What's Blooming July 6th 2012

Blue hydrangea, black and blue salvia is budding out, blue veronica, black eyed susans tons of buds, small daisy on the way out, sweet William, dusty miller w yellow flowers, babies breath, few fox gloves still hanging on, astilbe both tall and short, round 2 of columbine, bleeding heart is finally done, perennial hibiscus buds, lilly buds, globe thistle globes one starting to blue, white swam, red double holly hock (I love it), random lavender bee balm, honey suckle, daisy, ebb tide-flower + buds red bee balm stating, double delight buds, white bee balm, beans starting to pop up, joe pye buds, white double holly hock, globe flowers, sedum buds, 1 cleome starting, volunteer tomato flowers, white landscape rose forming hips, pee gee buds, wisteria purple buds (completely random), star gazers , blue hydrangea, white hydrangea, blue peas starting to die back not maturing, white catnip, yellow snow peas starting to die back, morning glories low, white butterfly, hallertau hop finally growing,  orange butterfly buds/ starting to flower, hops are forming + flowers, cilantro finally starting to grow, alpine strawberries are covered with flowers, mustard still has flowers, baby eggplants are forming, and I finally have kumquat flowers again. 

I so need to get a picture of my new holly hock (new last year).  I love the color.

Update: So knowing that this has sat for a while it's time to let everyone know that the new and improved can be found over at www.gardeningfoodies.com I've learned a lot over the years and I'm super excited to share that with everyone.  So come check us out and see what we now have in store for you.  A lot of food, a little bit of bon COOK business and a sprinkling of gardening to bring everything together.  Or just check out our growing community over at www.gardeningfoodies.com/fbgroup Can't wait to see you there and catch up

Strawberry Short Cake Bites

These have got to be one of my favorite desserts right now.  They are so easy to make.

Mini tartlet mold from Demarle at Home (or bigger)



I like the 1 7/8 cutter

one pre made pie crust makes one tray easily (two batches pictured)

Whipped cream (I love my home made stabilized whipped cream)

      I whipped about 2 cups up and still had some leftover

diced up strawberries with a little sugar (splenda or truvia)

      I used about a cup here for two batches

Bake up trays ahead of time (remember to prick the dough to keep from puffing up)

pipe whipped cream onto cooled tartlets, and spoon diced strawberries on top.

I even found that the tartlet shells can be kept in an air tight container.  They weren't that bad even after a few days.  I made 120 of these for our pool party last year and there was not a single one left.  I think I got about two.  Mind you there was only about 50 people there. 

The possibilities are endless with this.  I think next I want to try it with dark chocolate on the shells before the whipped cream gets pipped in.  YUM!

Update: So knowing that this has sat for a while it's time to let everyone know that the new and improved can be found over at www.gardeningfoodies.com I've learned a lot over the years and I'm super excited to share that with everyone.  So come check us out and see what we now have in store for you.  A lot of food, a little bit of bon COOK business and a sprinkling of gardening to bring everything together.  Or just check out our growing community over at www.gardeningfoodies.com/fbgroup Can't wait to see you there and catch up

What's blooming June 29th

As I walk out my front door and around my yard this is what I get to see this week:

Blue Hydrangea, short daisy, black eyed susans (just starting), blue veronica, fox glove (done), yellow rose (done), sweet William, dusty miller (yellow flowers too), babies breath starting, wild daisy (done), Burgundy rose (done), astible starting (I think it got eaten), bleeding heart (still hanging on), Hibiscus about 3’, day lilly buds, Random plant with pink flowers, white swan, holly hock buds, filler asters, honey suckle, snow on the mt, daisy buds, fall aster up, red rose, white bee balm buds, tall daisy buds, white landscape rose, holy hock 5 stems going, pee gee buds, white hydrangea, blue hydrangea starting, star gazer, potato flowers, blue podded peas, tall catnip buds, yellow snow peas, morning glories (low), wild daisy, white butterfly bush buds, black knight butterfly bush, gladiolus up, orange butterfly bush buds, hops have gone total jungle

Its amazing how fast things change, but I still need to get some color in a few spots.  Too much green.  I've got my front side walk that explodes with color first thing in spring but then it dies down a bit.  And at the extreme oposite of the scale very little goes on in my front until about now.  So spring is the huge hole plus the time it takes everything to get going.  That’s the problem with trying to go for a full four seasons of color.  I’ll get there eventually. 

Update: So knowing that this has sat for a while it's time to let everyone know that the new and improved can be found over at www.gardeningfoodies.com I've learned a lot over the years and I'm super excited to share that with everyone.  So come check us out and see what we now have in store for you.  A lot of food, a little bit of bon COOK business and a sprinkling of gardening to bring everything together.  Or just check out our growing community over at www.gardeningfoodies.com/fbgroup Can't wait to see you there and catch up.  

Honey Suckle and snow on the mountain

Holly Hock yr 2 I hope this one sticks around

Freshly transplanted apline strawberries from this year.  I think they like their new home.

Blue podded peas.  I can't wait to have enough for dinner.

Soy Beans.  First time this year.  The flowers are so tiny you barely see them and then next thing you know beans magically appear. 

This week's bouquet

Bouquets are finally back.  I took way too long of a hiatus, but it’s never too late to bring some sunshine inside.  Especially when the skies are opening up and lightning is flashing.  

This week’s bouquets:

White hydrangea, wild daisy’s, ebb tide that ended up red (supposed to be purple), lamb’s ear

New Canning Goals

So I finally took the dive this weekend.  I purchased a brand new heavy duty canning pot with rack, a jar lifter, wide mouth funnel, some extra lids, and one case of each size to start with.  I even picked up some of the twist on caps to use afterwards.  We have some jam we picked up and I think these will be easier then the rings etc. Now the trick will be to finally decide what to do, when to do it, and where to get the produce.  Unfortunately I don’t think there will be volumes coming out of my garden quite yet.  So this year a friend and I are going to hit up the markets to start with and then see how things go.  It will be interesting to see what we ultimately come up with.  The downer . . . . I’m pretty sure that once we start down this road there’ll be no turning back. 

Update: So knowing that this has sat for a while it's time to let everyone know that the new and improved can be found over at www.gardeningfoodies.com I've learned a lot over the years and I'm super excited to share that with everyone.  So come check us out and see what we now have in store for you.  A lot of food, a little bit of bon COOK business and a sprinkling of gardening to bring everything together.  Or just check out our growing community over at www.gardeningfoodies.com/fbgroup Can't wait to see you there and catch up

Finally a Free Weekend

Well finally got a free weekend.  Note to self NEVER EVER travel during May.  We were doing okay and managing to stay on top of things, but the reality is that I just lost way too much time that week leading up to our travel and forget about the time that we were actually travelling.  At least it’s still june though and I have at least managed to keep the veggie garden completely weeded (l’m leaving the section that we just seeded for a little while) and I’ve managed to get the veggies into the front side walk. 

Final tally so far in the veggie garden: minus some hardware lettuce ( salad bowl, black seeded Simpson, mix, spicy mix, butter crunch, spinach, arugula, romaine, white cucumber, cucumber, pickling cukes, Catalina beans, sun sugar cherry tomato, sugar beet, carrots, leeks, ca wonder, mix tomatoes, mustard, amaranth, orange sweet pepper, havarti green beans, rice, parsley, dill, parsnips, chocolate sweet pepper, amish past, basil, lemon basil, soy beans, red mini sweet peppers, san marzano tomatoes, alpine strawberries, celery, squash, cilantro, yellow mini sweet peppers, stevia, green onion, black beans and kidney beans

Still missing: flax, buck wheat, cumin, garlic, red onion, brussel sprouts, summer savory, winter savory, lovage and chervil,  I’ll be putting these in seed starting trays, I think they’re getting lost in the weeds.  olate sweet pepper, egg plant black beauty and white, corn, Lima beans, red watermelon, shallots, sweet onion, spaghetti squash, strawberry popcorn, black futzu pumpkin, small red beans, mini chocolate sweet peppers, Amish paste, basil, lemon basil, soy beans, red mini sweet peppers, San marzano tomatoes, alpine strawberries, celery, squash, cilantro, yellow mini sweet peppers, stevia, green onions, black beans and kidney beans. Now to sit back and see what grows. On to the front I go.

The front sidewalk will be a totally different story though with those damn violas.  I gave up on them and I think that will have to be a complete day at this point.  It doesn’t help that the mulch is almost completely gone, but it has been 4 years since we put anything on it and even then it wasn’t that thick (we did it in the dark).  I’m hoping to get the rest of the plants put in this week.  The rest of the front sections don’t look completely lost so crossing my fingers that they will go quickly.  So far the weather is not looking promising, but I can cross my fingers. 

Update: So knowing that this has sat for a while it's time to let everyone know that the new and improved can be found over at www.gardeningfoodies.com I've learned a lot over the years and I'm super excited to share that with everyone.  So come check us out and see what we now have in store for you.  A lot of food, a little bit of bon COOK business and a sprinkling of gardening to bring everything together.  Or just check out our growing community over at www.gardeningfoodies.com/fbgroup Can't wait to see you there and catch up.  

New veggie garden! ! !

Welcome to my new veggie garden.  Not perfect because it’s not square so it didn’t quite line up the way I would have hopped and somehow a foot got cut off on my end, and added to the back.  Made for some frustrating reworking after spending all the time to figure it all out, but at least my husband can reach the corners.  I for sure can’t.  Now it’s all filled in and finally planted.  I’m loving the layout so far.  There’s a little getting used to it because you have to walk around sometimes just to get to the other side of the lettuce, but if that’s the worst thing I think I can managed.  We’ll have to see how it works out for the whole summer, but if I could do it again I would definitely keep it to 4 feet and not try to push it to the 5.  It’s just a little too far to comfortably stretch, but live and learn.  Now to see what I can do with it.  These pictures are before leaving for two weeks.  The last one you can see how nice I left it.