The broccoli Is blooming, the birds are flying and the squirrels are running

While admiring the tiny little birds in my front garden from my living room window this morning I noticed yellow flowers blooming from the broccoli. I pointed them out to my daughter who was kneeling next to me on the sofa also watching the tiny birds fly into the garden. After a few seconds some more tiny birds flew into the garden and then two more in the yard, all of them pecking at the dirt. Unfortunately, my neighbor’s (the one to the left of my house) cats noticed them too and they came quickly after the birds, but the birds flew away just in time.

After that I went about cleaning. While washing the dishes I noticed a few more tiny birds in the tall bushes. I found myself wish I could go outside quite enough to take a picture of the birds, but as soon as I open a door to step outside they fly away and taking a picture through a glass window never comes out well. In the tree in the far left corner of my backyard there were two fuzzy tails quickly tangling and untangling together. I was sure these were squirrels, but before I could see their cute little faces my dog shoots out running from the close right corner of the yard towards the fence. I see a squirrel jump up off the fence and back onto it, I think…it happened so fast I couldn’t tell what happened but as my dog keeps chasing the squirrel, jumping and hitting his top paws on the fence so that the entire fences looks like it will fall over, the squirrel leaps off the fence onto my neighbor’s (the one behind) my house) shed roof. He runs across the roof and then flies to the tree in the center of my neighbor’s backyard.

Those tiny little creatures can really move quickly. My dog didn’t even have a chance. In all these years I don’t think he has ever caught one. As for the birds he usually let’s them rome freely about the yard, most of the time. However, my neighbor’s dog and cats have caught their share of birds.

Right now it in the middle of the afternoon the day is bright and beautiful. I’m not even sure what I am doing inside. I will have to take advantage of the day as soon as my girls get home. I’m sure they will want to play with their neighbor and friend J.  In the mean time I’ll do what I always do. I will hold on to my toddler as I carefully inspect my organic garden and then I’ll let him run around the  yard.

By the way I’m taking advantage of my garden and using the picture I take  at my Zazzle Store.

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Sometimes When You Give Up Something Inspires You Again

A few days ago I went out in the backyard to dump my kitchen scraps in the compost bin. I gave a glance at our abandoned garden with the overgrown weeds and I thought, I should take a look if any other cucumbers were growing. To my surprise I noticed one hanging down in the middle. I was so excited. Then suddenly I noticed another one growing on the ground. I looked through some more leaves and found a third.

These were not little cucumbers either. They were huge, as you can see in the picture above. I ran back inside for my camera and called to my husband who was home and not at work this time and I said to him “follow me”. I had to say it once or twice for him to do it, but he finally did. When I arrived at the garden pile-up door (we still don’t have a gate, but instead a chair, some wire, a wooden board and a broom stick all in a mangle to keep our dog out) I moved the wooden board to the side and told him to come look.

I showed him what I found and he was shocked. Then we were shocked to find a fourth one. He told me right away to harvest them and I did. He grabbed one and said we would give it to our neighbor. I took pictures of course. He went back inside, then I went back inside and I waited for him to come back.

He said he told the neighbor about it being a tradition to share a 1/4 of the harvest with the neighborhood. He said our neighbor was surprised that we had 3 others as huge as the one handed to him. I smiled. It felt good to know that we got something out of our partial hard work and time.

Like my husband said today, “If I didn’t have to work 50 or more hours a week, I would love to be in the garden”. I believe it. I would have to add to that, “also if it wasn’t so hot”.

In the mean time we will just have to eat our cucumbers. We cut up the first one and ate half in a Cesar salad and the other half in just a regular green salad the next day. The cucumber smell….was so fresh and delicious.

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Epson Salt and No Rain for Days

It hasn’t rained for days. It is hot, humid and our grass is turning brown. We are only using our water to water the plants that can’t take it without water. Still our water bill has gone up. The forecast does not predict any rain for the next ten days either. Meanwhile we are still looking for wooden barrels to make into planters for our organic container gardening and plastic barrels to make into rain barrels which would have done us a lot of good these days had we already had them. Not much luck. These barrels are expensive and no one is willing to give any for free. Who would want to? These barrels are valuable.

In the mean time this is what I have found on Epson Salt. I read many tips about the benefits of Epson Salt in the gardening books I checked out from the library. Take a look below:

http://www.ehow.com/how_2364086_fertilize-garden-epsom-salts.html

http://www.gardenscure.com/420/plant-food-nutrients/93140-epson-salt.html

http://gardening.about.com/od/organicgardenin1/f/Epsom_Salts.htm

By the way if you have your own garden register it here for free.

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Our Garden, Farmer’s Market, CSA and Everything Else

It has been a busy couple of weeks of work, life, kids, family, gardening, reading and everything else. To sum it up:

Our seedling our finally planted in the ground in our vegetable garden in the back. We finished this yesterday. My husband finished digging up a foot deep of dirt. Then he rented a tiller and tilled up the earth with all of our compost, some composting leaves from two doors down, and Organic Soil from Miracle Grow. Then we built up little hills and transplanted the seeds. I will need to take pictures and post them on here.

This is what we have in the ground: pumpkin, watermelon, cantelope, cucumber and one garlic. We made hills for the watermelon, cantelope and the pumpkin. I suggested a 4 sided t-p trellis like the one in the Organic Gardening book for the cucumbers. My husband grabbed a few long branches my neighbor cut from the crape Myrtle when it fell in our back yard during Hurricane Ike. He cut several branches in order to help me raise the Crape Myrtle back up. It looks ugly now, but its thriving strong with leaves and even flourished with flowers a few months back. When my husband came home he cut the cut branch’s into smaller straighter branches. He grabbed four of these yesterday. Collected them at the top with wire and spread the bottom. Once the trellis was made he placed in the garden. He can make trellis so easily. You should see the simple but affective one he made for the jasmine in the front yard.

The okra seedlings are still in a pot waiting for a bigger pot. We are having trouble finding free large containers for our container garden vegetables. There just has to be a place were we can just go pick up free large containers someone else doesn’t want. I will have to try freecycle again. We would also like to find large containers to make our own rain barrels. These would be very helpful because where we live sometimes we can go weeks without rain. Using our fresh water gets expensive.

Our Topsy Turvey has 3 small green tomatoes quickly growing on the vine. I can’t wait to taste them. My neighbor’s Topsy Turvey has six. He tease us constantly about our little tomatoes.

Our herbs…..not doing so well. They look weak and small in their beautiful homemade wooden container. We think it either a drainage issue or a too much sun issue. We are planning this week to visit the botanical gardens near by to ask in hopes for the correct answer. A friend of mine from work also suggested Randy Lemmon. He’s a radio gardener.

Our CSA meat came on May the 30. This is what we got:

Beef Liver (I still have the last one)
Whole Chicken
Beef Sirloin Steak (2)
Hot-Piggity- Dogs
Top Round Roast Beef
Pork Shoulder Roast
Smoked Jowls
Ground Brisket Beef (2)
Ground Beef (2)
Ground Pork
Beef Cutlets

As always the meat is delicious and I am so happy to be eating meats that are healthier for my family, kinder to the animals (compared to other places), healthier for the environment, and helps support a local farm. I absolutely love the customer service from here and I always look forward to Honi’s newsletters. She is so cheerful and gives great cooking tips and recipes. The only downfall is the price and the amount. I’m trying to use the amount of meat we eat for our health for our pocketbook and for the animals, but one day I made a meal that obviously didn’t have enough meat for my husband or even my kids. He loved the taste of the meal but was upset that there wasn’t more meat. We ate less meat at this meal than recommended per meal per person. Usually this isn’t a problem because I have nuts or mushrooms or a starch, but on that day we were running low on everything, but vegetables and the other CSA meat varieties. I really do wish I was a better cook.

Our CSA veggie pickups have had a lot of squash. A lot! So, we’ve eaten a lot of squash lately. We are pretty much all squashed out, but I made a squash dish everyone liked yesterday. I cut the squash into small pieces. Sauteed them in butter and garlic. Added salt, black pepper, and a bit of lemon pepper.

This past Saturday we shopped at a farmer’s market as well as visited a farm and bought some of their fresh picked veggies at the little shop they had on their farm. The farm was huge. I’m still shy about asking farmers how they grow their food in fear they’ll become defensive like one woman farmer did months ago, but I did ask if they gave tours. I am interested in showing my girls what a farm is and does. The women apologized and said only in groups, like a school group. Oh well, maybe next year I can convince my daughter’s school to take a field trip to the farm.

The rest of this week will be busy too. School is out, but work isn’t.

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Organic Gardening and Plant For The Hungry

We sewed more seeds for our organic garden this week, seeds my husband bought from the localharvest link I sent him a few weeks ago. He bought some organic marigolds, organic pumpkin seeds and some organic okra. While helping him lace the pumpkin seeds in the dirt I prepared another planter for pumpkin seeds. He told me to save the rest for next year. I asked him, “Won’t the seeds go bad?” He said, “I don’t think so, but we don’t need that many plants”. I said, “We can swap seedling with neighbors that garden”, but he didn’t seem to like the idea much. Before he could responded he was distracted by my neighbor.

Later that evening, while reading my emails, I read the local harvest email in my inbox, which eventually lead me to a link I found interesting and later told my husband about. He loved the idea. What’s the idea? Feeding the hungry. Check it out here.

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More on our Organic Garden

Yesterday, my husband and I debated about taking a trip to the store and buying a large decorative pot to place our herbs (cilantro, sage, basil, ect.) in order to keep our herbs in the front yard without the homeowners association sending us a letter about our tacky garden. We calculated the cost and decided against it, but we really needed to repot our herbs since they were growing weaker. We still had not repotted our herbs since we bought them at the store a few weeks ago. Then I asked my husband if he could make me a pot/planter out of the recycled wood we have in the garage. The recycled wood is wood my neighbor and I took from peoples front lawn trash after IKE hit. Yes, my nieghbor and I are occasional garbage recyclers. If we can reuse it, it isn’t disgusting, is easy to grab from the trash pile and if it can save us money we will grab it and reuse it. I’m not ashamed. It’s eco-friendly and saves a bunch of money.

Back to the original subject: My husband said he would give it a try… Take a look at what he made.

He said it was easy to do, but it took him about an hour and a half to make. All he used was recycled wood, a nail gun, an automatic saw, and window screen (for the bottom). I think it looks nice enough to keep in the front yard. I could be wrong, but I prefer to think I have some taste. So, I aked my husband to build me two more for some of my other plants. He was delighted I liked it. I guess I don’t compliment the poor guy enough. I’ll try to more often.

Time to head out back to the garden before I spend the rest of the day studying for my exam, feeding my kiddos and then work this evening.

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8th CSA Pickup and the Garden

This weeks CSA pickup had a white fruit/vegetable in it. My husband says it is a squash. I’ve never seen it before in my life. I’m excited to try it. We also received another bulb of fennel. When I noticed I looked at my husband and asked, “another one?” He said he mentioned to the people at the pick up site that we still had the other two fennel and didn’t know what to do with them. He said one lady looked at him weird and just said she eats it raw. When he told me what she said I looked at him weird and said “raw!” I’ve had a few nibbles of the stuff and raw isn’t exactly yummy. So while he took the girls swimming (it was my turn today, but he told me he would rather go and I cook today) I looked up some recipes with fennel (the baby in my arms). The recipes I used yesterday evening for dinner were: Sauteed Chicken Breast With Fennel and Rosemary from Cooking.com and Fennel & Parmesan from EatingWell.com. The main dish was the Sauteed Chicken Breast With Fennel and Rosemary and the side dish was the Fennel & Parmesan. We also had fresh boiled organic broccoli on the side. Well it was actually HEB frozen organic broccoli, but it tasted fairly fresh.

How did I and my family like the dishes I made with fennel? The cooking fennel made the house smell tasty. The look of the fresh fennel looked tasty. The taste of the chicken with fennel was delicious. The fennel with Parmesan…not so much, but I finally figured out what fennel reminds me of -black jelly beans. I never liked jelly beans so eating a vegetable/herb that taste like jelly beans doesn’t score high marks in my book. I also don’t like the fennel texture, but I guess the lady that eats it raw does like the texture and taste. To each her own. Oh well, at least we (my family) found out we liked Fennel better cooked than raw. My girls, husband and I loved the flavor of the chicken thanks to the cooked fennel. If we get another bulb of fennel I will have to try this recipe again.

Today I may try the Tomato-Fennel Soup recipe I found on Eatbetteramerica.com. It requires a bulb of fennel for the recipe, but all I have left are the leaves and stems. I’ve read and heard the leaves and stems are very eatable too. I hope so or a lot of fennel will be going to waste. I also read it is best to eat fennel as soon as you get it or it looses its freshness and flavor. That makes sense.

This week I hope to experiment with all the squash we received last week and this week. I will have to look recipes up for the white squash. First I have to find out what it is called.

By the way my husband and I were discussing at dinner yesterday evening while eating the fennel dishes if the veggie CSA was worth it or not. I mentioned to him, “It’s a 30 min drive there and another 30 back. It is during traffic hours and we have to drive through a busy highway. In addition we still haven’t received but more than a bag a week of veggies and so far we don’t like or know how to eat a lot of them (like the bitter green leaves and the fennel)”. I told him it is more trouble than it is worth and that I am considering switching next year to one of the other farms in the area because even if we receive more and better fruit the rest of the year from this farm it is still a far drive through a busy highway during traffic hour. To only come home with one bag full of veggies…just doesn’t seem logical. The other CSA are more expensive and produce less weeks but at least they are closer. My husband agreed. We also both agreed that the meat CSA is worth it (though not much meat is provided per month and though it is expensive) because the meat taste absolutely wonderful (except the liver). They also deliver the meat to our door. This isn’t a CSA necessity. I don’t mind picking the foods up so long as they are not too far away or at very inconvenient times, but since the meat CSA does deliver it makes it all the more convenient. So instead of eating out we eat in. We still save money that way. In addition the meat CSA provides a very interesting and charming newsletter with each delivery, they gave us a free recipe book on the first delivery and they continue to provide us with recipes in the newsletters or via email when we ask them how to eat certain meats. We will very likely stay with the meat CSA next year.

In the mean time my husband and I are still working on our organic garden in hopes that by next year we can grow some of our own fruit and veggies. We have watermelon and melon and some herbs in pots right now. We are using a mixture of our very own compost soil and organic miracle grow soil in the pots. Our Topsy Turvy Tomato is growing well too. I believe I see the beginnings of flowers on some of the stems. I smile at the thought of my own tomatoes. My neighbor’s Topsy Turvy is doing very well too. He already has flowers on his. My husband is out tending to the garden now. I better get at it too before the baby wakes up….oh he just woke up.

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