Weekly Update: August Week 3

I spent most of the time this week trimming up the never ceasing ivy plants and trying to tame the grape vines which never make grapes but insist on attempting to dominate the fence line and everything in a five foot radius. Not exactly the most photogenic of developments, so I figured I'd just give you a couple of visual updates. The photo at the left is of the two large pots along the street. If you remember (or visit older posts) these were originally...

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New This Week: August Week 3

On the non-consumable side this week was the installation of a new evergreen specimen the cryptomeria japonica:This is a beautiful slow growth cedar native to Japan (as the name might suggest!). This particular cultivar has a very unique branching habit. The branches extend out into what to me looks like pom-pom clusters of the needles. Eventually this should be a nice round mound. I needed to get some more winter-hardy stuff going so that as the...

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Weekly Update: August Week 2

Just a quick week 2 update since we're already half way through August week 3! (Slacking I know!)I know the photo is a bit blurry, but I thought I'd post a quick snapshot of one of the other critters enjoying the garden. Jason was impressed by the size of this guy, according to him its the largest spider he's ever seen "in the wild". (I told him that it was obvious that he didn't grow up in Arizona! I've squished much bigger!) I'd peg his size at...

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New This Week: August Week 2

Ok.... so I'll admit that I'm starting to get a bit worn out by ALLLLLL the fresh produce! (Really? Did I say that???) Well maybe just tired of the weekly photo session. This week I admit I just started washing, packing, and eating stuff instead of gathering everything together for the obligatory photo. (Hey... I had to cram the entire weekend of work into 4 hours... so take it easy on me!)I did capture a few interesting things though:After one rather...

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Weekly Update: August Week 1

Lots going on this week to be sure!I turned a vast portion of last week's tomatoes, onions, and peppers into some fresh salsa. It was delicious. I think next time I'll add a bit more salt, but other than that it was pretty good for my first ever attempt! (I forgot to take a picture... but trust me... it looked good too!)Not a lot new on the veggie front, everything is producing like crazy, but not much new to see. There are some other fun developments...

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New This Week: August Week 1

This has been another VERY bountiful week. (I'm getting very good at coming up with things to do with eggplant at this point!Here are a few snapshot's from the haul... (Clockwise)Carrots round two. This batch as a whole wasn't as big as the ones from last week, but still very yummy!5 giant black beauty eggplants, some banana peppers, bell peppers, okra, and a couple more zucchini. (Austin was over this weekend and we made a batch of zucchini bread...

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Weekly Update: July Week 4

I got so wrapped up in trying to get everything done before the rain I forgot to take a picture of the week's harvest before splitting it all up and handing it out to random neighbors, Jo, and whoever else would eat it.... another pound or so of beans, 4 more big eggplants, a couple smaller eggplants, half dozen bell peppers, a dozen jalapenos, 8 tomatoes, 2 and a half pounds of carrots, and a ton of the chocolate cherry tomatoes... yeah... a TON!...

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New This Week: July week 4

I was super excited to pull up the first of the summer harvest root veggies this week! On the left are the first of the beautiful carrots. I've never grown carrots before, and I've heard that they can be tricky. These guys performed like champs! This is just about one plot worth, I have three more to go, and I'm so excited! (for perspective, the boards on the deck are 6" wide... so you can see most of these guys are about 6 - 8" long. That's just...

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Weekly Update: July Week 3

With so many banana peppers I had to come up with something to do with them. We've already had them raw, stuffed, baked, and sauteed.... time to take action!I found a recipe online for pickled peppers... so I cut up the 2 pounds of banana peppers and a dozen or so jalapeno peppers, attempted to seed them, and canned them with the pickling liquid. I've done a bunch of canning with my Grandma in the past, but this was my first attempt at canning peppers.Jason...

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New This Week: July week 3

Running a bit late with the July week 3 updates, but last weekend was CRAZY with an unexpected detour to do an emergency washing machine repair and packing to head out to Milwaukee... Needless to say, the blog post had to be set aside.Here's a snapshot of last week's harvest. You'll note the massive amounts of banana peppers, the first of the season's zucchini, and 10 POUNDS of tomatoes... WOW! More egg plant, and the first of the fairy tale eggplants...

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