Where did I go?

There hve been no posts because literally, I have almost nothing to talk about. Thank god we're not trying to survive on my garden, cause we'd be hungry people.

My Sunchaser tomato has been plagued with aphids. The two large tomatoes I had that started to turn read were black on parts because of the aphids. Right now I have One LARGE sunchaser that I'm guarding like a hawk. I sprayed aphids off it twice yesterday.

New girls - I harvested 3 of these recently (that makes 4 total), and they were all good, but had blemishes on them.

Grape tomatoes - I have a handful of these on the plants, and they're just starting to turn red.

Cherries - The most productive so far. I've lost count of how many ripe ones I've picked off and eaten, but it hasnt been that many. They are tiny.

Yellow pears - I riped it out. The one yellow pear I had shrivled up.

Squash - Tore both plants out...well actually they died first. Total, we got two yellow crookneck squash out of the plants. The zucchini didnt do anything.

Cucumber - Growing like a weed. I might be able to see some mini cucumbers coming in?

Green bean - A third one is growing right now. That's it, out of 3 plants. What the heck do you do with just 3 green beans? Maybe next time I'll buy a vaccum seal thingy and freeze each bean. Eventually (maybe 3 years?) I'll have enough for a serving.

Herbs - One mint plant died. The other mint, the basil and the dill look pretty good.

Brocoli, Cabbage and Cauliflower - all doing pretty good. Just, growing...

Carrots - I planted orange and purple carrots in the beds that I tore the squash out of. Hopefully they won't wash away in the torrential downpour we are having today.

We also got a ton of rain on thursday. The cherry tomato pot flooded and wasn't draining right.

All in all I feel like the $64 tomato guy. No, I haven't read the book yet, but I get the premise of it. DF assures me that we dont have to produce a lot in the garden, the point is that its a good hobby.

We'll see.

Garden update.

Munching on my tomatoes! It's very satisfying to squash him under my shoes (hey I'm protective of my tomatoes!)

The iphone doesn't know me well enough to focus on what I really care about (hint hint: not the chair). Two grape tomatoes.

New girls. I think there are 9 on the plant right now.

Cherry tomatoes! Yay! They popped up over night and now we have like 16 on this one plant!

Sun Chasers are definitely the biggest of the group.

In other news...lots of itty bitty squash, still no winners. Zucchini looks like something might be coming up soon. Pole beans are starting to produce. I've also noticed little bugs on pretty much everything, so I sprayed this weekend with an organic pesticide. I think they're aphids. I would have loved to release some ladybugs but Wabash didn't have any.

New plants: Orange Jubilee tomato, dill, cauliflower, cabbage, and cucumbers. I'll have to get the specific names down later.

Photo update & corrections!

This picture was taken before our trip - on our front porch! Unfortunately, he'd hatched (?) before we'd gotten back. I'm not surprised to see him, as our neighbor has some Mexican Milkweed (I believe) in his front yard.

I misspoke in my last post. It was my Grape Tomato that got eaten up, not my Matt's Wild.

A little blurry, but you can see my Yellow Pear!

Three Sun Chaser Tomatoes poking out from behind leaves.

My first New Girl, almost ready to be picked.

Tomato tally: 1 Yellow Pear + 3 Sun Chasers + 6 New Girls = 10 Tomatoes!

Yellow squash are not doing so well. I have tons of squash, they just never get bigger then 3 inches or so and then fall off. I also noticed a snail munching earlier. Boo.

Avacado Ripening

Oh, almost forgot!

http://www.gardeningtipsnideas.com/2009/09/how_to_ripen_avocados.html

This will be important later when we get some avocados on our tree. In what, 5 years?

Garden update

Ok, so I've been out of town for - 5 days! So here is whats been happening:

Friday:

Very exciting day. I noticed 3 new tomatoes taking my total to four. I also had four strong yellow squash growing. They are about 3 inches long.

Then I took a closer look at my tomatoes. ACK! A Hornworm! Thankfully I knew what they were because my mom had some earlier this season. They blend in very well with the green stems and leaves of the tomato. This one was relatively small, but munching on one of my new tomatoes. So I killed it.

Over vacation:

A neighbor came over to water my veggies once a day. Not an ideal situation, but it was quick. I didn't warn him about the hornworms, I figured I was asking enough.

Wednesday:

We're back! Hey, where'd my tomato plant go??? Ok, it wasn't that drastic. There were two LARGE hornworms on my potted Matt's Wild Cherry who had eaten a lot. There was mostly stem left, but some leaves at the bottom and some flowers at the top. And it's still green. So hopefully it will bounce back. I also found a smaller brown catepillar on some of my other tomatoes, and then a very small black catepillar on my topsy turvy Matt's Wild Cherries. All have been removed and distroyed. But, we now have 7 total tomatoes! They are all on two plants...3 are Sun Chasers, and four are New Girls, which includes the first tomato, which is getting pretty big!

The yellow squash is a bit disappointing. It doesnt look like any of the squash have grown, and one kind of looks....dried out. However, there are more squash coming in, so maybe after some better TLC they'll start to grow bigger.

The green beans are starting to develop points which look like they may grow into flowers. They're definitely more clingy to the trellis then they were before.

The zucchini is also starting to kick in, and growing leaves that are almost as big as the yellow squash leaves. Looks like we're going to start having buds soon too.

In other news....who is this WE I keep talking about...well, it WAS my wonderful boyfriend...but now he is...um....DF? (Dear Fiance?)

Yay!

Finished the second trellis last night:

On the table: my basil and English mint.

My topsy-turvy. Not nearly as impressive as my other tomatoes.

Thursday Links

Doing research, research, research.....

http://www.raisedbedgardeningtips.com/

http://www.carrotgardeningtips.com/

http://www.southernpost.net/what-is-project-802/
This is Jacqueline! She just built her own raised beds, and she's in Houston! I think I need a cool code name for my garden...oh wait...Suburned and Satiated...

http://vegetablegardeningideas.com/

http://www.gardengirltv.com/
Patti Moreno, the Garden Girl will be here in Houston on Oct 18th at Olive Barn. (the event is free).

Good Morning, Squash

Two new Yellow Crooknecks

Black Beauty Zucchini

Seed order and fall planning

It's getting to be time to plan my fall garden! I went online to Johnny's Seeds and ordered a lot of things I knew I wanted to try to grow. Here's my list so far:

Bull's Blood Beets
De Cicco Broccoli
Violet Queen Cauliflower
Javelin Parsnips
Mokum Carrots
Cosmic Purple Carrots
Mei Qing Choi Bok Choy

Now, I just need to build my beds....

Garden update

I neglected to take my phone outside with me today, so no quick and easy pictures of the garden.

There are still a lot of flowers on the tomatoes. No new tomatoes yet, but the lone New Girl is still growing.

The yellow crook neck squash still has the two squash growing. One still has the bloom on it, the other's bloom fell off.

My Black Beauty Zucchini miraculously started growing like a weed the past two days. It's cooling off (a high of only 90 today!) so maybe that's helping.

Pole beans are managing ok. I have one very long one that is in the pot without the trellis...and it is growing and stretching just as hard as it can to try to find something to cling on to. The ones with the trellis have some serious leaf miners. But nothing major. I may spray them with something this week.

My topsy turvy tomato has flowers too. It's looking better, in that it's not dying anymore. It's growing and nice and green.

Hmm..the orchard. Got a picture from Dad yesterday. Two lemons that have split open. Looks like they're getting a lot of water. There's plenty of drought in Texas now, but not along the coast. It seems we got rain every day last week.

Leaving to go out of town Saturday. Not sure who is going to take care of my plants! Will try to post pictures on Friday.

I'm not sure, but I think I have some squash growing!

And if you look very closely on that upper right hand flower, I think there's another tomato coming our way.

Jolie Vue Pork Cutlets with Lemon, Butter and Caper Sauce

Such an original recipe name right?

Today I managed to be home for lunch, and cooked a brief meal while on the phone. As little as I was paying attention, the pork turned out delicious!

Pork Cutlets with Lemon, Butter, and Caper Sauce

2 Tbs butter, unsalted
1 lemon
4 Tbs caper (or about 10 caper berries sliced)
4 pork cutlets

Melt the butter on medium high heat in a pan large enough to hold all the pork cutlets. When the butter is completely melted, add the cutlets. Cook for about 2 minutes on one side, then flip. Squeeze the lemon out over the cooked side, and cook for 2 minutes, or until the meat is prepared to your likeness.

Remove the meat from the pan and cover in aluminum foil. Turn the heat up to a boil, and add the capers. Boil for about 7-10 minutes, stirring often. Do not let it burn. Pour over pork and serve!

I suggest serving this with rice and steamed veggies. If you are feeling decadent, add heavy cream with the capers and turn down the heat until you get a thick sauce.

The pork cutlets are one of my favorite cuts of meat from Jolie Vue, which I don't get often enough. It's easy because the cutlets defrost much faster then any of our other meats.

This weekend: look out for a pork belly recipe and marrow risotto!

Chocolate banana pancakes

I'm a Houston Chowhound, and one of the emails I received recently was from Ricky (http://food.drricky.net/) about what to do with over ripe bananas. He included a recipe - my kind of recipe, one with out exact measurements. I cooked it this morning, and wanted to 'spread
the word'

I actually don't like pancakes. Or waffles for that matter. And I used to not like most breakfast food. But I am a lover of banana bread, so I thought I would give this recipe a try.

Chocolate chip banana pancakes

1 banana, over ripe and mashed
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
.5 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup flour
2 Tbs milk
1/2 cup chocolate chips, semi sweet

Combine all ingrediants. Heat a pan over high heat. Spoon three piles of the batter onto the greased pan. Cook until you start to see bubbles, or you can easily slip a spatula under it. Flip and cook an equal amount of time.

It make three pancakes. I ate half of them and then I was stuffed.

Houston Urban Gardeners

http://www.houstonurbangardeners.org/Home.html

Exciting!

Asian Cabbage Salad

I bought a green cabbage at the grocery store, knowing that I don't really know what to do with it. Cabbage has never been an enjoyable food for me. I think it falls in the relms of lettuce. I'd eat it with the right stuff.

In fact, Cheesecake Factory has a salmon firecracker roll appetizer that comes on a bed of red cabbage in this spicy sauce. I love it. The first time I dug into it infront of my mom she said:

"I thought you didn't like cabbage"
"I don't, but this sauce is so good"
"So you'd eat cardboard if that stuff was slathered on it?"

Basically, yes. So in an effort to eat more greens and expand my food horizons, I made a cabbage salad.

Asian Flavored Cabbage Salad

Sauce:
1.5 Tbs olive oil
1 Tbs toasted sesame oil
1 tsp red pepper flakes
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 Tbs sugar

Greens/good stuff:
1 cup crushed pineapple
3 cups (about 1/4 of a) cabbage
1 cucumber, peeled and seeded
1/2 cups crushed cashews

Put in bowl and mix! Chill for at least an hour. I have to admit, I haven't tried it yet...it's sitting in a Tupperware for me to have tomorrow.

The easy-breezy-ness of salads makes me wish I liked lettuce more. One solution I have found is spinach salads. They're more flavorful and nutritious.

Sorry I don't have pictures! And sorry I'm not posting recipes that much (since that was really what I wanted to do with this site!). I can't bring myself to putting up bad pictures, so hopefully I'll get set up with a good camera soon.

If you build it, they will grow...(hopefully)

In our new house, we replaced our fence to make the backyard a safe playground for the pups. In the picture below, Jude is enjoying the yard with a stick (his favorite toy).

The fence isn't complete yet, and there's trash everywhere.

But one man's trash, turns into another man's project...

It's a little ghetto, but it'll work. Still have to build one for the second pot of green beans.

Sun Chaser flowers!

In other garden news, the yellow crookneck squash is blossoming and dropping those blooms like crazy. Still too warm for it. But the plant is getting big!

Third bloom

Yellow Crookneck blooming

I guess this is a pretty nice treat for being up at 6:30 in the morning. The two in the background were the ones pictured yesterday. Very exciting!

Four days of growth!

Aug 20th update

Five out of 12 pole bean seeds sprouted so far and more on the way

Flowers, flowers everywhere! These are my Sun Chaser flowers. I tried to count all the flowers on all the tomatoes this morning, but there are too many.

Squash blossoms. Male, female, destined to be stuffed and fried?

My New Girl is getting bigger!

August 19th update

Matt's Wild Cherry Tomatoes in the Topsy-Turvy

Kentucky Pole Beans are growing like weeds! Yikes! Need to make a trellis for them this weekend.

Blurry photo on my phone, but there are two (2!!) flowers coming in on my yellow crookneck.

In tomato row, most of the tomatoes have flowers on them now, including the grape even though it's still small. Will be fertilizing this weekend.

I have been harvesting the basil to encourage more growth. It's doing well.

One problem I have had is with leaf miners. I talked to my mom about them and she says that they will not kill the plant or harm the fruit, so it may be best just to leave them alone. I'll have to post a picture of what it looks like. I have been removing some of the leaves they get on, especially the basil plant.

Do you see what I see?

New Girl tomato growing

First Orchard Harvest!

On Friday when I went to check on the orchard, I noticed that the mango had fallen on the ground. So I picked it up and took it home with me, putting it in a paper bag to ripen. Last night I decided it was ripe enough (ok maybe it was a little over ripe, but now I had the time to eat it).

Small, mostly yellow.

Look at that color!

Served over Coconut Sticky rice leftovers, thanks to Lisa

Tomato update

On Saturday I went to Buchanan's and bought more tomatoes!

Tomato Row

The 3 I had planted before...

Yellow Pear (with blooms!)

Sun Chaser

New Girl (more flowers!)

The new ones...

Matt's Wild Cherry (I planted a new one since my Topsy-Turvy is failing miserably)

Grape Tomatoes

Garden update

Last night I got out and did some much needed work in the garden.

Kentucky Pole Beans

First I planted Kentucky Pole Bean seeds in two rectangular terracotta pots. I started with a layer of newspaper, to keep the soil in the container. There are two holes at the bottom for drainage. I piled organic dirt that I bought at Wabash in, making a trench. In each trench I spread a handful of Microlife (fertilizer). In each trench I planted 6 seeds, evenly spaced. These will need to be thinned out later. THen I covered them with dirt and watered. I expect them to sprout in about 10 days (per the packet). Which means in about 2 weeks I'll need to have a trellise going for both the pots. I'm not sure where the permanent location of these pots will be, but for now they are in full morning/early afternoon sun and late afternoon shade.

Yellow Crook-neck Squash

This is the yellow crookneck I planted not too long ago. You can see it in the top of some of the tomato pictures. It has taken off! Very exciting! It got a handful of microlife last Thursday. It is in morning sun as well.

Armenian Cucumber

Also bought at Wabash on Sunday, planted last night. Lined with newspaper, and added Microlife to the dirt. The trellis is one that the previous owner of our house left behind...I think it will be too small. Right now, it has full morning sun.

Basil!

Who doesn't love basil? This one is above the tomatoes in full morning sun.

Black Beauty Zucchini

This was bought at Wabash on Sunday and planted Monday. It's near the yellow crookneck, and gets plenty of full sun for most of the day.

Fruit to do list (part two)