Weekly update....

It was Spring Break this week so we've just been pottering around the house and yard a little. The weather was nice enough to be out but there wasn't much we could do by way of cleaning up the yard, because we haven't been to buy supplies yet, and Jason was working most of the days.

Today is the first day of Spring but the weather changed dramatically! We had a thunderstorm last night and woke to a back yard flooded in parts. And the temps dropped to the 50's. It's felt so cold today I've put the heating back on!

I planted some lavender seeds and dill seeds this week and had them in the little green house, but the wind blew it over today (despite it being tied to the wall!) and the pots have gone every where. I don't know if I can save them or if I should just start again. They'd only been in a couple of days so hadn't even sprouted.

I am going to try and update this blog once a week (at the weekend) and show anything new we've been doing. This is really just a blog for me, but if anyone so happens to wander in, well, hello and welcome :-) You are more than welcome to browse around, see what we're up to and of course leave a comment if you so chose.

Earlier this week I also planted the herbs I'd recently bought in to a new bed nearer the house....

A New Year....

The weather is warming up here in Central Texas, it's meant we've been able to get out in the garden a little this past week. We want to start gardening again this year but we haven't had a chance to get any seeds started. So yesterday while I was at the grocery store, I picked up some of these. . .

tomato plants, spaghetti squash, bell peppers, jalapenos, herbs and a strawberry plant! We haven't put them in the ground yet, we'll wait a week or so before we do that. But I did separate some of the plants in to individual pots. There were 3 spaghetti squash 'shoots' so I divided those, and a couple of sage plants in the same pot, so I divided those too. I also put the strawberry plant in a moss hanging basket.

For now we've put the plants in our little greenhouse we bought at Lowes last year (ready for seedlings this year!)

I also planted some seeds in trays for grape tomatoes, more jalapenos, sunflowers (Jason wants to grow more of these) and some spinach.

The garden looks pretty sad right now! I took this picture this morning from the game room window...

The grass is still all dormant but the clover (and other stuff?) is growing green. The veggie beds are all empty as you can see, except for a couple of things in my herb garden - the rosemary and cilantro made it through the winter. We would really like to do something about the pathways this year. The grass and weeds grow rampant once the summer comes and it's so hard to keep the paths clear. Last year we paid to have them weeded and mulch put around them, but that didn't keep the weeds at bay for long. I'm hoping we can invest some money in to getting at least some of the pathway concreted this year.

Earlier this week Jason planted some seeds straight in to the beds, some were peas, and we also put in some 'mescalin' lettuce, and I think beets? I'll have to get better at taking note of these things.

A tisket ... a tasket... a huge big basket!

This is the harvest from yesterday! Everything in this basket I pulled out of our ever growing 'farm' when I wandered out there before anyone else was up.

The basket, I just got from Goodwill on Friday for $3.99. It's huge and just what we need cos all this stuff weighs a pretty ton, most especially the spaghetti squash. I will probably be handing a lot of this out to our neighbors as we still have zucchini, cucumbers and spaghetti squash to cook from earlier last week.

Today I made some zucchini bread (hubby's favorite) which I'll post about tomorrow on my daily blog and feature also in my cooking blog with the recipe and pictures.

Things continue to grow well for us, and we're getting ready to plant more seeds for the Fall season. There are different veggies we can grow in the cooler months, like broccoli, onions, lettuce and peas. These don't do well in the hot summer months and we didn't get a chance to plant any in the early spring so I'm looking forward to trying them soon.

I'll leave you with a 'birds-eye' view of our 'little farm' taken from the upstairs game room last week. My daily blog will let you know when I update in here. It may only be once or twice a week.

Morning Harvest!

We are in the habit of popping out to the 'Farm' each morning to see what we can harvest. Here is my basket of goodies from today. . .

I'll show you them indivudually. Here's the butternut squash. . .

These seem very small compared to what I see in the supermarkets, but I didn't want to leave them too long and have them go bad. I think I will try to make a small batch of our favorite butternut squash soup today. I'll let you know how it turns out.

These are the Acorn Squash, again quite small compared to store bought. To be honest I've never bought Acorn Squash, but I saw them in the store yesterday and realized they do indeed stay green, they're just a little larger than ours. When I saw ours was starting to turn a little yellow, and had been green for a couple of weeks now, I decided to harvest them also. I'll have to look for a recipe for these as I have no idea what to do with them!

Here's some little chili peppers that have finally turned red and are a little longer than most of the ones left on the plant! Again, don't know what I will do with them though. . .

And here's my yummy tomatoes. . . "let not the eye deceive you'"!

See what I mean about the skins splitting? There I was waiting for these to turn even redder, when I double checked their label - they are called 'Golden Boys'! They don't turn red, they go orange! So, despite the fact that they didn't look ripe enough to me, I harvested some the other day and got a really lovely surprise. These 'guys' are the most sweetest and juiciest tomatoes I've ever had. I wish you could try them! Jason is even eating them on his salad, and he hates fresh tomatoes! He says it's different when 'they're your own' ;-)

And finally. . . cucumbers! We are starting to realize that we don't need to plant as many cucumber plants as we have this year. We seriously can't eat them fast enough, and I've already given a ton away! Here's the pile in the kitchen from the past couple of days. . .

I've also pickled some already, and we're waiting to see what they turn out like, before we decided if we want to do more (of course not with these guys as they won't be that fresh by then!). These guys are going in to the office with Jason today!

Yesterday, I was busy in the kitchen'cooking up a storm'.It's book club at my house tonight and we've been reading (my pick), Pomegranate Soup by Marsha Mehran. I've actually made the pomegranate soup that the book gives the recipe for, and also some Baklava (again from the book). Surprisingly the soup is rather tasty. I'll take pictures tonight when I set everything out for my guests. I think you've got enough photos today to keep you happy ;-)

Mood girls by Mulberry Street Graphics (no longer on line)