dinner tonight

Tonight dinner was oven “fried” chicken ( Ellie Krieger) , lemony smashed potatoes ( Everyday Food Mag) and salad. The lemony smashed potatoes were surprisingly delicious and will definitely go in the keep pile

Surprise

It looks like we will have 2 little pepper plants. I had almost given up hope on all the other pellets with pepper seeds and then we came home and saw our new little seedling. I hope they keep each other company!

Our little Garden Week 3

Our little garden has grown so much over the past two weeks. Our new additions, a strawberry hanging pot and tomato hanging pot, have done very well and seem to be very comfortable with us.

The bok choy and lettuce have enjoyed the recent weather and we had a little of our butter crunch lettuce with dinner on Saturday.

The sweet peas, radishes, and nasturtium have all sprouted quickly and Hopefully we will see some more movement this week.

This is our newest addition to the garden. He has a little way to go… he is currently inside taking shelter under our lime tree until he gets a few more leaves and can be potted outside in his new home. I hope he provides us with some delicious sweet peppers this summer. I am fiercely protective of this little guy. He is the one out of 8 pepper seedlings that actually did anything beyond soaking up water and looking like a bag of dirt. Wish him luck and good growing hopefully I will have a picture of him in his new home soon.

Dinner tonight…

Grilled Steak with Sweet Lime Salad

Tonight dinner also came with some beautiful flowers.

best maple syrup ever

a week or two ago we received a curious package in the mail and opened it to find a lovely can of maple syrup from Scott’s good friend Jekin. The best part about this particular maple syrup was that we were provided with a detailed account of the life of our maple syrup on the can….

Even every dent had a description. I can honestly say that I have never enjoyed reading a can of maple syrup more than when I unwrapped with one. Thanks to Jekin we had a bright spot on a run of the mill weekday evening.

our first little peas

 

This morning I was watering outside and noticed our first little pea shoots starting to make their way. This is the first time I have planted vegetables from seeds and the radishes and peas have been easier than expected.

We also got our strawberry and tomato hanging baskets in order last weekend. The strawberries (left) are doing well and the tomato (right)  seems to be very happy.

A view from… our kitchen sink

Dinner tonight was….

 

Baked Chicken Parmesan  from the lovely Ellie Krieger. Fresh whole wheat bread crumbs, gooey cheese, tender chicken and just enough pasta. Incredibly satisfying and easy.

our saturday afternoon.

 

 

Our wonderfully lazy and relaxing saturday evening. We took a walk, sat in our back yard, and read books and listened to Prairie Home Companion.

asparagus and spring

Delicious spring dinner! soft boiled eggs, broiled asparagus, crusty bread and parmesan cheese.

Wedding shoes

these are the first shoes under consideration. Has anyone seen anything else similar to these anywhere? I really want something bright and cherry and I love pattern. I would love a flat or kitten heel… for ease of getting around as our ceremony and reception are in not exactly ideal locations for heels.

Our little garden has begun

Since our backyard isn’t really big enough for a full vegetable garden, this summer I am trying my hand at a container vegetable garden.Last weekend I planted roma tomatoes, eggplant, straight neck yellow squash, zucchini, cucumbers, arugula, butter lettuce, spinach, bok choy, snap peas, radishes, basil, sage, thyme, half of our monstrous rosemary plant from last summer, chives, and mint. I also started some sweet pepper seedlings for the first time.

Our lovely just beginning vegtable and herb garden. Last year we just had herbs and they started to take over the world a little bit. that large rosemary plant is actually only half of the huge monster we had last year. We also had about twice that much basil and mint. This summer I am trying a few new things.

I found a great book called The Bountiful Container by Rose Marie Nichols McGee and Maggie Stuckey. they have a section on succession gardening so that you can have edible items growing for most of the year. The above picture is the very beginning of one of their succession pots. This one starts with bok choy in the center, snap peas in a circle around the bok choy and pansies around edges. Then after the bok choy has grown and you have made a delicious meal with it you plant a squash plant. Once the peas have grown to their limit the squash plant takes over and you have beautiful golden yellow squash for a few weeks. then you trim away the bottom leaves of the squash plant and sow in mesculan mix.

The rest of our containers are based off of a country kitchen garden. The largest pot has roma tomatoes, arugula and butter lettuce and cucumbers. I also want to try planting a tomato plant from the bottom of a fiber hanging basket and see if that works like the topsy turvy tomato planter. Next spring I want to try strawberries fromt he bottom of a planter too!

The rest of the pots have a mixture of vegtables and herbs for the summer including eggplant and basil, basil, sage and thyme, spinach, radishes and nasturtium ( another succession planting container, this one jumps from spinach and radishes to tomatoes to kale and tulips for fall and spring)

What are you doing this summer? Are you planting mostly flowers? We did a mixture of both, and I will keep you all updated on how the container garden grows this summer.

Wedding flowers

We have finalized our flowers and table decorations for the wedding. There will be lots of dahlias and a few herbs and you can expect everything to be bright and jovial. We will be using some ribbon spools, thrift finds, lovely arrangements from The Flower Girls and clusters of candles and little flower pom poms. Our inspiration includes…….

warm days = planning the garden

The past few warm days have officially scratched my garden bug. The first plan is always for the herb garden. basil, mint, sage, chives, rosemary (still alive and thriving from last summer) and thyme . New to my edible garden this year will be a lemon tree and a key lime tree!!! I can not wait to pot these two lovelies and watch them grow. We just got a few bits of new growth on our meyer lemon tree!

Then there is the non-edible portion of the garden. This summer we will have tiger lilies, calla lilies, begonias, gladiolus, lily of the valley, foxglove and too many kinds of dahlias to mention and possibly some yellow lilac.