for location, they have been absolutely stunning in the Delta this year. I discovered a few popping up in my own backyard Saturday. Being too sore from my Saturday of wrestling Asiatic Jasmine in my flower beds to do much of anything on Sunday, I took the hound dog on a Sunday drive...instead of a walk (which we were both totally okay with). It was on this afternoon drive where we discovered an absolute abundance of these radiant lilies just outside the Greenwood city limits. It's as if the Delta countryside was ablaze with a fall firework show.

delta pecan grove  lily colony

The Spider Lily or Lycoris radiata, an ever so fitting name, is actually native to China or Japan. According to Chris Weissinger, The Bulb Hunter, the red Spider Lily arrived to the US via Captain William Roberts who sailed to Japan aboard some of the US Navy's first steam powered ships in the later 1800's. On his website, www.southernbulbs.com, Chris notes that the Spider Lily is resilient to the stress of drought and upon the first fall rain is when they explode into the shades of red we are experiencing right now. As it turns out the hot, dry summer we have endured in the Delta has lead to this brilliant crop of Spider Lilies seen throughout our landscape. Nature is rewarding us for our own resilience to the Delta summer with these fall beauties. 

 lilies of the roadside 

Culture: 
The spider lily is bulb that should be planted in areas with full sun and excellent drainage. The bulb performs best when kept dry during the summer months. When the flower stalks emerge, shift to watering regularly. Plant the bulbs in late summer, setting them about 1' apart. As with other bulbs, keep the neck at or just above the soil surface. Transplant and divide spider lily bulbs after blooming. Protect with mulch in the winter. 

While the red Spider Lily is the one with which we are most familiar, there are other species. There is even a white varity of the Spider Lily, Lycoris radiata 'Alba'. Other Lycoris species include: 
.

Lycoris aurea, Golden Spider Lily

Lycoris chinensis

Lycoris x haywardii

Lycrois incarnata

Lycoris longituba

Lycoris sanguinea

Lycoris sprengeri 

Lycorsi squamigera, Magic Lily, Surprise Lily, Naked Lady

(The Southern Living Garden Book, page 400).

  backyard lilies of monroe avenue

more lilies of the roadside and ditch banks

So instead of gazing upward into the night sky, take a glance at your feet in the afternoon sun to experience the shear brilliance of these fireworks of fall.

just an entire yard of spider lilies (guard dog of house prevented a better photo...)

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)

Pecans, Acorns, & Berries, Oh My

 Overflowing 40 lb. bag of Pecans

Side Note: Before we get started, let's set the record straight. This article talks about our Pecan crops. As in a Pe-cahn, not a Pee-can. Because as my great grandmother always said, " A Pee-can is something you find under your grandmother's bed." 

This Fall/Winter the Delta experienced a somewhat rare natural phenomenon; one whose occurrence remains a mystery to those of who study the natural world for a living...money growing on trees. Yes, it's true. Our pecan and acorn crops were quite prolific this year. Align them with prices of .85-$1.00/lb and you pretty much have money growing on trees.

One of the Pecan pickers for our orchard at the farm

As it turns out, we have been experiencing a "mast year" for our native nut producers.  A "mast year" is when fruit producing trees and shrubs produce a significant amount of fruit (mast). This process can also be called masting. It's as if the stars aligned just right causing our oaks to produce record numbers of acorns and our pecans to produce record numbers of pecans.

What causes a mast crop?
Without going into grave ecological detail, the oldest theory is based on the fact that seed output varies because the plant's available resources vary. And based on our drought conditions (lack of the water resources) this summer, it makes sense that these plants felt threatened and went into mass production mode...a natural "Hail Mary" for reproduction.

Signs posted at the Fulton's orchard

The mast year proved to be a bit of a headache for those who own pecan orchards or who deer hunt. Throughout the highways of the Delta, pecan trees are littered with "no trespassing" signs. To those not from the area, you may think we don't approve of others climbing our trees or that our dogs reside in our pecan trees... But in a year when money did practically grow on trees, "no trespassing" was the closest manufactured sign we could get to "don't pick my pecans". I had the pleasure of visiting with Martha and Roy Fulton who have utilized these signs with success. The Fultons are still picking up pecans in their orchard on Highway 82. They had gathered a draw dropping number of pecans from their 1 acre orchard. This was after they had lost some trees due to the seep water from our high water levels this spring. Their orchard backs up to the levee. The Fulton's have had issues with people not only stealing pecans, but littering and  taking items from their barn.

 Martha & Roy gathering a day's harvest

If you were to decide to gather up some pecans, the state of Mississippi would not tolerate it. According to my friend, John L. Herzog Jr, Esq., at the District Attorney's office in Greenville, the stealing of pecans had the police and sheriff dispatched on numerous occasions. So we decided to check out the statute:

§ 97-17-89. Trespass; destruction or carrying away of vegetation, etc. not amounting to larceny 

   Any person who shall enter upon the closed or unenclosed lands of another or of the public and who shall willfully and wantonly gather and unlawfully sever, destroy, carry away or injure any trees, shrubs, flowers, moss, grain, turf, grass, hay, fruits, nuts or vegetables thereon, where such action shall not amount to larceny, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction shall be fined not exceeding five hundred dollars ($ 500.00), or be imprisoned not exceeding six (6) months in the county jail, or both; and a verdict of guilty of such action may be rendered under an indictment for larceny, if the evidence shall not warrant a verdict of guilty of larceny, but shall warrant a conviction under this section.

 Ilex latifolia (Lusterleaf Holly)

Yet, it appears this mast year in the Delta is not just within our tree species. The woody ornamentals, such as Hollies, Ligustrums, Cedars, Nandinas and any other species that produce a fruit have been following in step with our tree species and seem to be laden with berries. Berries in the winter time are always beautiful, as they provide vibrant pops of color amidst a sea of browns, grays, and deep greens.  Not only do they provide a sight for sore, cold eyes, certain species provide food for many of out native bird and animal species.

Nandina domestica (Nandina)

With some nibbles missing...

And although the mast crops caused problems for some farmers & sportsmen, it created some stunning landscape shrubs for homeowners. Whether it is a mast year or not, plants that produce berries are always a great choice for you landscape. As I mentioned earlier, they are a beacons of color during these months when we have some extremely dull colors out there. Not only that, but many of our berry producing plants are excellent evergreen selections for screens, foundation, and structural plantings.

 

Ligustrum lucidum (Glossy Privet)
Enjoy the berries, but don't plant....

 

Ilex decidua or Ilex verticillata...Possumhaw or Winterberry

Excellent deciduous holly selections. 

Ilex Cornuta (Chinese Holly)

Protected by this momma mockingbird 24/7.

The American Horticulture Society recommended a few more shrubs with fall/winter berries in their latest issue of The American Gardener:

Hollies (Ilex spp.)*

Firethorns (Pyracantha spp.)

Chokeberries (Aronia spp.)*

Spicebush (Lindera spp.)*+

Beautyberries (Callicarpa spp.)*

Mahonias (Mahonia spp.)

Sumacs (Rhus spp.)

Viburnums (Viburnum spp.)+

*Indicates native species available

+Indicates certain species are great for attracting bird

Just when you thought landscapes were dull this time of year, they can really surprise you. Take a look around your neighborhood and enjoy the shrubs with beautiful berries and trees with an abundance of fruit, but whatever you do, don't take them for yourself because we carry shotguns around here.... 

Plants to "Tie You Over"

In the South, our days revolve around meals. At breakfast, we debate what lunch may be and and lunch we debate our dinner selections. It's easy to say, that down here we are always looking ahead. Yet, for the in between times, when hunger strikes, every southern mother, grandmother, or head cook can be heard saying, "just eat a little bite to tie ya over." (In some areas the saying goes "to tide you over", yet as an Auburn graduate, I avoid the word tide whenever possible). Where this phrase originated is a myth, but the saying has made it onto the pages of Urban Dictionary. Here it is defined as a verb, meaning (tr) to help to get through (a period of difficulty, distress, etc.). A saying with serious implications if you ask me.

Well this time of year, we are all seriously getting tired of the gray, cold, damp weather that seems to move into the Delta and even more sick of the teasing 70 degree days that hide on the calendar.  During these days, we get a brief glimpse of spring temperatures, just to be bombarded with sleet the next day...all part of living in the Southeast. So what can be done to "tie us over" until Spring really arrives? The answer is quite simple, bring some plants inside; small potted ones that can adorn your table, desk, or bookshelves. This way, little glimmers of what to come are visible throughout these winter days. 

We've all received containers, pots, pottery, and other objects whose sole purpose is to hold something. They've appeared as Christmas gifts, wedding gifts, or "had to have it" gifts to ourselves. Now, instead of sitting empty, they can hold a glimpse of spring a get you through the distressing winter days that are here for another 2 months.

For my office and around the house, we visited Ms. Morgan's flower stand at the local Kroger, where you can find a great selection of bulbs. We also checked out the selection at other local nurseries and garden centers and came up with a great mix of green plants, and spring bulbs. Don't be afraid to try color and texture combinations when it comes to green house plant selection.
 

So, as we do in the South, start looking ahead to those vibrant spring colors, but until then find a little something to "tie ya over."

Don't forget to check and make sure your plants will have adequate drainage and to remember to water!