It May Be Too Soon to Buy Your Fall Mums: How to Time Your Hardy Mum Purchase for Fall Decor

Where I live, the likelihood of 90 degree days has passed. I checked the long-range forecasts and we'll hit the low to mid-80s two days this week, and then next week and beyond our high temperatures will vary from low 60s to the upper 70s for the following 6 weeks.

Hardy mums prefer daytime high temperatures between 60 and 75, right where we'll be in my area after this coming weekend. Mums can tolerate temperatures that go above those marks for a couple of days, but heat stress beyond a day or two or three can cause wilting and impair flowering.

I bought small pots of yellow mums ($2.98 ea) while at Home Depot the other day and repotted them 3 to a large pot to use on our front patio. If the temperature is expected to go above 83 or 84 this weekend, I'll move the planted pots to the shade on the north side of the house for those days.

Most parts of the US have many more hot days to come than my area. Although it's tempting to buy mums for fall decor now, it may be better to wait until your forecasted daytime highs fall in the mid-70s, which for many parts of the US doesn't happen until at least mid-September.

If you do happen to buy your mums before the danger of extreme heat has passed, if your plants are in pots, you can move them to the shade in the afternoons on hot days and keep them well-watered.

When choosing plants, look for tight buds, in order to enjoy the most bloom time. To prolong blooms, deadhead regularly, water consistently and at the base of the plant and not overhead (to prevent fungus), and choose a sunny location for your plant that doesn't experience extreme temperature fluctuations.

When your overnight temperatures begin to regularly dip below about 45 degrees, you can bring potted mums indoors to enjoy the blooms just a little longer.

For right now, mid to late-summer, the cheery yellow will be a bright spot of sunny color on the patio. When mid-September rolls around, I'll mass out some orange and white pumpkins next to the pot of yellow flowers for an autumnal vibe for the remainder of the harvest season. 

Will you be buying mums for porch decor this year? When does the weather cool down enough for mums in your area?

Rendering Meat Fat in Pictures

I cooked a large fatty piece of beef on Monday. I used the meat portion in both Monday's and Tuesday's dinners, reserving the fat to deal with Tuesday afternoon. I mention rendering fat often here. So I thought this time I'd take some photos so you can see what this task looks like.

The day after simmering the beef, I cut the chilled fat chunks into 1/4-inch dices. This is about 3/4 to 1 cup of fat dices in the saucepan. As you can see, some bits are meatier than others. But mostly these are dices of fat. The tiny amount of meat will add flavor to the finished pieces.

I cook the dices on Low heat, stirring from time to time to prevent sticking and then scorching. I'm usually doing something else in the kitchen while the fat renders. But I can also leave it to render for periods, just coming back to stir every 15 minutes or so.

It's important to keep the stove on Low. You don't want the fat to smoke and scorch. You want the fat to slowly liquify and render almost all of the fat out of each piece. Cooking over a higher temperature would cause the outside of the dices to cook but leave large amounts of fat on the insides.

after pouring off most of the liquid fat

After a couple of hours of rendering on Low, the fat was mostly cooked out. I pour off the bulk of the fat into a small dish, so the last bits can render more thoroughly. Otherwise, the dices are just sort of frying in a pool of their own fat. Any large pieces at the bottom of the saucepan I cut into smaller bits with the edge of a spoon.

When I think all of the fat is rendered, I pour the remaining fat and the browned dices into a mesh sieve over the dish. 

I use the back of a spoon to press out as much fat as I can.

The 1 cup of fat dices rendered into about 1/3 cup of liquid fat. I keep the rendered fat in the freezer and use in small amounts in cooking. Beef fat is particularly good for oven-frying potato wedges or sautéing onions to make French onion soup or vegetables such as zucchini, tomatoes, and garlic to serve as a vegetable side dish or tossed with cooked pasta.

The cooked dices are known as cracklings. I keep these in a container in the freezer. I top baked beans and soups with cracklings in fall and winter. They add a nice richness to both dishes.

"Use it up" is a motto I follow. Using all parts of meat feels respectful to the animal that gave its life to feed my family. And that's what rendering fat looks like in my kitchen.

I also render ham fat. The cracklings from rendered ham fat are salty and tasty, almost like bacon bits. I use those in salads, for topping bean soup, and stirred into cornbread batter before baking. I use the rendered ham fat any place I want to add smokey/salty flavor, such as for cooking greens or frying eggs or to add some ham flavor to bean soup or baked beans, just a spoonful or two of the fat.