Tomato

Yes, I said tomato, singular, because it would be a bit dishonest to make the word plural and imply that my garden has actually been producing them at a normal level.  Nope.  Not here.  I think I read somewhere that everyone is able to grow tomatoes, but apparently no one has meet me yet.  My plants are huge, folks.  Huge.  I pruned them a bit a few weeks ago, thinking that all their energy has been put into making new foliage, but that didn't help a bit.  I still only had one tomato.  Teeny and tiny.  I, however, put that thing right into my relish I made not too long ago, because I wasn't going to let it go to waste. 

That brings us to today.  I went out with the kids to water and I bent down to pull some dead leaves off the humongous zucchini plant.  A tomato stem bopped me on my head and I brushed it aside.  When I stood up I almost passed out.  There, on that scoffed off branch was the largest tomato worm I had ever seen.  Once I regained my composure I of course called the kids over to take a look at it.  Well, I know better than to let it stay on my tomato-less bush so I cut it off and disposed of it.  I quickly ran into the house and googled it.  I found the neatest picture of it's, um, waste, and quickly realized that those little square green things in garden box #4 were not something that I wanted in there.  I followed the trail of poop (is worm waste called that?!?) and sure enough, there was another one....and another one....and...okay, you get my point.  My tomato plant was full of them.  While the kids played tee-ball I disposed of them. 

But not all of them.  You really didn't think that I'd snip all of them in half with my trusty blue kitchen scissors now, did you?  You are reading the ramblings of a born and bred homeschooled gal who has two littles who find these things awesome.  These worms are making for an incredible science lesson. 

 They are SO large that you can see even the finest detail on them.

Well, if you are in the area feel free to come over and take a peek at them.  These beauts are sitting right on our kitchen counter.  

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be heading to the store to buy me some Bt. 

Update:  their poop is called frass, for anyone wanting to know. 
You're welcome. 

Wow

Look what I pulled out of our garden today!  John has been watering the garden the last few days, and obviously it's been at night.  It had been about 4 days since I had been out to the garden, and boy was I surprised to see this baby! 

The one on the left is a normal sized zucchini, and the powerhouse one on the right is about the length of my arm.  I'm running out of recipes...twice baked zucchini potatoes, zucchini brownies, zucchini bread...need more recipes! 

Beet Bread

Have way too many of these beauties lying around the house?  Yup!  Me too. 

My creativity has been exhausted, and I'm just not digging the beet chocolate milk anymore.  The sauteed beets?  Oh yes, they were good.  The beet smoothies?  Bring it on!  But seriously, my garden is on power mode and is producing like mad.  I had to get creative with these things.  So...

Beet bread!  (John suggested I put something else in the picture to correctly convey the enormous size of this loaf...thus, a garden tomato in the background.  Yes, it's supposed to be green.)

Now, to be fair, this huge red boule of goodness is NOT from my Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day book.  Nope.  This beast took up a good four hours of my life.  But oh, was it worth it.  (I did read somewhere that the authors of my five minute bread book have another book that includes beet bread, but this recipe is not from them.  Bummer.  Beet bread in five minutes is quite appealing to me!)

I altered the recipe by cooking the beets first, instead of using only raw beets.  I pureed them in my food processor, then added them to the flour mixture. 

How pretty!  Watch out though, as the mixture does stain a bit.

 This is the dough after rising a couple of hours.  It popped the lid off my container!

My final product! 

The true test...do the littles like it?  Abby was thrilled to be eating pink bread, and William wanted more!  I'd say this bread was a success!

Food!

I am completely enjoying this garden thing!  It is so fun to go outside and see what new things are ready to be harvested. 

 The carrots are growing great!  (Finally!)

This little concoction was a beet smoothie!  (I know, I know...you all want me to hurry with this post so you can rush to the kitchen to make your own!)  I have learned that the best way to skin a beet is to cook them first (either roasted or boiled) then to let them cool.  The skins come off much faster and easier that way.  This smoothie had some beet juice, several beets, a cuke (also from our garden), oranges, and a banana.  It was amazingly good.  I read somewhere that beets must be used sparingly, since they are a detoxing veggie and can cause nausea, so I used 1 part beet to 3 parts fruit/other veggies.  Adding the fruit also cut the sharp taste of the beets down quite a bit.  The kids loved this smoothie!

For my birthday I was given a copy of the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes.  (Thank you Gina and Andy!)  I'm hooked.  That's all I have to say about that!  The recipes in this book are so incredibly easy that baking bread is a cinch.  No kneading is involved, and the dough lasts 2 weeks!  All you have to do is make up a large batch and when you want fresh bread, pull out a hunk and bake it.  Easy!  This is a picture of my first attempt. 

 

It was John's birthday yesterday, and since he pulled off a lovely surprise birthday party for me, I tried to make his birthday dinner special.  I made a semolina pizza dough (recipe from my new book), topped with homemade pesto, peppers, tomatoes, and chicken.  I grilled both sides of the dough first, then put the toppings on.  This pizza was incredible!  I see more grilled pizzas in our future!

No birthday is complete without some sort of dessert.  We had had a lot of cake the last couple of weeks (my birthday and Abby's birthday) so I opted for grilled nectarines with a cinnamon-coconut sauce.  Oh, and ice cream on the side.  The sauce was SO wonderful, that I bought a pineapple this morning simply so we could have another go at it!  Take a can of coconut milk, put in a cup and a half of sugar (I know, I know!) and one teaspoon of cinnamon.  Dunk the fruit in, and grill.  Easy and oh-so-good!  

I don't have a picture of my latest creation, but it is another keeper!  The kids asked for chocolate milk this morning...so I gave in.  However I did pop a fresh (cooked) beet in it, whirled it in the VitaMix and voila!  Healthy chocolate milk! (And man, was it ever tasty!)

What about you?  Any fun, healthy recipes (or not!) that have been a hit?  I'd love to hear!

A retraction

I'm still learning about the whole gardening thing and calling each veggie by it's correct name.  So, if you'll excuse me while I make a retraction of sorts, I'd be much obliged.  Our cucumbers, which were growing so great, aren't exactly cucumbers.  We have been enjoying fresh garden salad with our "cucumbers" and last night I sliced them and poured vinegar and chili powder over them for a salad of sorts.  Every time John would eat one he'd comment on how odd they tasted...that maybe they weren't ripe enough...that they were so dense.  But I assured him that they were huge and therefore ripe, and that maybe our ultra organic soil was causing them to be extra dense.  I mean, really - they were labeled cucumbers on our garden grid so obviously they are cucumbers.  (How's that for logic!) But last night John again commented on how dense they were, so I jumped up and got out the seed packed from the fridge.  Sure enough, they are NOT cucumbers but zucchini.  We now have zucchini coming out of our garden like you wouldn't believe.  I'm thrilled, actually, since I have lots of recipes that call for zucchini.  (Our cucumber plants are still fairly small, but there are quite a few baby cukes growing.) 

 

Blog...meet zucchini.  Zucchini...meet blog.

William helped me harvest some of our greens, and when I said, "Smile for the camera!", this is what I got.  Gotta love those forced smiles!

And see this beast of a plant?  (Actually in both corners.)  It's our cilantro.  I'm sure of it, so don't worry.  Who knew it would grow so humongous!  It's so big we can almost park a lawn chair next to it and get shade from it.  You can sort of see our basil plants are thriving as well (there are a few rogue basil plants in with the chives that I need to take out before they squelch out the chives).  

Growing!

Our garden has exploded since we've been gone.  I'm simply amazed, and quite frankly, excited about it.  The spinach is doing great, as well as the cilantro.  Everything is still growing and will be harvested soon.  We've enjoyed spinach salads, spinach smoothies, spinach omelets, and spinach on sandwiches.  I also cut some of the beet greens off and sauteed them in a little olive oil and minced garlic - yum! 

Yesterday John and I put up the trellises for the peas, tomatoes, and cucumbers.  We made them from scratch, so it was quite the project.  I'm glad we won't have to mess with trellis netting until next year.  What a pain! 

 The kids like to help with cutting the veggies, so here is Abby with a strainer full of, yes, spinach. 

She knows that after we cut some we usually make smoothies, her favorite.  In this one we put in an orange, a nectarine, spinach, a banana, ice, and water.  It was SO good and refreshing!

 Do you see what I see?  That tiny thing is our first cucumber!  John pointed it out to me and the kids and I'm quite excited about it.  This beastly plant is slowly overtaking our garden box, but as long as it's producing something, I think I can be okay with that.

Here is our first cilantro (along with, yes, spinach).  I'm thinking cilantro-lime rice is in our future.  I've been doing a lot of recipe searches, just to find different things to put our veggies in.  I hate to waste anything, since it was a lot of work to get it all started. 

A week later...

Actually yesterday was a week since the last post on our garden, but hey, life got in the way last night and I didn't have time to post.  The photos were, though, taken a week later.  There's so much growth! 

John has been watering our plants at night, since apparently I haven't been watering them enough in the morning.  They were wilting and browning and frankly, I had no idea why.  After a ton more water they perked right up! 

Both kids have watering cans, however after they spill most of it on the dirt, and literally pour the rest out on the garden it's time for a refill.  The whole process of watering the garden can take forever sometimes, as we are constantly refilling their cans.  But the sheer excitement they are getting from watching the plants spring up is very worth it.

Abby got some new glasses yesterday in the mail from Grandma...they are the wrap around the head kind.  She absolutely loves them, and wore them even as I was getting her pjs on.  They, however, do not stay on her head, as they constantly fall over her ears, so I think the regular style sunglasses might be in order.  John and I sure get a lot of laughs from that gal - between her Bermuda-style shorts, froggie rain boots, and sunglasses that wouldn't stay on she looked like a mother-less child!  BUT...she insisted on both the boots and glasses, so...we went with it.  She definitely has her own style!

The last few nights after we all water the garden John has been playing tee-ball with William.  Abby will not be left out, and jumped at the opportunity for an at-bat.  William gladly plays the outfield, and he's got quite the arm, if I say so myself!

How does your garden grow?

With rows of mystery plants
Because I didn't label them
And pretty herbs all in a row.

No, they're actually not "mystery" plants, as we do have an app with what is planted in the garden and where, but for a quick, "Mom, what is that plant?"  A simple, "It's a veggie!" will have to suffice. 

 There are actually plants up in every square, but some are hard to see at the moment.

Want to venture a guess what this plant is?

(Pictures taken April 28th.)

Sproutage!

Yes!  We have them!  Take a peak, if you will...

This was taken April 17.  The kids and I are so excited that our little seeds have sprouted.  William and Abby both have a watering can now, and between the three of us we get our four garden boxes watered. 

Getting Started

We planted one of our garden boxes this past Friday.  I had such high hopes that it would be a fun, family event, but it was so doggone windy out that it was pretty much a miserable experience.  The plan was to plant at least two boxes, but even John finally gave up on the planting and joined us inside. 

Abby got to wear her winter coat for the first time.  She had the cutest double chin sticking out!  She wanted to help with the garden so bad, but was so cold and windblown that she was actually asking to go inside.

We prepped the boxes by watering them.  After being gone a week they were bone dry.

William did a lot of the actual planting and covering up of the seeds.  Eventually though, it just started taking too long, so John finished up.

I will have to update this post with what exactly we planted in this particular box (I can't find the grid) but I do know there are carrots, onions, artichokes, tomatoes (we'll have a trellis behind this box) and...?  Sorry!  It was truly cold out.  My brain just might have frozen.

Brrr!  That wind was just pure nasty.  I do have to say, though, that the cold snap was short lived (I don't think it got under freezing, so we should still be okay) and the weather has been nice since.  I'm hoping to get another box planted this weekend, along with my herb box (planning on mint, cilantro, oregano, basil, and chives.  They will be planted in the long, skinny box. 

Here's to hoping we have some sprouts in the next week or so!

A work in progress

Whew.  Today has been a day.  A fun day, but a very tiring day.  We decided that we would start a new project for our family - a square foot garden.  My sister in law Gina and her husband Andy started one last year (and lived to blog about it!) and their results were fabulous.  I was quite encouraged, so John and I decided that doing our garden in square boxes was also the way to go.  A few weeks ago I ordered Mel Bartholomew's book All New Square Foot Garden, read everything, and today we started clearing the space we had designated for our home grown produce. 

It had rained a couple of days ago, so instead of rock hard dirt it was actually a tad moist.  It made for digging out the square blocks and ripping up the weeds a bit easier.  But just a bit.  There were a total of 36 18x18 cement squares that had to be removed.  John cleared all of them out.

While he removed the squares I started digging out the weeds.  Sod had been laid when the house was built, so all of it had to be dug up and removed...even the green mesh.  I should mention that it was NOT grass but weeds.  No one watered the grass after the previous owners moved out, so all the sod died and weeds took over.

It was an unbelievable amount of work.  My arms are simply aching now.  John's too. 

I should mention that after I cleared about 3/4 of this I went inside to make lunch.  John finished digging out the rest, and I shoveled it into the pile. 

And here is the cleared area!  John sketched out a rough design of what we'd like the area to look like, with the garden beds on the right (it's hard to see the ones in the back), a bench complete with trellis on the left, and posts to hang flowers at other various spots throughout.  I'd like some bird feeders and bird baths as well, but goodness gracious!  We have an insane amount of pidgins that live in our neighborhood...I'd hate to actually provide a respite for them!  So, I'm still debating that idea.  For now, I'm thinking NO.

I can't wait for our arms to get back to normal so we can start laying the gravel, walkway, and building the boxes.  This is going to be such a fun project not only for us, but also for the kids.  William and I have already been reading books about seeds, plants, and gardens.


As if this wasn't enough for the day, John, my hero! finished the last shelf in Abby's room!  It is now hung and pretty much done.  I'm still waiting for my curtain order to come in, then I'll share some pictures.  But for now...Abby is back to sleeping in her own room!