2019 Stephi Gardens Holiday Gift Ideas

This has been a very hectic December at my house. Are you as behind in Christmas shopping and preparations as I am? Here’s some (slightly late) holiday gift giving ideas from things I love!

Friends: Some of the links below are affiliate links, which means I earn a small commission for each sale. All reviews are my own and are not influenced by any compensation I may receive.

Gardening:

Titan A-Frame Trellis: I’ve always grown cucumbers on trellises, but this year I tried it for my summer squash and zucchini. It didn’t look like the Pinterest squash trellises, but it saved space and was super convenient. The trellis was pretty easy to put together, and Gardener’s Supply Company has a nice video to show how to assemble it. It’s made of plastic, so won’t rust but is plenty strong enough to hold zucchini and squash. It’d work great for any climbing vegetables!

Mini Greenhouse: I start a number of my vegetables inside the house in the spring, and before they can go in the ground they need to spend some time outdoors to harden off. With our unpredictable Midwestern weather, that can be tricky to do. I don’t know what I’d do without my Gardman 4-Tier Mini Greenhouse. It’s super handy to keep the most tender of vegetables and annuals safe from cool spring nights until it’s planting time. As a bonus, it’s a handy place to grow microgreens.

Grow Bags: In addition to raised bed gardening, another way to add space and grow really healthy vegetables is in grow bags. I’ve had mine from Gardeners Supply Company for years and have grown carrots, tomatoes, peppers and potatoes in them. Their BPA-free fabric is really strong, yet allows for breathing and “root pruning”. No root bound plants in these bags! I’m adding more to my garden this year!

Stratus Rain Gauge: I was forever trying to figure out how much rain we got during a storm, or how little during a drought. And not in general, like somewhere in the greater Chicago area, or at one of the airports, but in my backyard. It’s a huge help to know how much to water the garden, and to satisfy my curiosity. You can read more about my rain measuring adventures in a previous post, “How Much Rain Did We Get?“. If you want to get super nerdy, I actually found a handy plastic ruler for measuring snow in tenths of inches. Much easier than converting all the time 🙂

Of course, gift cards to any local garden center or catalog seed company are always appreciated! Some to consider are Burpee, Botanical Interests, and Territorial Seeds.

Reading

I love to read! This year so far I’ve read 41 books. On the right sidebar of my blog you can see the latest books I’ve read and would recommend. I do read “bad” books, but don’t worry, I leave them off.

You can also find me on Goodreads at https://www.goodreads.com/stephigardens. Friend me, I love to see what everyone else is reading!

What were some of my favorites this year? Top spot would be Dan Egan’s The Death and Life of the Great Lakes. Anyone who grew up near the Great Lakes will appreciate this journalists very readable history of man’s influence on the Great Lakes. I spent most of the book shaking my head in disbelief over the things that we’ve done to the lakes, but remain hopeful about the amazing resiliency of the Lakes to remain viable. From the building of the canals, St. Lawrence Seaway, lampreys, salmon, zebra mussels, asian carp, water levels, it’s all there. Much food for thought!

I also throughly enjoyed reading:

Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Reid Jenkins
The Underground Railroad by Colton Whitehead
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
The Rent Collector by Camron Wright
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloane

What were your favorite books of the year?

Cooking

FoodSaver Vacuum Sealer: I have no idea what took me so long to get one of these amazing kitchen gadgets. My friend was telling me about hers and I knew I needed one. I’ve been vacuum sealing meat, fresh vegetables, soups, and even banana bread (ok, that took a little practice). I’m so excited to have frozen food that still tastes fresh and be freezer-burn free. Plus, everything fits better in the freezer! I bought the FoodSaver FM2435 Vacuum Sealing System & Starter Kit and I’m thrilled with it.

Souper Cubes: I make a lot of soup and broth and have all kinds of containers for the freezer. I came across these amazing silicone freezing trays that are perfect for freezing soups and broths in perfect portions. No more messy freezer bags full of broth. They also have a clear fitting lid to keep the soups fresh in the freezer and make for easy stacking. Need a new healthy soup cookbook? My latest favorite is Clean Soups: Simple, Nourishing Recipes for Health and Vitality by Rebecca Katz.

I’m really a sucker for kitchen gadgets. Who doesn’t need a…

Joseph Joseph Scoop & Pick Jar Spoon and Fork Set– perfect for scooping out those maraschino cherries or olives.
Sur la Table Ultimate Fork for mashing avocados, scrambling eggs and so much more!
Garlic Twister that can mince all kinds of ingredients, from garlic to ginger, herbs, nuts and more.
Oxo 4 piece mini measuring cups–Great for cooking and cocktail making.

Be sure to check out my Holiday gift ideas from 2018 for more suggestions, and my Favorite Things page.

Happy Shopping and Happy Holidays!

Spruce Down :(

Like many across the Midwest and Northeast, we had an extremely windy week last week.

On Wednesday at O’Hare airport, they measured gusts of 58 mph which was the highest since 1991, coincidentally the year we moved to Chicago. In my neighborhood, gusts of 62 mph were observed and the average sustained wind speed was close to 30 mph. That, coupled with an extremely wet past couple of months led to this…

Down came a 20+yr old Colorado Blue Spruce that was just not able to handle the soggy soil and high sustained winds. Usually a spruce is able to adapt to most soil conditions, including a moderate tolerance to flooding. They also withstand wind better than most other spruces because of a moderately deep root system and they make good privacy shields because of their density.

We knew this was a wet area in the yard because of its proximity to the swale and raised it up when planting to help with drainage. For over 20 years it did just fine. But, water soaked soil is definitely not as strong as dry, and it was no match for sustained high winds. The same thing happened to our neighbor’s tree in an area that was also frequently wet.

We had the guys with chain saws come out to remove it.

And now part of our privacy shield has a gaping hole in a pretty ugly part of the yard.

Before:

After:

and the next day when winter reappeared for a last gasp in March. Not nearly as bad as the East coast, but still an unwelcome last gasp.

Yikes! These pictures remind me a bit of before and after weight loss ads. Not really fair because of the different seasons, but you get the idea. I need to think on this for a little bit about what to put in. I don’t usually think it’s a good idea to replace a lost garden planting with the same item since there’s a reason it didn’t work out. It also a really disappointing loss since to the left of the shed is where we lost a 20+ year Freeman Maple tree a couple of years ago (read about it here).

So how much rain have I received this year so far? Since I like knowing the amount of rain in my yard, not just the very large general Chicago area, in a previous post How Much Rain Did We Get? I described measuring rain with best rain gauge around, a Stratus Rain Gauge. I keep track of the rain and snow in a great app “Rain Log” and this is my data for February and March.

We are way ahead of average for the year! Normally we would get about 5 inches to date and we’ve already had over 8 inches of rain, in a few very soaking rain events.

Want to track the weather close to your own house? Check out my favorite local weather sites that gather information from thousands of citizen scientists who report their weather every day at WeatherUnderground and CoCoRaHS.

How Much Rain Did We Get?

I am forever trying to figure out how much rain we got during a storm. I don’t know why, it’s just one of those things I want to know. And not in general, like somewhere in the greater Chicago area, or at one of the airports, but in my backyard. have discovered Weatherbug and Weather Underground, but it’s still not “my backyard”. So, I put a ridiculously over engineered Stratus rain gauge on my wish list and one day it showed up as a birthday gift (thanks Steve!).

It sat in the box for a while, until I figured out where and how I was going to put it up. There’s lots of instructions as to how far away from houses, structures and trees it should be, and in a suburban backyard, that can be tricky. So I picked the best spot I could that was not too obtrusive, easy to get to, and sort of fulfilled all the location requirements. Then, I was supposed to attached it to a 4×4 post solidly planted in the ground, but until I was sure it was a good spot, I needed a different way to put it up. I decided trying one of those metal 36″ green fence posts and attached it using zip-ties. Not official, but so far it’s working beautifully.

The first weekend I put it in, it was really put to the test. It turned out to be the really bad weather weekend that led to tornadoes south of here (see previous post, “Ominous Weather“). We got 1.07 inches of rain that day.

When my mom saw a picture of my new rain gauge, she reminded me that my dad had the same one, and had been a weather watcher for CoCoRaHS, the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network. This is a volunteer group that is a “unique, non-profit, community-based network of volunteers of all ages and backgrounds working together to measure and map precipitation (rain, hail and snow)”. There’s all kinds of great information on their website; well worth checking out. I don’t think I’m quite ready to sign up yet, but we’ll see in the spring. But, now I know where I got the “need to know” from.

Once I got everything set up, I needed somewhere to log it. Of course, there is an app for that, Rain Log. I decided to record my 24 hr rainfall at 7:30 am, like CoCoRaHS suggests. So, every morning, Daisy and I traipse into the backyard to see how much rain is in the rain gauge. Here’s what my reports look like so far.

I need to figure out what to do for the winter. There are ways to measure snow, but you need to be careful not to crack the inner measuring tube in freezing temperatures. I may need to just take it inside. Do you measure rainfall in your yard?