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I'm happy to have you here! Thank you for visiting and I hope you enjoy my blog.
Today I'm going to put in some autumn vegetables. Leeks, bok choy, brussels sprouts and broccoli. We're short on space since the summer veggies are still coming along, so I don't know how we're going to fit things in there. We've got some blank spots where nothing came up so that is where these veggies will go.
I have taken pictures but not able to post them yet. We've lots of zucchini and yellow squash. I've already cooked with them. Here's how I like to cook them.
Sunshine Tofu and Squash
* 1 small zucchini (or part of a large one), cut length-wise, then again, and then sliced (you should have triangle-shaped pieces)
* 1 yellow squash, also called summer squash, cut the same way as the zucchini
* 1 block of tofu, pressed a few minutes to release the water (tofu is optional; you can make this wihout it)
* 1/2 inch ginger, chopped finely
* 2 tbsp chopped garlic (love that garlic!)
* one small to medium onion, chopped
* 1/4 to 1/2 lemon
* handful of fresh dillweed
* olive oil
* salt and/or soy sauce or Bragg's Aminos
* white pepper (can use black also)
Sautee onions, garlic, and ginger in olive oil until onions are translucent. Add squash and sautee until nearly soft. Add tofu with soy sauce and salt/pepper to taste. Add lemon (start with 1/4 lemon) and dill. Continue to stir/sautee until the squash is soft. Add more lemon and dill if desired. I like mine tasting strongly of dill and slightly lemony.
When I was little there were so SOOOOOOOOO many honeybees where I grew up in Ohio. So many that once, when running barefoot with my siblings from our yard to the neighbor's yard, the bottom of my foot was painfully stung. After that I'd look along as I'd go in making my way barefoot across fields of clover.
The bees I mostly saw there were golden and fuzzy, like this!
Photo courtesy of Isolino
Now all I see are these smoother orangish-brown bees. And of course it's a rare find seeing a bee. I think I've seen only three or four so far this season:
According to this Wikipedia article, all bees in America are not native (I did not know!) and have been brought here from Europe.
I feel very taken by the plight of the honeybees in America right now, with their numbers having declined. My given name means "bee" or "honey" in Greek. There's a lovely chapter in the Qur'an called Surah An-Nahl, or The Bee (or The HoneyBee), describing how all things of the natural world - like the seas, stars, mountains - are proof of God and his power. The chapter goes quite into detail about bees.
Although I'm not a bee scientist :) my opinion is that nature's balance is being harmed by pesticides as well as the larger environmental issues. I think many things combined are contributing to the imbalance of the honeybee population here. I wonder if more "organic" areas have more bees.
I finished putting in the larger pots of herbs my friends gave me last weekend. Three large pots of lemongrass, lemon balm and American mint. My daughter came out later and said "Wow - our herb garden looks so...herb-garden-y".
Finished putting all the cactus plants and other houseplants outside. I hope they like it and grow nicely.
Remaining to do: repot my two remaining orchids. The one only has a couple of leaves and might not make it. The other is very strong. Neither have flowered since the first time (as usual with all my orchids.) I'm thinking a new mixture of fresh soil, and some regular attention might cheer them up. We moved many times over the years and I've lost so many due to a variety of reasons. I hope they like their new home now, settle and grow and flower. :)
Repotted also was my Elephant's Foot palm (pony tail palm) - it's been "bonsai'd" in this little blue container for years and years. I rarely water the thing and it's taken all of our moves and temperature changes without problem. If it dried too much I just trimmed back the leaves and watered it nicely. It's now got a new home in this pot and it looks happy. I can't water it too much so I'll be watching it to make sure that doesn't happen. Anyway I didn't know how huge they could get!
Itty Bitty
Originally uploaded by subtlegina
Cute, huh?
I just learned about poison hemlock. I want to share things as I learn here, so others can learn too. Hemlock is one of the most poison plants, an extract from which Socrates died.
I think most folks know what Queen Anne's Lace is. I thought everything I have ever seen that looks like Queen Anne's Lace was in fact Queen Anne's lace. WRONG.
Be aware of hemlock. All plant parts are poisonous. I read a story about someone picking berries for jam, and her husband had seeds that had fallen into his bowl of berries. She asked to see where he'd been picking and it was hemlock seeds that had fallen into his bowl! This jam was destined to be sold to folks. They dumped the berries and went elsewhere to pick. She was very smart to check anyway and be aware.
Queen Anne's Lace. Nice smooth green stem, typical flowers. Non-poisonous. Used in ancient medicinal remedies: the seeds being used as a contraceptive; the young root being edible. Also referred to as wild carrot.
Here is poison hemlock:
Posion Hemlock
Originally uploaded by Dale Hameister
Purple-spotted stem. Flowers similar to Queen Anne's Lace.
Also
water hemlock:
Notice the purple stems and the shape of the leaves.
Water hemlock has been listed as one of the most poisonous North American plants. American Indians used it to poison their arrow tips.
Interesting links10 Plants for your Pets to AvoidQueen Anne's LacePoison Hemlock - Weed of the Month
I just saw this post and wow what a picture!
I loved these flowers. Madeline, the poster, said they were tassel flowers. So I decided to do a bit of checking. Right away I found this entry at a seed seller
❁ Tassel Flower is a tender annual that grows to two or three feet in height. Flame-colored, button-like flowers appear on slender stems in summer. Sow seed after last frost in spring in a well-drained, sunny site. Thin seedlings so they are six inches apart. Tassel Flower is native of the Far East and was introduced into England in 1799. The species works well as a quick and curiously attractive filler in the summer flower border. ❁
I'd love to put some of these in my garden - especially the red ones.
Nature's Secret
Originally uploaded by Cesar R.
Testing a post from Flickr!
It's been raining nearly daily for two weeks now. Just a couple of days of nice weather then it started up again.
Vegetable Garden: Yesterday my husband weeded the vegetable garden, and I worked on the herbs and flowers. We're also learning little by little what seeds to put in the ground when. We are still pretty new at this and just expect everything to come up whenever we put it in the ground. Haha Newbie gardeners here, yep. So we'll be planting our brussels sprouts, spinach, more carrots, leeks, cauliflower and some other late fall/wintery harvest veggies later in the season. We're learning!
Herb Garden: My german chamomile did not come up. :( So I have more seeds ready to plant. If they don't come up this time around I won't try again until next year. Yesterday my husband harvested some cilantro to put in the shrimp fried rice I made. It's still not fully grown but the flavor was strong and good.
Our herb garden - the bare spots are where the herbs I planted did not make it. Chamomile, sweet basil, oregano, italian parsley and lavender didn't make it. Bad seeds? Not sure. There's a bit of shade from the nearby tree in the afternoon - I wonder if that's problematic?
Flower Garden: Wildflowers and other mixes of seeds planted last month are coming up nicely, but slowly, since there's not been much sun. I have some seeds from Burpee that is a mailbox/lampost mix. I'm not sure if it's too late to put them in or not but I'm going to try. I put in thumbergia and morning glory and wow are they slow to grow. Also most peoples' clematis are growing strong and flowering now. The one I put in is still a little vine. I guess I'll have to wait and see what it does next year.
Today we replanted some seeds. Certain things didn't take well.
Here's the current layout, with explanation:
Row + Vegetable:
* = harvestable
Zucchini+Canteloupe a few days ago. Has been weeded and looks nice now!
1: Zucchini - nice and full
2: Canteloupe - not where I wanted to put this; husband popped it in there - full
3. Transplanted zucchini from row 1 - doing well
4. * Mesclun mix - is coming up nicely now and we've eaten twice from this
5. Summer squash - coming up
6. Pepper Mix - put these seeds in today
7. Tomato Plant + chili plant - purchased from Home Depot last week
8. Head lettuce - still little; not coming up well
9. Tomato - put in again today from seed; other seedlings were pulled out by Mr. Groundhog
10. Carrot - only one grew from our first planting; replanted this row today
11. -saving for later season-
12. Cukes - sprouting nicely
Side rows:
Sugar Pumpkins - yay coming up nicely
Watermelon - only got one plant
French canteloupe - coming up well
From small plantlings:
Our grape vine - dying
Blueberry bush - ugly and dying
We're really not sure how to get nice blueberry bushes planted; I'll look into this when I have time. The concord grape vine was just for fun. Darned animals keep tasting it.
I've been keeping posted on Twitter about my garden; there's been lots of rain over the past days. We planted in some more vegetables via seed; and transplanted some seedlings. Some things are starting to grow fast and furious, like the zuchinni and summer squash. Yum!
More to come.
I'm a technical person. Following tech stuff is a whole heck of a lot easier than following all this gardening stuff that I'm still learning! And there are SOOOOOOOOOO many gardening blogs and so many people using Twitter that garden. I want to follow just everyone! Everyone seems to have something interesting to say, and post things I can learn from! It's very overwhelming.
With tech stuff, I know the industry well, and pick through easily what I want to read or know, and the rest I either know or it doesn't apply to my skillset. Folks on Twitter re-tweet the same tech articles over all day long, so that makes it even easier to skim what's posted. With the gardening posts, everything seems to be unique. And all the Blogger blogs - I have a LOT LOT LOT of learning to do.
A bit at a time, I think.
Vegetables
Getting a little late in the season, but I had to do some more planting today. None of the watermelons grew (well we see only one plant coming up) and none of the sugar pumpkins. It's too bad. I planted pumpkins once again, but maybe the seeds are old/bad. I had no more watermelon seeds, and planted these heirloom melons instead.
I also put in nasturtiums in between some of the rows (we have lots of bunnies around here). My husband's first planting of corn was dug up by squirrels; he put them in on a different side and now they're not being bothered; hope to have some sweet corn this August.
Flowers
Put in two peony roots in the front and some marigolds (from seed) along the side of the walkway. Also put in low-rise sunflower bush from seeds.
Planted rows of different types of sunflowers in the back, close to the corn, and also put in a variety of bulbs along the semi-shady area of the house.
I think we're done putting things in for the season, now we just wait for everything to grow!
...and I have nothing to post about the garden, other than I get a free watering! :) I wanted to post this farm picture - doesn't it feel fresh and open? Just want to run through the fields.
Got a new template from OurBlogTemplates.com. I changed out the top image, and changed the header font (mine overlapped). Still having a problem with images not being displayed properly. Will have to see about this. Otherwise I like the fresh look and feel of this template!
Here's a pic of our zucchini. One day we could see nothing. The next day we saw these beautiful strong leaves already sprouted. This was last week.
- Wow pictures are just not working correctly - could be this new template. :( Here's a link for now.
My laptop was gone for over a month in the repair shop. I've been unable to post updates anywhere regularly.
I have some garden pictures I want to post soon. Put in an herb garden and a vegetable garden, also flowers.
Well the first attempt at making Mary Jane's sourdough bread was a bust. I don't know what the problem was exactly. So I posted on the forum for any tips.
I'll try again if I can figure out what went wrong. The baking powder might have been old. I have no idea how baking powder works in recipes so I have to look into that.
My birthday was yesterday. All I wanted was prayers from my family for my good health.
I was in a cleaning mode today. Very busy and made me happy. I need to work on getting seeds for spring. Time to plant soon. Also trying to plan out my garden. I'm thinking this year it's going to be quite haphazard, but I'll try to make it as nice as possible. It's our first year for this garden in our yard, and also we've got limited funds. I just want to prevent the animals from chomping our veggies.
Yesterday I started making the sourdough starter from MJF's article from this month's magazine. Day 2 already and it's smelling doughy. My son said it has a weird but good smell. haha I tend to agree.
Today I went to the grocery store; saw Mother Earth News and flipped through it. There was an article about building your own home for $10K. That seems a little unrealistic, but even if we spent $50k and built our own home, we'd have a really unique and special home.
I've seen articles like these before, and end up buying the magazine for them because it starts me to dream. I would really love to build a home one day that has tons of charming personality. I'm trying to start learning with this house we're in. It doesn't have a lot of unique features, but I can make the outside nice, and we can do a few things in the inside to give this home a little TLC. It had been empty for so long before we got it.
Today I bought some organic flour in preparation to start making "the mother" sourdough starter for the bread recipe that was in the Mary Jane Farm magazine this month.
Welcome to my farm blog! I have a dream to own a little farm. I plan to use this space to collect my thoughts, ideas and plans on getting that little farm!
I'm from the country in Ohio, but until recently have lived in the Northern Va suburbs since I left college. I'm older now and starting to naturally slow down a bit and am craving a simpler life with fresh country air, animals, and growing my own vegetables and flowers.
We've recently moved to Pa, and own a home here with a nice yard. I'll be using some of the backyard to learn more about gardening this year. We can't have chickens, sheep, cattle or horses here :) but getting started with growing fruits, vegetables and flowers will keep me busy enough for now.
My sister in Ohio has a farm, full of alpacas and dogs and nice land. She's very fortunate she has all that. I never thought I'd like to have the lifestyle she has but here I am. My husband would like it too. He'd be great at it.
More to come!
