Garden Shots

A small update on the garden. I pretty much didn't have anything to harvest this last month besides the occasional tomatoe, bean, or lettuce. It all kinda looked the same so I decided not to keep posting about it. Finally got a few new tomatoes for my Honey Delight Tomato plants. I had never tried this variety but I like them a lot already. Deep yellow color and a sweetish taste with just a tiny hint of lemon. Like most cherry tomatoes the skin is a little thicker but I really don't mind. Oh, all my squash plants are dead. It was pretty much an overnight thing. I think it was the same pest that killed off most of my lettuce. Pepper took a big hit too. I almost pulled them up but decided to wait a bit and now they are starting to come back with some new bottom growth. Things I can for sure grow in Hawaii are a bit limited: tomatoes, beans, lettuce, and most herbs seem to be doing fairly well.

 

Honey Delight Tomatoes

 

Complete corn failure

 

First sunflower!

The garden is kind of in a weird place right now. I have buckwheat growing as a cover crop on two thirds of the raised bed and the other third is ready to be turned and have compost and chicken manure added; then a round of buckwheat. I'm still deciding what to plant after that. I'm half tempted to plant a ton of marigolds and once they get big turn them under as well. I think it would help with the nematode problem we created. Hmmm, I need to think some more.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Banana & Honeydew Smoothie

So this is the first smoothie I've made since we got our new mixer. Made lots of other stuff, just no smoothies. I don't have any idea why I took so long. It was so good and easy. I do have a confession to make. I have always disliked pictures where it seems the food or beverage has been spilled over the side or is running down the glass on purpose. I don't really like the messy look. So I'm sure you are wondering why the heck my smoothie looks like that. Truthfully, I was so excited using my mini spatula that I didn't pay enough attention to the cup. Next thing I know it looks like that. Wasteful! This smoothie was exactly what I wanted, super mellow flavor. I want to say it is like vanilla ice cream. Not because it taste like vanilla ice cream, but because it is so plain and subtle. Some time you just want vanilla.

Banana & Honeydew Smoothie

 

Banana & Honeydew Smoothie Recipe:

1 cup Milk

1 Ripe Frozen Banana

1 cup Frozen Honeydew (more or less depending on the texture you want)

Throw it all into the mixer in that order and process until desired consistency. Everyone's mixers are different, so I suggest reading the manual. Pour (carefully) into cup. This really made a lot of smoothie. I think I could easily half the recipe.

 

This is how I freeze my fruit.

 

Creamy, smooth, and super cold.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Food update

Red cabbage and Sausage (mine with cheese and avocado)

I know what you are thinking but let me tell you this was absolutely amazing!! Mashed potatoes, leftover hamburger patty, and topped with onion gravy and a dash or two of Texas Pete. Pure comfort good and it took all of 10 minutes max.

Hamburger on Sourdough Bun

Mini Baguettes

Another not so pretty picture but deliciouse nevertheless. Tomato, Red Saurkraut, & Pepperoni Pizza

 

All three bread products were made using my favorite Olive Oil Master Dough Recipe. I really can't say enough good things about Artisan Bread In 5 Minutes A Day.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Harvest & Another Garden Update

Few pitiful radishes. I thought radishes were easy to grow... Not for me it would seem.

 

Found a couple of dried bean pods I had missed. Maybe I'll try growing them.

Birds....

 

Pulled up the rest of the yellow pear tomatoes. Hopefully they will ripen on the counter.

 

Cucmbers - I think I have a pollination issue.

In addition I had another handful of long beans but forgot to put them in a picture. I lost a bunch of my lettuce to some bugs this week. They made nests (?) right in the middle of the plant and it killed them. Most of the oak leaf lettuce survived but at the moment that is all the lettuce I have. Got a ton of work done in the garden this weekend, thank you husband, and it looks so much better.

 

The entire middle and right side of the garden was turned. We then added compost and chicken manure, leveled it out, and watered it in well. Just happened to get my seed order in and was then able to plant my cover crop of buckwheat. It has only been a couple of days, but so far, the birds haven't tried to get to any of the seeds. I'm hopeful they will come up without problem. To turn the whole area I had to pull up my onions and parsley. I potted them and they seem to be doing ok so far.

 

 

Snipped a couple of cuttings from the yellow pear. Figure this will give me a head start over my seeds. I also took some from my patio princess tomatoes because they don't seem to be doing to well where they are and if these root I'll move them to a more sunny location. Last but no least a few rosemary cuttings in the hope I can root them this time. Last time they just died in the cups of water.

 

Side view of my yard.

Starting left is my newly trimmed/repotted rosemary plant. I'm attempting to train it into a spherical topiary. Ha! We'll have to wait and see about this. Small red pot is my miniature rose. The large pot with the green bar going across is my new fig tree. I'm attempting to train it to lay horizontally and then allow all the vertical shoots to grow. It is a Japanese training method that uses little space but gets a decent harvest. Hope to have some figs this year. Figs are my all time favorite fruit. We had a fig tree in SC and I still miss it. Hopefully this will hold me over for a while. The clay pot is actually a blueberry plant. Though it looks dead it is starting to come back to life. I repotted it, treated the leaf rust, and moved it to a sunnier location. We will have to wait and see on this one too. The two twin pots to the right are our new asparagus patches!! We transferred a bunch (maybe a few to many) a couple days ago and they are doing great.

 

Moon flowers are really taking off. About time to hang them up.

 

The three seed trays. I removed all the covers today. Hard to believe how fast these germinated. So excited for all the pepper!

 

So a friend took pity on us for our non producing pineapple plant and gave us one of theirs. This little guy is half the size our plant was and already has an adorable baby pineapple fruit!

 

My papaya is finally taking off. Hopefully we will see some fruit on it soon.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Pizza with Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day

Seriously delicious and fast. I really love having dough ready to go and just waiting in he fridge. We tried using the Boule Master Recipe but found it to be a bit tough as pizza. So we tried the Olive Oil Dough and it was perfect for pizza (as recommended in the book). We used it towards the end of the recommended fridge life, 12 days, but I'm pretty sure it was a little older. I'm not saying how much older, but it turned out awesome!

 

Posted with Blogsy

Weekly Harvest & Garden Update

So last week was a lot of the same things everyday, but at least I was getting stuff. Slowed down this week.

Saddest strawberries ever but they were great in my oatmeal.

 

I'm sad to report that the cherry tomato plants finally needed to be pulled up. I think the yellow pear only has a little bit of time left too. I did something bad in the garden and now I'll be paying for it for a while. I didn't rotate my crops, add enough compost, and really didn't fertilize much. Now I have a crazy amount of root knot nematodes. I think that is what ended my cherry tomato plant. When we pulled it up the roots were really strange looking, damn nematodes, damn birds and nematodes... So I will be adding a good bit of compost and chicken manure, growing a cover crop to turn under (buckwheat) and a whole bunch of marigolds. Good thing I went crazy with pots. I have a few plants growing in pots, pretty much wherever I can fit a pot. I've got zucchini, patty pan & yellow squash, tomatoes: honey delight/supersweet 100/purple Cherokee/San Marzano, jalapeño & Tabasco peppers. I also started some scarlet runner beans, asparagus, and sweet pea. That is just the stuff I started outside.

Back to front: honey delight tomato, yellow squash, supersweet 100, purple tomatillo

 

Asparagus baby!

 

Prettiest flower I've grown from seed so far. No idea what kind it is, anyone know?

 

I found this amazing thing at the garden store and I ended up getting three of them over the weekend.

Oh yes, I planted a little over 200 new seeds. I'm pretty sure I have a new addiction. One whole flat is dedicated to growing two types of (Queen Sophia & Lemondrop) marigolds. Another is mostly lettuce with couple of empty spots. The other one is a mix of flowers (zinnias, morning glory, marigolds, nasturtium), peppers (tequila sunrise, poinsettia, jalapeño red, sweet banana, cayenne), basil (cinnamon, red Ruben), chives (common and garlic), fennel, papaya, and a couple of lemon seed that I doubt will germinate. Good thing I'm giving away as many as I can. I like to grow from seed verses buying from a nursery because it is a heck of a lot cheaper and the selection is so much greater. Seems like I'm lucky to find two different types of basil at a nursery where if I buy seeds there are too many to try, or at least to many to try in a single year.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Harvest

So today's (above) haul is a little light compared to yesterday's.

Yesterday's haul from the garden. I still have no idea on most of the lettuce, but at least most of it tastes good. So I planted a couple of long beans last summer-ish (?) and they seemed so foreign that we chickened out on eating them and just kind of let them go. They got huge, like three feet long and with huge beans, super scary. Ended up just pulling them; figured that was that and moved on. Well, the beans had other ideas, they are determined little guys and just kept coming up. Normally I just pull them when I notice them but these guys snuck in with a few other beans that I planted so I didn't notice them until they started putting out flowers. They have some of the prettiest flowers I've seen in my garden so far.

Didn't have the heart to pull them so I figured we would give them one more try. Holy cow, we have been missing out; they taste great. Now I may actually plant some more.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Daily Harvest

So I really don't know much about lettuce. I would love some help identifying what kind these are.

1. Oak leaf?
2. Spinach?
3. ?
4. ?
5. ?
6. ?
7. ?

Had to go crazy and pick pretty much anything with an orange hue because of a flock of those tomato eaters were hovering in the tree behind my yard. Just waiting for me to go inside.

 

Posted with Blogsy