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Tasty Tuesday From Seeds to the Table
We did it! Threw fertilizer here and there, rotor tilled in fresh compost dirt, planted seeds after threat of frost. Frost came: turned on the sprinklers at some early ungodly hour and let it run, as the water is warmer than the air not allowing ice to form, and the sun did not have a crystal prism through which it could burn our babies! So, seeds in… popped out the ground, had an initial weeding, thinning and OH YEAH.. .We have spinach, lettuce and strawberries for our first salad of the season. A side salad, but oh so good. I will remember to rinse those leaves 6 times as opposed…
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Spring is on the calendar: Get Ready!
Springtime, it is written right there on our calendar. Tax return is there. Negotiate with a new trash company reminder circles Thursday’s date. Pick out new eye glasses after the 15th. All important steps in the health and welfare of the house. But the first… SPRINGTIME oh yes, that is the one that keeps me coming back and gazing at the neat rows of days.There is the heaviest blanket of sparkling snow outside right now. Deer tracks stripe the hill in the front. Squirrels send snowballs cascading off of the thick snow lined limbs and the birds are as active as I have seen them. There is movement! I am…
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Quick and Easy Low Carb Lunch
Fresh from the oven, a dish of broccoli, carrots and Angle Hair Pasta… Nice! There are times when pasta just sounds right. My mind really likes the idea of that comfort food… and when it comes, presented in the form of Angel Hair pasta… oh my! I like this! This summer we canned carrots like nobody’s business. We love them. Some I put in quart jars… a bit too big for us to use in one meal. I also froze broccoli. We had the best plants ever. So there are freezer bags and bags of them yet in produce freezer downstairs. Life is so good!We zoomed in late for lunch…
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Our Pepper Plants are A’Popping: Ready for Nacho Topping
No luck this year with green beans… at least not since early July when we got our first harvest. Then the bugs, or elements or something came in and wiped them out. Ugh. Little luck with tomatoes. We have walnut trees, so I know the tomatoes have to fight for survival. Other rows of plants have flourished… and I love it. Ball jars or Mason jars will never go out of business as long as I am in control of the pressure cooker. That big old pot goes nonstop during this time of the year. But what to do with peppers. Can’t can them; chopping and freezing work well.. but…
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Palisades Park Eggplant Lasagna
The gardens are chugging out produce. I can see it like a cartoon event. Boing another plant flops out a beauty. Boing there’s another variety. Being one step ahead of the produce production line AND using these trophies keeps the kitchen active. Eggplant. Not high on my experience level. Pretty as can be, but I told Dale I wanted the plants because we would just LOVE eggplant… sure we would. Small point… what to do with them! Viva the Italians in my life and their memories, especially Mrs. Kerns. (I know she had a first name, but I have always called her Mrs.) She taught my mother how to cook…
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What is in your Garden? – Military Family Life Question of the Week
There is stress relief for me found in getting down and getting my hands dirty. It starts in very early-Spring and extends through the beginning of Fall. I feel capable. I feel healthy. Wielding a shovel makes me even feel *a little* stronger as I work arm and leg muscles. I swear at the weeds and talk baby-talk to the very-capable vegetable plants. (I’m quite certain that’s why they ‘produce’ for us!) Summer time equals a small (yet growing every year) garden for us. This year we have: Cucumbers in abundance Peas, their season has passed, but blessed us with lots of early Spring munching Carrots that need to be…
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Hot Topic: What’s in your Garden? Lots of Green &Red! Baked Beets with Feta and Pesto
Folks want to know “What is growing in your garden?” If it was just up to the garden, and not the gardener… the answer would be weeds, weeds, weeds. However, with a quick check of my nail cuticles… you know that at our house it is a daily stretch out there, and the weeds get ‘bucketed’. I do not know a better looking vista, than a neatly planted, well maintained vegetable garden. And hooray, this year we have a frameable picture. Two new rows of lettuce are just popping out. 3 early plantings are so tall… that if I don’t use them quickly (and giving them to friends is tone…
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Oh NO! All my spinach plants matured today!
Early early in Spring, we planted 2 long rows of spinach. This is our third year trying, coaxing pleading, weeding, watering… doting over the seeds to grow, flourish and provide enough spinach for a few great salads. That we got. This year I was armed and dangerous with little peat moss pots that I started early and two bags of different variety seeds. After the last breath of cold weather, in the ground they went. (I understand now that I could have put them in earlier… I’m still learning.) All of the peat moss pots died. I knew I would be missing out on a great crop, so I immediately…
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Carrots Dressed for Spring with Herbs
I do love thinking about Springtime. I love seeing plants work their way out of ground that was just snow covered and hard as rock. Now, the plot looks earthy, moist and flower ready. With a selection of flowers to cut to bring into the house brings to mind the garden that will soon be alive with seedlings: our vegetable garden. It grows each year. Grows plants, grows in size and grows in richness as we take care of the soil and plot. I am just hoping the deer won’t think it is there growing for them… they are encroaching upon the environs of our house. We did see them…
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Spring Has Sprung
My Crocuses are in bloom. My Tulips are peaking out of the ground. My Daffodils are waking up from a long winter’s nap. The Hyacinth is getting ready to let out a giant stretch and a yawn of color. I love this weather! I have trimmed (aka whacked down) butter-fly bushes. I have cut dead flowers & branches off of last years plants. I have pulled plants I just don’t want anymore. I have thought through what flowers I want to plant this year. I started seeds inside. Life is a ray of sunshine right now! Last year it snowed in April. I hate to be the pessimist. But if…
