Bumble Lush

All About the Chard

2012-03-06T03:06:00.021-05:00

I'm still working my way through this bottomless basket of rainbow chard. My Dark Days Challenge meal for the week was another chard meal--a mozzarella-chard omelet. The mozzarella cheese was from the Blue Ridge Dairy in VA. I also used butter from the Blue Ridge Dairy. The omelet was good; the cooked chard tasted like spinach but with more intense flavor, and because it didn't wilt as quickly as spinach does, it gave the omelet a little crunch.

{the never-ending chard. no matter how much I eat, the bowl never gets empty}

Since it looks like I'm going to be eating rainbow chard for the rest of the month, I decided to embrace it and looked for every chard recipe I could possibly find. Looks like this NYTimes columnist found herself with a never-ending basket of chard as well.

I also found this recipe for a swiss chard, brown rice, chickpea dish, which I plan to try this week. It sounds very healthy. It won't count as a local meal under the Challenge because I don't have local sources of chickpeas or rice. After this, I will likely have exhausted my desire to eat chard for a while. I'm really looking forward to late spring and summer for the wider variety of vegetables that come with those seasons.

Lazy Garden Weekend

2012-03-05T05:51:00.074-05:00

I didn't do much in the garden over the weekend. I meant to start some tomato and pepper seeds but didn't quite get around to it. Maybe next weekend...In the next week or two, once the temperatures aren't fluctuating so much, I also plan to start potatoes!! My husband built me a box to grow them in, inspired by the different ways to grow potatoes that I posted about here. I'll post more about that once I actually start those tubers.

My outside activity consisted mainly of watching a woodpecker scare the little finches away from my neighbors' birdfeeder and trying unsuccessfully to get a good picture of the many robins hopping around, trying to catch seeds that spill from the feeder.

In non-garden news, I managed to make my first batch of refried beans.

In typical March fashion, temperatures are ranging from the 60s during the nice sunny days to dropping to around freezing at night. Temperatures grew chilly last night so we moved our broccoli transplants inside for protection.

Did you get any garden work done this weekend?

Dark Days of Winter: Potato and Chard Stalk Gratin

2012-03-01T07:36:00.000-05:00

True confessions--I have never eaten chard before. When I saw a beautiful basket of rainbow chard at the farmers' market last week, I decided I needed to introduce myself to it, especially since I had to come up with a vegetarian dish for this week's Dark Days Challenge. The beautifully-colored chard was a great antidote to the Challenge slump I'd written about a month ago. I'm also still working my way through the bag of local potatoes I bought at the farmers' market, so when I found this potato and chard stalk gratin recipe, I thought the combination would be great.

{potato and chard stalk gratin}

In order to comply with the Challenge rules and make up for some poor planning on my part, I made several modifications to the recipe:

I cut the recipe in half.
I don't have local Gruyere cheese, so I decided to use Piedmont, a yummy sheep's milk cheese from the Everona Dairy in VA. (side note: when I pulled Piedmont out of the fridge, it had gotten moldy, and not the good kind of cheese mold (I don't think I stored it properly), and I had to break open another Everona Dairy cheese that I'd been saving for a different recipe. The cheese I ended up using had cracked pepper already in it so I cut down the amount of pepper I put in the gratin).
I excluded garlic because the local cloves I had stored had gone bad as well.
I didn't hunt down a source of local flour for the 2 teaspoons that the recipe calls for to make the bechamel. This plus olive oil, salt, and pepper were the only ingredients that didn't come from my garden or local farmers.
I included a few chard leaves as well, even though the recipe only calls for the stalks.

I am now a fan of chard! I liked it, and still have more leaves to use in another dish. This was also my first attempt at making a gratin, and it turned out really well! However, next time I will make sure I have fresh garlic before I cook because I think the dish could have used some garlic. I'll also add more thyme, more chard leaves, and more pepper. I went light on the pepper because the cheese had black pepper in it, and I was afraid to over-season. But I think it could have used more. I tend to under-season in my cooking.

March is the last month of the Dark Days Challenge. I still have chicken breasts, ground beef, a rib-eye, and some vegetables stored in the freezer for the remainder of my meals. I have found great local sources of eggs, milk, and cheese, so I'm looking forward to the last few weeks. Oh, and I still have about 3 pounds of potatoes left.

Best and Worst of My Garden -- February 2012

2012-02-29T05:48:00.002-05:00

Happy Leap Day! We have an extra day in Febraury this year, garden friends. It didn't really make much difference here because there is still not a lot going on in my garden.

"Not a lot going on" means nothing bad has happened either. So for February I have no "Worsts," only a "Best" to report: my Hawaiian Ti plant's comeback. It will make me happy to see this guy return to health after the spider mite infestation.

Here's a link to some interesting factoids on Leap Year and Leap Day, if you're interested.

What happened in your garden in February? If you want to share any hits and misses, frustrations and triumphs, or anything you're dreading or looking forward to, feel free to link up and share. And don't forget to visit others and give them some encouragement or sympathy. :)

Update: My MrLinkyWidget code is a little off, so people's blogs aren't showing up on the post. You can see everyone who joined after you click Mister Linky. Sorry about that!

First Seeds of 2012 Planted

2012-02-27T02:14:00.036-05:00

It was quite an eventful weekend in the Bumble Lush garden. Saturday was beautiful, sunny, but extremely windy. And around mid-morning, we got about 1 minute of big, fat snow flurries in some kind of bizarre flash snow storm. It didn't stick or anything. Just further proof that this is one of the weirdest winters on record.

Sunday was gorgeous--blue skies, sunny and warm, and I decided it was a perfect day to start some lettuce and spinach in containers. (This weekend happens to coincide with recommended moon date planting. I wonder if it makes a difference in containers? Probably not.)

I couldn't help myself--I also bought some broccoli transplants. I was at the garden center yesterday getting peat moss and looking at seed packets, and I saw a few broccoli transplants for sale. Despite the fact that I have tons of broccoli seeds that I need to use, I just had to buy these little broccoli plants and put them in containers as soon as I got home.

Did you do any garden work over the weekend?

Moon Gardening

2012-02-23T12:05:00.000-05:00

{photo credit}

Have you ever gardened by the moon? I don't mean gardening in the dark or by moonlight, but have you ever timed planting your seeds by the phases of the moon?

I have not, but I first read about this concept when looking through the Farmers' Almanac website. It seems that the phases of the moon affect moisture levels in the soil, so there are certain optimal dates for starting seeds. I've never done it and thought it was an interesting concept. Here's the link, if you're interested in reading more.

Pins, Potatoes, and Pruning

2012-02-22T19:38:00.001-05:00

Have you heard of Pinterest? Are you on it? Pinterest is a website, basically an online bulletin board where you "pin" things from other websites onto your virtual bulletin boards. You can also repin things onto your boards that others people post. It's addictive but fun, and sometimes it's nicer than having a million bookmarks on your interest browser.

[Note: I'm not in any way affiliated with Pinterest. I just think it's fun and want to share my addiction with others. Besides, all the cool kids are doing it. ;)]

{photo credit Better Homes and Gardens}

I have found a few interesting tips from doing a Garden search on Pinterest. This first link on What to Prune When is a calendar for when to prune different trees in the garden--very useful!

{photo credit from Organic Gardening}

The second link gives seven different tips for growing potatoes. I have never met a potato I didn't like, and I want so desperately to be able to grow them, but of course, I have no land. According to this site, I should be able to grow them in a big container, or even a garbage bag???

The only odd thing about Pinterest is that you need an invitation to join (kind of annoying, I know). If you're interested in joining, send me your email at bumblelushATyahoo.com and I'll email you back an invitation. If you're on Pinterest and you're interested, feel free to follow me by clicking this link, and leave a comment below with your handle so I can follow you too.

{Apparently I'm not the only garden blogger with Pinterest on the brain today--Hanni of Sweet Bean Gardening -- the person responsible for my Pinning addiction (thank you, Hanni! :) -- and Beth of Plant Postings also professed their love of Pinterest today. Great minds think alike, right ladies!}

Dark Days of Winter: Apple Potato Hash

2012-02-21T03:52:00.042-05:00

{apple-potato hash ingredients}

For my Eat Local challenge meals, I've been trying to think of ways to use the 5-pound bag of potatoes and tart apples I bought at the farmers' market a few weeks ago. I found this Rachael Ray recipe for an apple-potato hash. I thought the combination sounded a little odd at first, but then I thought fried potatoes = good. Fried apples = good. Butter = good. Here's my version of the recipe:

Local Apple Potato Hash

3 small potatoes (via farmers' market)

1 apple (via farmers' market)

1/2 medium onion (via farmers' market)

1 teaspoon butter (Blue Ridge Dairy, VA)

2 teaspoons olive oil (exception to Challenge rules)

salt and pepper to taste (exceptions to Challenge rules)

I pricked the potatoes with a fork and cooked them in the microwave for 4 minutes. While the potatoes were cooking, I added the oil and butter to a pan on medium heat. Then I added the chopped up apples and onions and cooked these in the pan for 5 minutes.

After 5 minutes, I added the potatoes. They were soft from cooking in the microwave but not mushy. I cut the potatoes into cubes and added them to the pan. I seasoned them with salt and pepper to taste and let the whole hash cook for 5 more minutes. At this point the apples were quite brown and potatoes had nice crispy edges. I cut off the heat and served it up.

It tasted a lot better than I thought it would, and the combination of oil, butter, and potatoes made the house smell so good! I made this as a side for dinner, but I think it would work nicely as a breakfast dish too.

Garden Book Review: Crops & Pots

2012-02-20T04:08:00.082-05:00

I recently read Crops in Pots by Bob Purnell. As you know, I do most of my gardening in containers and I've never really felt like my garden is visually interesting. I've been trying to think of ways to be more creative this year. I mainly grow vegetables for food, but this book showed me ways to make growing flowers, herbs, and veggies in pots more interesting.

The book is organized in a very cute way--by "Starters," "Main Courses," and "Desserts," with the idea being that you can combine things into a single pot that can then turn into a dish. This is a crabapple/gooseberry combo, which intersted me because I just ordered a packet of ground cherry seeds.

Each page also contains a recipe. This one is for Strawberry Lemonade. You can grow strawberries, mint, and edible flowers in a single container, and then the book shows you how you can take those ingredients and make them into a dish.

I didn't realize you can grow grapes in containers? Apparently you can.

The book isn't just about vegetable and herb combos. There are a few sections on combining flowers in pots for variety in color and height. There's also a list of edible flowers, which is something I'm interested in learning more about. I now have some ideas for what I want to do with my few flower pots this year.

I've been thinking of growing a tea garden, and seeing the pages on herb combinations has made me want to go out and buy some chamomile and mint right now. I don't need a lot of space--I can grow a couple of herbs together, and here's another convenient recipe and instructions for making a relaxing chamomile tea with herbs found in one single pot.

I like the book. There are some combinations that are pretty common, in the sense that everyone knows tomatoes and basil go nicely together when companion planting. But I got some very good ideas about how to combine flowers and vegetables for visual interest, and not just for a functional kitchen garden.

If you're looking for other interesting gardening reading, head over to Roses and Other Garden Joys and check out other bloggers' book reviews.

Rain and Ice

2012-02-17T04:58:00.000-05:00

Last weekend finally felt like winter. We had rain, light snow, and a little ice.

Is winter going strong where you live, or is it on its way out?

A Local Valentine's Day Meal

2012-02-15T19:32:00.002-05:00

{local ingredients: broccoli, wine, milk, bison steak, potatoes and butter}

I came out of my Eat Local Challenge slump this week. On Sunday I went to the Dupont Circle farmers' market looking for ingredients for our Valentine's Day dinner at home. Bless those dedicated farmers who were out in bitter cold winter winds selling their goods. I felt so bad that I bought more food than necessary!

I decided on steak and mashed potatoes for dinner. I picked up some grass-fed bison ribeye steaks from Cibola Farms in Culpeper, VA. I also bought a 5-pound bag of potatoes at the market (thank goodness for winter storage).

When you put the steaks together, they make a heart!

I had local broccoli from a previous trip to the farmers' market stored in the freezer to round off this nutritious meal.

I have never bought anything from Cibola Farms and was pleased with the steaks. Bison steak is supposed to be healthier than cow in terms of higher protein and lower cholesterol. As you can see, I like my steak well-done (practically burnt) and my husband is a talented grill master who can cook a steak so that there is no pink but is still tender and moist. It was delicious!

Except for the salt, pepper, and seasonings, everything about this meal was locally sourced. We made the mashed potatoes with local butter from the Blue Ridge Dairy in VA and organic milk from a local dairy in PA (still fell within the 150 mile rules!) I've mentioned before that the local butter has a sort of peppery taste (maybe grassy?) and the potatoes didn't need much more than salt. The wine came from the Narmada Winery in Rappahannock, VA. The meal was good, but my dinner partner was the best part of the meal. :)

Hawaiian Good Luck Plant

2012-02-14T04:20:00.043-05:00

{photo credit}

A little red/pink for your Valentine's Day:

Cordyline terminalis, also known as Hawaiian Ti Plant or Hawaiian Good Luck plant, is a beautiful tropical plant with dark red to bright pink leaves. The plant's tropical nature and red leaves are what attracted me to it when I saw it at the nursery last year.

{Ti plant september 2011}

Not long after we brought the Ti plant home last summer it exploded in spider mites (which has been an unfortunate trend with this particular nursery. I want to support small, local businesses, but every.single.plant I have bought there seems to be infested). After all its leaves withered away, it looked like a couple of dead sticks, but little by little it started to heal.

{Ti plant February 2012}

Here's my Ti plant now. We brought it inside last fall and it seems to be recovering. There is new leaf growth and although some of the leaves are shriveled, it looks much better and is spider mite free (knock wood).

I would love to see the dark red color return to the leaves. These plants need indirect bright light, and I have it in a room where it gets good morning light. I hope it lives up to its name and brings itself some good luck. Maybe by next Valentine's Day I'll have a little red or pink in the house.

Happy Valentine's Day!

i {heart} pickles

2012-02-10T04:14:00.021-05:00

Happy Adoption Anniversary to my best furry friend and faithful garden companion. I wish I knew how old you are (3 ½? 4? Maybe 4 ½?). What a sweet and loving cat!

Dark Days of Winter Midpoint Review

2012-02-06T03:24:00.040-05:00

Happy Monday! Are you happy with the last-minute Giants' win in the Super Bowl last night? To be honest, I wasn't cheering for either team, so I only sort of half-paid attention to the game. I'm one who watches for the commercials, and the social aspect of watching with friends.

So I'm halfway through the Dark Days Challenge of eating at least one locally-sourced meal a week. By my calculations this is Week 11 of the Challenge, but other participants are on Week 12. I'm not sure how I missed a week. I admit that I've slacked bit in the last couple of weeks. I haven't been to the farmers' market, and I didn't cook any new dishes last week.

I've been eating a lot of leftovers from local meals of prior weeks. Our freezer was stocked with beef stew, lentil soup, potato celery soup, and chili, so we've been eating these and clearing the freezer out. I guess I've been feeling a bit lazy lately too. I don't have any meals planned for this week yet, although there are local meats and veggies in the freezer.

Actually I did make something new last night--baked apples with a buttery-brown sugar-cinnamon topping. I have a bunch of VA-grown apples sitting in my fridge that are too tart to eat plain, so I've been looking for a simple way to use them while still keeping to the local rules. I found this recipe for baked apples and made a few modifications. I took one apple, halved it, and took out the core and seeds.

Look how quickly the apple started to brown after I took out the core and seeds. Is that normal?

I put the apple on a baking sheet and spread the brown sugar mix on top. The mix is 1 tbsp of melted butter, 1 tbsp of flour, and 1 tbsp of brown sugar. I then sprinkled a little cinnamon on each half. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

The is the end result. I'm no food stylist, so this is not an attractive picture, but it tasted pretty good! I was worried about how the butter would affect the taste because the local butter I use has a peppery, grassy taste. It tastes great on potatoes or toast but I wondered if the apples would taste weird. They didn't. All I could taste was brown sugar and a little cinnamon. And the house smelled heavenly! I may do this every week just to get the house smelling like cinnamon and sugar. So this was not a typical Super Bowl dessert, but now I know what to do with the rest of the apples.

In other local food news, my neighborhood Whole Foods has started selling this mozzarella cheese made by a small local farm. I've been buying the cheese at the farmers' market, but now I don't have to wait until the Sunday market to buy it. WF is much closer too, so this is a lot more convenient.

So mid-way through this Challenge I feel like I've hit a plateau. I need to get to the farmers' market next Sunday. I will go, and I'll spend time this week looking for interesting seasonal recipes. Maybe I'll find something inspirational for meals for the rest of the Challenge.

An Award?! I'm Verklempt!

2012-02-02T04:40:00.016-05:00

What a great way to start February! The lovely Julia at Polka Dot Galoshes, Tammy from Casa Mariposa and Holley from Roses and Other Gardening Joys have nominated me for a Versatile Blogger Award. I'm touched and honored. I'm happily surprised that people visit and read this blog when there are so many wonderful blogs to visit. Your comments encourage me to keep trying. I thank all of you for following me along on my garden ~~screw-ups~~ journey.

Here are the rules of the award:

Post the Versatile Blogger Award to your post/blog.
Thank the blogger who nominated you with a link back to their blog.
In the same post, share seven completely random pieces of information about yourself.
In the same post, include this set of rules.
Forward this award to fellow bloggers, and inform them with a comment on each of their blogs.

Here comes the hard part. I want to give this award to many blogs but it looks like many have received it already, so I'll try to pick some that haven't mentioned yet. This has made me realize that I need to start a blog roll for the many blogs I like to read. For now I'll list just a few that I'd like to pass this to, in no particular order. It's a mix of veggie gardeners, everything gardeners, talented photographers, and some who raise chickens!
Your Apples Are My Oranges
Cohocton River Rock Micro Farm
Pam's English Cottage Garden
Girl Sprout
The Whimsical Gardener
Curbstone Valley
Deb's Garden
Enclosure
A Woman of the Soil
Urban Hennery

7 Things About Me:

I may have mentioned this in other posts, but I'm an animal lover. I have two cats, have fostered kittens, and get my fix of dogs, bunnies, and other house pets at the local animal shelter where I volunteer one or two nights a week. No matter how rotten my day is at work, I know these little fuzzballs will give me nothing but love and companionship without judgement. Sometimes a girl needs that, you know?
I like to make lists and spreadsheets for just about everything. [Except lists about myself. ;) ]
I'm a bit particular about some foods. I like strawberries, but not strawberry yogurt. I like citrus fruit but hate citrus-flavored candy. I prefer limeade to lemonade.
However, I've never met a potato dish I didn't like!
I've never been to Las Vegas. Everyone I know has been. I think I missed that rite of passage.
I LOVE the Golden Girls. I love that some channels re-run episodes back-to-back in the middle of the night when I can't sleep. Sophia is my favorite!
I've been thinking of running a 5K this year. Now that I put it on the internet I guess I have to do it.

This was fun. Thanks again Julia, Tammy, and Holley, and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Best and Worst of my Garden -- January 2012

2012-01-31T07:11:00.002-05:00

Welcome to the Best and Worst of my garden, January edition. I'm recapping the good and bad things that happened in my garden this month, similar to what I do at the end of the calendar year (my year-end 2011 and 2010 posts, if you'd like to see).

There's not a whole lot going on in the garden this January. I normally alternate Best/Worst listings, but right now I have more bad things to talk about than good things, so let's get the worst out of the way first:

Worst -- I do not like erratic behavior, not in people, animals, or the weather. I think the entire country has had abnormal weather this January. Here in DC we have gone from spring to winter and back to spring, all in 72 hours. It's been happening all month. I'm not sure what this means for the upcoming spring/summer growing season, but I hope we don't have extreme conditions.

Worst -- I realized that I can't grow carrots in containers.

Worst -- My indoor pepper plan didn't quite pan out. But I'm thinking positive--I hope the few pepper plants that I still have pull through, especially my anaheim pepper plant that has been with me for years.

Best-- I ordered some new seeds to try this spring and I can't wait to start them!

What's happening in your garden? If you want to share any hits and misses, frustrations and triumphs, or anything you're dreading or looking forward to, please link up and share!

Sad Carrots

2012-01-26T05:33:00.004-05:00

{sub-title: Garden Fail #2}

Look at this beautiful bunch of carrots. I bought it at the farmers' market a couple of weeks ago.

See these pathetic little things? I grew them.

I wanted to see if I could grow carrots in containers. These are the little carrot plants before I thinned them last spring. Unfortunately I don't have containers deep enough for what these carrots needed. And I purposely planted a variety of carrots designed to be short and stubby, like baby carrot, so I expected small carrots, but not microscopic ones that look like toothpicks!

I did harvest a few that were a somewhat decent size (compared to the little nubbins in the first few photos), but overall, I consider this a garden fail because of the vast number of microscopic ones that came out. I have found some carrots that are designed to grow in containers, but I don't know if I want to try it again this season. If I ever have more land, I'll definitely try growing them properly in the ground.

There is a happy ending to this sad carrot tale. I took the itty bitty carrot nubbins to the animal shelter on my volunteer night and gave the shelter bunnies a little treat.

I know some of you grow carrots. Have you ever grown them in containers with better results than these? What variety do you grow?

Dark Days of Winter Week 9: Chili

2012-01-24T04:47:00.002-05:00

{Dark Days One Pot Meal Challenge}

This week we had a challenge within a challenge--to make a one-pot meal with local ingredients. I love soups or any meal that can be made in a slow cooker, and we've hit the part of winter where all I want is a hot bowl of soup anyway, so the timing was right for this.

Chili :
( servings)
- 1 pound ground beef (grass fed from Lamb's Quarter farm, a local, family run farm)
- 1 can black beans (an exception I listed in my original post; I wanted to reserve the right to use beans and legumes in my Challenge meals. Plus without beans this would just be meat soup)
- 1 large tomato (organic, local, and hydroponically grown)
- 1 cup bell peppers (harvested from my garden and frozen last summer)
- 1 large onion ( farmers' market)
- 2 cloves garlic (farmers' market)
- 2 cups of water
- 2 teaspoons of flour (exception to the local rules, and used to thicken the soup because we excluded cans of tomato sauce for the Challenge)
- Spices and seasonings to taste (cumin, chili powder, salt, pepper--all exceptions under the Challenge rules)

A hot, spicy bowl of chili is a good antidote to a cold winter night. Husband made this batch for the Dark Days One Pot Challenge, and he is the chili master. I'm not just saying that because I have to. ;) (Seriously, he makes really good chili). Because this was our local meal of the week, we left out the sour cream and cornbread that would normally accompany a bowl of chili, but it was good nonetheless. Actually sometimes I put a little guacamole on top of my chili to curb the heat. I can't handle spicy food.

Although I mentioned missing the guacamole, sour cream, and cornbread, I really don't mind not having them. This Challenge has certainly made me appreciate the foods that I often have to leave out when making my meals. It has also made me appreciate the fact that I have access to many ranchers and farms who produce grass-fed beef or pasture-raised chicken. The DC area has many farmers' markets and CSAs, and I've been finding many more local food resources than I thought, especially winter vegetables. I feel very fortunate, especially because my little kitchen garden doesn't produce enough veggies to get me through the winter.

I also noted above that we left out cans of tomato sauce. I've never canned or preserved anything before, so I didn't have homemade home-grown sauce on hand. I wonder if I could learn to can? This may be a project for the coming summer.

Almost Indoor Pepper Garden

2012-01-20T01:56:00.004-05:00

{sub-title: Garden Fail #1}

Many weeks ago we decided to over-winter several pepper plants in our office. Many still had ripe fruit on them and it's way too cold to leave them outside at night.

We have overwintered this two-year-old anaheim pepper plant before. I started it from seed in spring 2009, and this is the exact same plant. This will be the third winter that we bring it inside. It's still cranking out nice-looking peppers! (I gave this plant its own special post here).

That's the anaheim plant in the green pot. We brought in the cherry, bell, serrano, and jalapeno peppers overwinter. The office actually gets a little humid with all the plants and the sunlight, and we water as necessary. We'd never over-wintered this many plants before, and I thought it would be an interesting experiment to see if they would all make it.

{Yellow bell pepper that I harvested from the indoor crop}

For example, we harvested this big juicy yellow pepper from the plants indoors, as well as a handful of other serranos and cherry peppers. Everything seemed to be going well until we went in one day and saw that one of the plants had exploded in aphids. We took that plant outside so the aphids wouldn't infest the other plants. Once again, everything seemed to be going well until I went in last week and saw almost every single plant crawling with aphids. I'm talking it looked like the pots were moving. It was indescribably disgusting. We moved them all outside again, but at that point the cold temperatures were too much for the plants and they just died.

We were able to save a few that didn't have any aphids on them. Don't they look pathetic?

So the lesson I learned was, wait until the temps are cooler before bringing plants inside in case there are bugs waiting to manifest themselves. I hope they pull through, especially my 3-year-old anaheim pepper plant.

Do you overwinter any vegetable plants?

Dark Days of Winter Weeks 7-8: Soups!

2012-01-18T04:05:00.061-05:00

All I crave in winter are soups and stews. Over the last two weeks, I've made a couple of mostly local soups for my Eat Local Challenge. I was very happy to see that my year-round farmers' market still has a nice selection of produce in January. I had some leftover celery from a previous trip to the market, and I picked up some onions and this beautiful bunch of carrots to add to a lentil soup. I used the potatoes for a separate soup. And the cheese was just a special treat for me!

Lentil Soup

(five servings)

Lentils (An exception that I listed in my original post; I wanted to reserve the right to use beans and legumes in my Challenge meals)

Celery (farmers' market)

Carrots (farmers' market--such a sweet and pure taste! I wish I could grow carrots myself)

Onion (farmers' market)

Oil, salt, pepper (all given exceptions under the Challenge rules)

I followed the cooking directions on the bag of lentils. I added water instead of vegetable or chicken broth to try to keep this as SOLE as possible. I actually make this soup regularly throughout the year, and it's very nutritious and leftovers are perfect to bring to lunch at work.

The other mostly local soup I made was a potato celery soup. I used this recipe as a guide but made many modifications. I excluded wine to keep this as locally-sourced as possible (and I wasn't about to use my tasty local white wine on this soup). I also used more potatoes and less celery than the recipe called for, based on the ingredients I had available.

Potato Celery Soup:

(six servings)

Potatoes (farmers' market)

Celery (farmers' market, leftovers from a previous trip)

Onion (farmers' market)

Chicken broth (exception; I know I could have made my own but I wanted this soup right now!)

Thyme (my garden)

Olive oil, salt, and pepper (Oil and seasonings are always exceptions in this challenge)

Interestingly, the recipe didn't call for cream, so the soup wasn't thick, but it wasn't watery either. The consistency was just right, and the soup was the perfect meal on a freezing January afternoon.

Here's the best part about making these two soups:

I had tons of leftovers! In addition to the bowl of lentil soup that I ate, I packaged up four containers to freeze and/or take to lunch. My husband and I each had a bowl of potato soup, and then I stored enough for two more meals each (so four more potato soup servings). My freezer is stocked and my belly is happy.

New Tomato Seeds Arrived!

2012-01-16T02:33:00.062-05:00

I'm excited to write about three new tomato varieties that I plan to grow this season. I ordered these seeds from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and purposely picked seeds that were suited to the mid-Atlantic.

Mortgage Lifter VFN - (Indeterminate) An improved version of 'Radiator Charlie's Mortgage LifterTM' which has added disease resistance, more uniform fruit, ripening to red rather than pink-red. Fruit is large, 10-14 oz, not as large as the original 'Mortgage Lifter', but much more productive.

As you know, I have limited space and grow almost all my vegetables in containers. I don't always plant determinate varieties though. I plan to get a nice deep container for this tomato and if I get fruit that is the size of my hand, I may just die of shock and happiness.

Marglobe - (Determinate) [A select strain of the old favorite 'Marglobe' originally released by the USDA in 1925. 'Marglobe' was first developed in 1917 from a cross between 'Marvel' and 'Globe'.] Fruits are red, medium-sized, 5 to 8 oz. with firm walls and good flavor.

I chose this variety because it is determinate and will hopefully do well in containers. I was also intrigued by how old this variety is.

Ground cherries - [Cossack Pineapple ground cherry, to be precise] - Bite-sized berries are so tasty that they may never make it into the kitchen, especially if you have children. Excellent for preserves, hot dessert toppings, salads or mock pineapple yogurt. Plants are short (12"-18") but with bushy spreading lateral branches which choke out weeds. Fruits ripen to a pineapple yellow.

I am most excited about the ground cherries. When we were in Iceland I had the most delicious Nutella crepe topped with cream and a ground cherry. I think the ground cherry was just for garnish, but I ate it anyway, and it was so sweet and unusual that I knew I had to try to grow them.

I plan to grow other tomato varieties too, but haven't quite decided which ones yet. I can't wait til seed starting time! {all pictures via SESE website}

Have any new seeds arrived for you? Are you trying anything new this year?

First Snowfall

2012-01-10T02:49:00.024-05:00

Wow, in 48 hours we've gone from spring to winter! There's been snow in other parts of the state this winter, but this is the first snowfall in my backyard, so now I feel like winter has officially begun.

The picture above is of my hydrangea bush last night, the same one that was budding just two days ago in the 65-degree temperature.

{my rosemary bush, covered in snow}

I like living in the mid-Atlantic where I can experience all four seasons. Although I don't like extreme weather, and I don't like being on the road with people who can't drive in snow, I do appreciate the four seasons and the different weather they bring. During the winter months, I like a little chill in the air and a little snow on the ground. I love cozy nights with hot tea, hot chocolate, wine, or soup. I like that a lot of nature is resting, waiting for spring that is just a few months away.

Do you like winter? Do you get snow where you live?

An Open Letter to Mother Nature

2012-01-09T03:24:00.025-05:00

{hydrangea buds on January 7, 2012}

Dear Mother Nature,

I don't mind if you want to give us a mild winter. I won't complain if there is very little snow this year. But 65* in January?! You're confusing my hydrangeas (and other plants, birds, insects, etc).

Respectfully,

A Concerned Gardener

Some of you in the U.S. have commented on the warmer temperatures in your areas, too. Is it feeling like winter yet where you are?

Coming Soon--Best and Worst of the Garden

2012-01-08T03:46:00.002-05:00

I guess 2012 is the year of new beginnings! Along with Barbie and Christine at Two Gardens and HolleyGarden at Roses and Other Gardening Joys, I've decided to start a monthly meme as well.

I plan to recap the "best of" and "worst of" my garden each month, similar to what I do at the end of the year. (My "Best and Worst" year-end recaps, if you'd like to see: 2010 and 2011).
In the year-end posts, I just recapped the few events that stood out from the previous year, so I'll do the same for each month.

The idea for the "worst of" is not to focus on the negative but to record what goes wrong and learn lessons for next time--and hopefully, get help, advice, and sympathy from gardening friends online. And I always try to finish the post with a "best of" because it's better to end on a positive note, isn't it?

My inner geek just needs some kind of monthly summary to stay organized. I plan to do these posts at the end of each month, beginning January 31. Please join in if you'd like!

Feels Like Spring

2012-01-06T08:45:00.000-05:00

{sunflower garden}

{beautiful tomatoes}

{white flower garden}

Unseasonably warm temperatures have me thinking about spring. It's supposed to be as warm as 60F here today! Thought I'd share a few spring/summer-like pictures I found while wasting time on Pinterest.

Happy Weekend!

{all pictures via Pinterest}

Dark Days of Winter Week 6: No Shell Tacos

2012-01-04T02:53:00.001-05:00

I began Week 6 of the Dark Days Eat Local Challenge with a Mexican inspired meal: shell-less tacos. I used the frozen leftover ground beef from Week 1's stuffed pepper meal and added some grated cheese and salsa to complete the meal.

I made salsa with tomatillos from my own garden, and locally-grown garlic and tomatoes. To make the salsa, I first put four average-sized tomatillos, one garlic clove, and a pinch of salt in a food processor and chopped until chunky.

I took the tomatillos out of the food processor and added about half of a large red tomato (I wanted the salsa to be chunky and didn't want my red tomato blended up). I then added more salt to taste.

This is the block of cheese from the wine and cheese meal (Piedmont cheese from the Everona Dairy in VA). I grated it on top of the ground beef. I usually use crumbly queso blanco in my Mexican cooking, but it comes imported from Mexico, and there's no way that would be considered local!

No Shell Tacos:

(serves 1)

- 1/4 pound local grass-fed ground beef, seasoned with bell peppers and parsley from my garden (as seen here)

- 2 teaspoons grated cheese (made from sheep's milk, local dairy)

- 4 medium tomatillos (my garden, harvested in early December)

- 1/2 of a large tomato (locally grown hydroponic tomato)

- 1 clove garlic (local farmers' market)

- salt (exception; I've started using Celtic sea salt. A little of this goes a LONG way).

This meal was filling, and it was nice to re-focus on the Challenge, especially after the excessive eating I did around the holidays. But I cannot lie--the dish needed cilantro and avocados. I didn't mind not having the taco shells, and I didn't even mind skipping the sour cream, but I really missed the cilantro and avocados. I love cilantro but cannot seem to grow it myself, and it's not in season now so I haven't seen any at the farmers' market. I think this meal made me appreciate avocados and cilantro so much more, and it made me think about how we lucky we are to have access to foods that are not native to our particular region. The Internet is a wonderful thing--I can get on localharvest.org and find small vendors of organic products or even small, organic growers of citrus in California.

I wonder how others are doing on this Challenge when trying to cook ethnic dishes?

Dark Days of Winter Week 5: Wine and Cheese

2012-01-03T08:36:00.003-05:00

I'm a little behind on this post--Week 5 was the week between Christmas and New Year's, and my diet that week consisted of dessert, butter, gravy, dessert, and meat with a few starchy vegetables thrown in for good measure. And I also had dessert.

Before I talk about my local meal, I have to mention the amazing dessert that my in-laws always serve at holiday meals. It's called a Smith Island cake. This cake is typical of Smith Island, Maryland, and is characterized by multiple thin layers of cake separated by frosting. It's pretty awesome. The cake comes in many different flavors (vanilla with chocolate frosting, carrot, mint chocolate, etc.), but this Christmas the in-laws served this beautiful red velvet cake. As a former resident of the Deep South, I am very particular about my red velvet. This cake gets a thumbs-up. I'm not sure if the bakery used local ingredients, but the cake itself is definitely local to the area where my in-laws lived.

Back to the Eat Local Challenge--I haven't been able to go to the farmers' market because it is open on Sundays, and Christmas and New Year's Day fell on Sunday this year. And I didn't feel like defrosting any of the locally-sourced foods I have stored. I also just wanted to find a light meal after all the holiday excess. So this all-local meal consisted of VA wine, cheese, and apples. This was a new cheese that I tried--it's called Piedmont from the Everona Diary in Virginia, and is soft in texture and sharp in taste. I can't wait to go buy more from this dairy .

Here's wishing everyone a prosperous 2012! I think this is going to be the best year ever.

p.s. Interesting post about the story behind good luck foods that people eat on New Year's Day.

2011 Garden Recap

2011-12-30T04:58:00.076-05:00

The Best and Worst of My 2011 Garden

Much like I did last year, I'm going back through some of the things that went well and not so well in my 2011 garden.

Best -- We grew some first-time crops this year: tomatillos, onions, and broccoli.

Worst -- Never quite got my fall garden started. Never quite got my cold frame up. {image via Pinterest}

Best -- I feel confident saying that we can grow peppers. We even grew new varieties (like cayenne and Purple Beauty) and had good results with them too!

Worst -- Some things didn't work out well. Like these carrots.

My sunflowers didn't do well this year either. Blooms weren't as prolific as last year and didn't last long. I guess weather conditions in my area were just different this year. :(

{image via Pinterest}

Best -- YOU--The online community! I've met so many cool gardeners from around in the world and learned more about gardening from interacting with you and reading your blogs. I also feel such a stronger connection to my food now that I grow some of my own. It makes me very excited to keep learning, keep trying new things. I thank all of you for reading and commenting and sharing your garden experiences with me too.

One More Best -- my new garden helper, Cleopatra the adorable Kitten. She is so cute! (Even though she steals cherry tomatoes and hides them throughout the house).

Happy New Year and Best Wishes for 2012!

Iceland

2011-12-28T04:39:00.098-05:00

So I'm one of the five people back in the office this week. It's actually pretty nice to be there when no one else is, and between you and me, it means I don't have to worry about what my hair looks like.

We took a pre-Christmas mini-break to Reykjavik, Iceland. Because we are crazy enough to go to a remote island so close to the Arctic Circle in the middle of December. Actually there were quite a few travelers there--we met tourists from the U.S., Europe, Australia, and Asia, but it certainly wasn't hectic and crowded, which made it a very nice, relaxing vacation before we came back to the Christmas madness. I'm still going through my disc, but I thought I'd share a few pictures taken during daylight hours.

{corner cafe in Reykjavik, and nice clear sidewalks}

The weather was actually pretty mild. Temps were in the 30s (Fahrenheit) both day and night, and we weren't too uncomfortable while walking around the city, except for the last day when it was so windy that we had to stop into many cafes and restaurants for snacks and drinks and stuff. At this time of year there are maybe five hours of daylight, but the Christmas lights and decorations in everyone's homes and office buildings made everything look festive and cheerful and certainly helped me get over the fact that it was pitch black at 9:30 in the morning.

{top to bottom: a re-created Viking lodge that was near a church; the first Icelandic parliament house (I will double check my notes); and a tree decorated for Christmas just outside a church}

And yes, there was tons of snow! When we left Reykjavik and went touring around the countryside, everything was blanketed in white. It was beautiful and so peaceful-looking. Since we had a brown Christmas here in the DC-area (temperatures around 50F on Christmas Day!?!), it was very nice to be somewhere that was a true winter wonderland, especially because I didn't have to shovel it, fight traffic in it, or wait for public transportation in it. The only vegetation I saw was in the form of Christmas trees and other evergreens, but it suited me just fine.

As I mentioned yesterday, Icelandic food was good. Fish and lamb were common, and they tasted so fresh and natural because the fish are caught right off the coast and the sheep are grass-fed and not pumped full of hormones and antibiotics. Before I left, people told me that all I'd get was herring, but I ate a lot of salmon, haddock, and cod. Vegetables were a bit more limited, but that was to be expected. They have greenhouses where they grow tomatoes and cucumbers, but they didn't look or taste as good as what we can get in warmer climates. I'm certainly not complaining, though, it was nice to see the effort. During one meal, my husband's fish and chips came with a delicious mango (!!) salad (imported I'm sure), so it wasn't like everything was completely brown. Oh--can we talk about the butter? The brand I tried (Smjor) was sooo good and creamy, and guess what? They sell it here at Whole Foods! I have already gone out and bought a stick to smother on all my bread.

I wish I could be a professional traveler. I would love to go back someday when everything is green. I'm signing off with a picture of me dressed as an Icelandic Viking.

Dark Days of Winter Week 4: Icelandic Fish and Chips

2011-12-27T03:17:00.055-05:00

{icelandic fish and chips with locally-caught haddock and icelandic-grown potatoes}

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! My Week 4 post is a week late--Week 4 of the Dark Days Eat Local Challenge began in Iceland and ended with Christmas, all of which made it very easy to indulge and forget about consuming a locally-sourced meal for the week. Husband and I took a little pre-Christmas vacation to Iceland, which was cold and beautiful and so much fun. Living on a completely remote island has made Icelandic people fairly self-sufficient, so although a lot of food is imported, Iceland does have greenhouses where some fruits and vegetables are grown, like tomatoes and cucumbers. The food was quite delicious (and despite what people had told me, it didn't all taste like fish!)

As I've been going through my pictures, I realized that a lot of the meals we ate were primarily made with local ingredients. The most purely "locally sourced" meal I ate was simple: fish and chips (potatoes). The main ingredients were definitely local, but condiments were a little harder to come by according to "local" rules. The haddock was, of course, caught in Icelandic waters, and I asked the waitress about the potatoes. They too were grown in Iceland. The haddock was battered in spelt and barley, and of course, you have to eat fish and chips with malt vinegar, all of which was imported. And I'm pretty sure the sea salt flakes were from an English brand. So this was what I considered my most "local" meal for Week 4. This meal was so good, we went back another day for more.

And speaking of "dark days"--we had maybe five hours of daylight (NOT necessarily sunlight). More Iceland pictures to come. I'm still recovering from Christmas feasting.

{A short post and some pics of our trip here}

Whoops--not a Chocolate Pepper

2011-12-21T05:00:00.000-05:00

A back post that got lost in draft form--I thought I had planted sweet chocolate pepper seeds last spring, and was excited to see the dark brown peppers emerge. In mid-September the colors started to change. I then went on vacation, expecting to see dark brown peppers when I came back.

I guess the seeds got mixed up because my peppers turned red, not brown. I'm not entirely sure what happened--I guess there were red bell seeds in the packet instead of chocolate ones. I actually didn't have any red bell peppers seeds last spring and was a little bummed that I forgot to order some. But I guess things worked out all right because I got the red bells I wanted. We'll try for Sweet Chocolates again next spring. (Peppers in my 2011 garden listed here)

Farm Fresh Egg Mozzarella Sandwich

2011-12-16T04:06:00.050-05:00

Last night's dinner was breakfast food. During this time of year there are so many holiday parties and team lunches that I often feel too full and/or sick to have dinner. I had gone to lunch with coworkers and ate so much that I wanted a light dinner. So I had a breakfast sandwich. It was made with these local ingredients: eggs, butter, mozzarella cheese, and spinach.

I recently found an excellent local source of mozzarella cheese and butter at my farmers' market. Blue Ridge Dairy makes mozzarella and butter on site. The butter was light in color and smelled so good. I thought it tasted a little peppery. The cheese was very creamy, almost like burrata. It was so much better than any mozzarella I've ever bought at a grocery store. (See all those bottles with brownish liquid? I'm a salad dressing hoarder).

My eggs come from Sunpower Farm, a local farm (noted here). Non-local ingredients include bread, milk, and salt and pepper. I got the rolls from Atwater Bakery. They use organic ingredients and try to buy locally when possible. I believe their primary flour source is in South Carolina, so that's outside the 150-mile parameter of a local meal. But I like that they buy from family-run farms, and the bread is good and fluffy. I used milk to scramble the eggs, and that was not from a local source either.

I added spinach from a local farm (via the farmers' market last weekend) for a little texture, and voila! My farm fresh egg and mozzarella sandwich!

Dark Days of Winter Week 3: Beef Stew

2011-12-11T20:26:00.001-05:00

My all-local meal this week is my favorite winter time meal: beef stew.

Beef Stew (in a Crock Pot):
- about 2 pounds eye round (from the Lamb's Quarter, a local family-run farm, via my farmers' market)
- one bunch carrots (Dupont Circle farmers' market)
- 2 stalks celery (farmers' market)
- 1.5 pounds potatoes (farmers' market)
- 1 cup onion {roughly half a medium onion} (farmers' market)
- 2 cloves garlic (farmers' market)
- 2 tbsp vinegar (exception, added to the stew to help flavors absorb)
- 2 tbsp butter (exception, to sauté the veggies before adding to the stew; I use a dairy-free, soy-free butter)
- salt and pepper to taste (exceptions)
Fill slow cooker with water (about 32 ounces), and let it stew!

It was really basic--beef and vegetables went into a slow cooker in the morning and by then end of the day, the house smelled like beefy heaven. We had leftovers too, which we froze. I usually like to have rice or rolls with beef stew, but I excluded both of these ingredients for the local-food only meal. We also excluded any kind of broth, using water only, and the beef was so full of flavor that the stew didn't really need anything. Our bellies were warm and happy.

{I have since found a local bakery, Atwater Bakery, that makes bread using flour from family farms and organic, seasonal ingredients. Some flour sources were within the 150-mile radius for this Challenge, but some were further. If I absolutely need bread for a meal, I'll likely use theirs. This resource seems in keeping with the spirit of the Challenge though it may not conform strictly to the rules, and let's face reality, unless I want to give myself indigestion, I probably shouldn't bake anything. Can't wait to try it!}

Garden Wish List

2011-12-08T05:14:00.004-05:00

A few things on my garden wish list...

{image via Pinterest}

1. A fall/winter garden - I had planned to have one this year, but it didn't quite happen. Maybe next year...

2. Watermelon and Corn - This comes down to needing more space. These just can't be grown in containers. We sort of grew watermelon last year, but the one melon that popped up really didn't get very big, and I can't even remember how it tasted (probably bad).

{image via Pinterest}

3. Citrus trees - I would love to have lemon and lime trees, and maybe an orange tree. I actually did have a dwarf meyer lemon tree once, and I think I killed it by over-fertilizing. That was a few years ago. I know a little bit more about gardening now, and have better resources online, so I'm thinking of trying again.

{image via Seed Savers Exchange}

4. Cilantro - my nemesis. One day I shall conquer you. (Then again, we found a Latin grocer that sells 3 bunches of cilantro for $1, so...)

{image via Seed Savers Exchange}

5. Potatoes - I eat so many potatoes, I really wish I had space to grow them. I love the blue & purple ones. I've been reading about how to grow them in containers. We're thinking of building a box to grow tubers next year. That would be so awesome.

What's on your garden wish list?

Dark Days of Winter Week 2: Breakfast

2011-12-06T04:48:00.034-05:00

Week 2 is all about my favorite meal: breakfast.

Growing my own vegetables is still fairly new to me, and making a conscious effort to eat meals comprised only of local foods is something I've never done before, so during this challenge I will probably keep things simple so that I don't fail or get discouraged, but as time goes by I want to be creative and try ingredient combos that I've never had before.

This week's meal was very simple--just an omelet made with SOLE (sustainable, organic, local, ethical) eggs, vegetables from my garden, and some veggies from the farmers' market.

I buy the eggs at my favorite cheese shop in D.C. (which, ironically, does not sell any local cheeses).

I love buying these eggs because they always come in a variety of colors, including green! I believe it's the Araucana chicken that lays greenish-blue eggs. Is it strange that I'm a full-grown adult and I get excited about green eggs?

Our garden produced a lot of peppers this year, so we try to include them in as many dishes as we can. These cherry peppers are sweet and taste really good grilled or just steamed.

My SOLE Omelet:

- 2 eggs (local farm)

- butter (exception: I use a dairy-free, soy-free butter)

- spinach (farmers' market)

- 1 small potato (famers' market)

- cherry peppers (my garden)

- 1 tomatillo (my garden)

- rosemary (my garden)

And although I didn't do a side-by-side comparison of these eggs and grocery-store-bought eggs for 79¢/dozen, I can tell you that the SOLE eggs had flavor so rich, natural, and truly "egg-like" that they were well worth the extra dollars.

Local Hunting and Gathering

2011-12-05T03:36:00.028-05:00

I spent the weekend hunting for locally grown vegetables and grass-fed/pasture-raised beef and chicken, which I found at the Dupont Circle Farmers' Market in DC on Sunday. This is my new favorite market. Dupont Circle only allows producer-only farmers and most of them are from VA and MD. The market website lists all vendors, so I can research them to learn about how they grow their products. The market goes year-round, which will come in handy for the Dark Days Challenge. I stocked up on some vegetables for my meals this week, and bought a little extra to freeze for later this winter.

I learned something unfortunate too--the farmers' market near my house allows re-selling, which I find extremely disappointing. And the site doesn't list vendors, so I'm unable to distinguish between those who are producer-only and those who are vendors. My grass-fed beef seller is the only vendor whose products I trust there now, and that's because I can find his farm on the internet and see how he raises and cares for his animals. So I won't be going there anymore, and even though Dupont Circle isn't as convenient, at least there's a wide selection and can rest assured that the products are locally grown and organically produced.

This weekend I bought onions, garlic, broccoli, spinach, carrots, celery, potatoes, bison, and some of the last few chicken breasts I'm likely to see this season. Best of all--I found cheese! I found locally-made cheese that I like. I spent the weekend planning menus for upcoming Dark Days local meals and freezing vegetables for the later winter months when the selection at the market won't be as varied.

I froze broccoli and spinach. Both have to be blanched before freezing. I steamed the broccoli for 5 minutes, then dumped it all into a bowl of ice water for a couple of minutes before separating it into containers for freezing.

I steamed the spinach for only one minute--any longer will cook it too much. I then placed the spinach into an ice bath right away, and put it in a salad spinner to drain the excess water out. (You can use paper towels to dry off the water if you don't have a spinner). I then separated the spinach into serving sizes for future use, and bagged the leaves before freezing.

I have some squash and peppers from my own garden that I can use, but not nearly enough to get me through the winter. I'm excited to do this Challenge and hope I can come up with creative meals, even in the "Dark Days" of winter.

Tomatillos!

2011-12-02T05:52:00.004-05:00

I harvested these tomatillos the weekend before Thanksgiving. This was the first year we grew them. We started them from seed and grew both the green and purple varieties. They attracted all types of pollinators, mostly bees. If we grow them again next year, I think we'll just grow one or two pots instead of four. To me they're not as versatile as a regular tomato, and I can only eat so much green salsa. I chopped one up into my bell pepper stuffing last weekend.

{These are purple tomatillos. The husk even has purple lines, compared to the green ones that just have plain old brown husks.}

Tomatillos are ripe when the husk turns brown and starts to peel away. You should leave the husks on until you're ready to use the fruit. The fruit doesn't really feel soft like a regular tomato does, and the husk leaves the tomatillo skin sticky, so rinse them well before using. I found some useful information online about storing tomatillos--didn't realize you could freeze them whole or in slices. I guess because the fruit is so firm, they won't get as mushy as a regular tomato would.

Dark Days of Winter Week 1: Stuffed Bell Peppers

2011-12-01T01:09:00.066-05:00

The Dark Days of Winter Eat Local Challenge begins this week, and I'm very excited and a little nervous to participate. Some of my favorite foods include bananas, cheese, and avocado--and they don't always fit the SOLE (sustainable, organic, local ethical) criteria, especially here in the DC area. But now that I've spent two summers growing my own vegetables and educating myself about where all my food comes from and how it's grown, I thought the time was right to participate in a challenge like this. And my husband has to participate by default! (One SOLE meal a week is not a hardship, right?).

We ate our first Challenge meal the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and this very simple meal of bell peppers stuffed with ground beef was a perfect end to a weekend of holiday indulgence (i.e, excessive amounts of starch and dessert).

Stuffed Bell Peppers
(serves 2)
- 1 pound ground beef (grass-fed from The Lamb's Quarter, a family-run farm, via my local farmers' market)
- 2 medium-sized bell peppers--yellow, green (my garden)
- 1 tiny purple pepper (my garden)
- 1 tbsp onion scapes (my garden)
- 2 tbsp parsley (my garden)
- 1 tomatillo (my garden)

{please forgive my photo quality; I'm not great at evening shots}

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut the tops off the medium-sized peppers, clean out the insides, and boil for about 5 minutes to soften them. Once they have softened, removed them from water and place them on a paper towel to dry off.

Meanwhile, place the ground beef into a skillet on medium heat. Chop all remaining vegetables finely. Add the chopped vegetables to the skillet and cook everything together until all meat has browned. This will be used to stuff the peppers. Once ready, place equal amounts of the stuffing mixture into the scooped out peppers. Bake for about 10 minutes. Serve immediately.

Ordinarily I might top these with cheese or serve them with rice. Although I listed rice as one of the exceptions in my orginial post, I didn't want to play that card yet. I don't yet know of any Virginia or Maryland cheeses that I can get, so we didn't include that yet. This meal was perfect as-is!

{Update: At the farmers' market near my office, I found a dairy that makes cheese right on their own farm, which is less than 100 miles away. Score!}

30 Day Thanksgiving Challenge - Day 19

2011-11-30T08:44:00.002-05:00

I had to finish this challenge by being thankful for garden bugs, most especially for my blog's namesake, the bee. I've been fortunate to see several different varieties of bees in my little garden. Love these little pollinators!

I'm thankful for the good, bad, and ugly bugs (bad bugs are sometimes a food source for the good ones). I have learned a lot about gardening and a little about entomology by observing these little creatures.

Finally, Thank You, Cat, for leading this fun challenge! I really enjoyed joining you and other members of the garden blogging community in reflecting on the little (and big) things to be grateful for. I think it's become a habit now--I often catch myself thinking, "I'm thankful for this..." :)

{Throughout November I linked up with The Whimsical Gardener's 30 Day Challenge to post about something you're thankful for every day. My posts are under the tag giving thanks}.

30 Day Thanksgiving Challenge - Days 17 - 18

2011-11-28T05:19:00.067-05:00

I hope everyone had a relaxing, delicious, happy Thanksgiving! I avoided the madness of retail stores and spent a lot of time reading. Today I'm thankful for the excellent public library system where I live. I take the Metro to work and have a 30-45 minute commute each way. That gives me a lot of time to read. And I do it old school--actual books, no electronic readers for me. Not that I wouldn't mind one, but I stare at a computer screen all day, so it's nice to give my eyes a break.

I love a good mystery, but lately I've been reading a lot of historical fiction about English kings and queens (favorite authors include Philippa Gregory, Robin Maxwell, and Anne Easter Smith). I read non-fiction too--right now I'm working through a stack of books on gardening and food (pictured above).

{both photos via Mount Vernon website}

I'm also very thankful for modern conveniences. Over the holiday weekend we went to Mt. Vernon, George Washington's home. It's a great place for both history buffs and gardeners to visit because Washington was a farmer (you know, when he wasn't leading armies or running the country). I'm so grateful for modern conveniences like electricity, indoor plumbing(!), refrigeration, washing machines, and coffee makers. I'm thankful I can garden because I want to, not because my family's livelihood depends on our harvest. If you're ever in the DC area, I recommend a trip into Alexandria to visit the Mt. Vernon estate.

**********************************************************

What do you like to read? Leave me any recommendations in the comment section--I'm always looking for something new and interesting to read!

{I'm linking up with The Whimsical Gardener's 30 Day Challenge to post about something you're thankful for every day.}

30 Day Challenge -- Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-23T05:59:00.036-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate! Today I am thankful for all of the above, and tomorrow I'll be thankful for antacids.

{image via Pinterest}

{I'm linking up with The Whimsical Gardener's 30 Day Challenge to post about something you're thankful for every day.}

Late November Harvests

2011-11-21T04:30:00.004-05:00

I spent the weekend cleaning up our balcony container garden and took pictures of what's left. Our peppers are still going strong! Despite temperatures in the 40s, the plants look good and the peppers are ripening on the vine. We did bring all the plants in, though, and we'll probably give a couple of the plants away.

We still have a few tomatillos on the vine, and we harvested the very last handful of green beans and literally, a handful of cherry tomatoes. So sad to see tomato season over with but thankful that it lasted this long.

Dark Days of Winter Eat Local Challenge

2011-11-19T17:20:00.009-05:00

I'm doing another challenge! When I first read about Urban Hennery's Dark Days of Winter Eat Local Challenge (that's a mouthful!), I was intrigued. Now that I'm in my second year of kitchen gardening, I've become much more aware of the food that is on my plate--where it comes from, how it tastes, the costs and benefits of eating what I eat (monetary, economic and environmental impact, and health, among others). I thought this would be a good way to spend the dreary winter months, since my garden is pretty much shut down until next spring.

From the host's original post:
Dates
The challenge runs from Sunday, November 27th, 2011 to Saturday, March 31st, 2012.

What’s the Challenge?
Cook one meal each week featuring SOLE (sustainable, organic, local, ethical) ingredients, write about it on your blog and email your happy recapper a link to your post.

What does local mean?
Traditionally, local food challenges call for a 100 mile radius. Winter time is more difficult in many climates, especially if you’re new to eating locally, so my default winter definition is 150 miles. You can choose to make your radius smaller or slightly larger as you need. Typical exceptions to the local requirement are oils, coffee, chocolate and spices. If you’re making fewer or more exceptions, please note that on your first post.
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On the surface this seems easy--one meal a week can't be that bad right? {Ask me again in February when I'm desperate and eat a handful of snow and call that my local meal of the week. }

What Will Be Easy

I'm fortunate that I live in an area with many farmers' markets, and even the grocery store chains in my neighborhood have sections where they sell local foods, so I think it will be easy to find locally-grown food.
Best of all, I live near one of the best farmers' markets I've ever been to--the Old Town Alexandria Farmers' Market. It's supposedly one of the oldest markets in the country and open every Saturday year-round (score!)
I have access to products from local dairies, so getting things like organically-produced milk and especially eggs will be very easy.
I have some locally-raised (northern VA) grass-fed beef stored in my freezer from a recent trip to the Old Town farmers' market, plus a few veggies from my garden and the farmers' market to get started.
Northern Virginia has some of the best wineries around, for those days when I just want a liquid lunch {kidding, sort of}

What Will Be Hard

I'm a horrible cook.
Planning ahead--I need to stock up on meats to get through the winter. Last year around this time, my meat guy at the farmers' market ran out (one of his freezers broke down). I need to get down there next Saturday and get more to stock my own freezer.
Side dishes--if I plan right, meat and eggs will be easy to get, but side dishes and condiments will present more of a challenge. I'll have to be more thoughtful about how I balance, season, and prepare my meals.

my weekend farmers' market purchase

For me, planning ahead will be key, and I don't want to set myself up for failure, so I will likely wait until the weekend to make my local meal of the week because I know I won't be able to make good choices after a long, stressful day at the office.

Although the challenge considers 150 miles to be local, I'll try to keep it closer. From where I live, places in Pennsylvania are within 150 miles, but I'll try my best to support VA-based farmers.

In addition to oils, coffee, chocolate, and spices, as noted in the Challenge rules, I'm also going to allow myself the exceptions of rice, beans/legumes, and a certain Louisiana seasoning that we picked up on our last trip to New Orleans. That will give me flexibility.

I'm glad this starts after Thanksgiving! This will indeed be a challenge. Looking forward to it!

30 Day Thanksgiving Challenge - Days 14 - 15

2011-11-18T07:56:00.001-05:00

Soooo thankful I don't have to rake all these leaves up.

Thankful for a new spider plant! One of my work friends is moving to Chicago and left her plant in my care. Sad to see my coffee buddy go, but thankful for good friends at the workplace. They make it easier to get through the stressful days.

{I'm linking up with The Whimsical Gardener's 30 Day Challenge to post about something you're thankful for every day. I'm not able to post every day, so sometimes I combine days.}

30 Day Thanksgiving Challenge - Days 11 - 13

2011-11-15T04:43:00.009-05:00

I'm thankful for sunny November days...

...a freezer full of strawberries --still! (I've been making lots of smoothies)...

...and warm drinks on a cool day.

{I'm linking up with The Whimsical Gardener's 30 Day Challenge to post about something you're thankful for every day. I'm not able to post every day, so sometimes I combine days. All my posts related to this challenge are found under the giving thanks tag.}

30 Day Thanksgiving Challenge - Day 10

2011-11-14T02:15:00.041-05:00

I'm thankful for quiet mornings when the only sound outside is water from the fish pond.

And I'm extremely thankful that our fish are still alive.

We had a scare over the weekend. Every fall we remove the UV filter so that the winter snow and ice don't damage it. We did that on Friday, but apparently something got knocked loose and all the water drained out of the pond. I didn't realize this until late Saturday afternoon when I happened to go outside. I saw a dry pond and the goldfish were all laying at the bottom, completely still. I didn't know how long they had been like that and figured they were dead. After screaming "Oh %$#!" more than a few times, I started throwing buckets of water into the pond to refill it while my husband hooked up the garden hose and checked other settings. As the pond started filling with water, some of the fish started moving. By some miracle, THEY WERE ALL ALIVE! All five goldfish bounced back and started swimming around within minutes. We saw the biggest fish's mouth opening and closing rapidly, gasping for breath, poor thing. My husband added some chemicals to regulate the balance of the water, and we crossed our fingers that the stress of such a traumatic event wouldn't kill them either. On Sunday morning, the pond was still full of water (phew!) and all five fish were present and accounted for. Maybe fish have nine lives too.

{I'm linking up with The Whimsical Gardener's 30 Day Challenge to post about something you're thankful for every day. All my posts related to this challenge are found under the giving thanks tag.}

30 Day Thanksgiving Challenge - Day 9

2011-11-11T05:14:00.047-05:00

You know what, I'm thankful for the Internet. As nice as it is to get away from technology every now and then, I wouldn't be doing this challenge if not for the interwebs.

Since I began gardening, I've enjoyed connecting with other people all over the world who share this hobby. It's fun to see what people are growing and eating and where they travel. It's also a great time waster (hello, Pinterest), a great resource for things I'm interested in (such as veggie gardening, seeds and vegetable growing tips, and food), and a place to find obscure things that I absolutely can't live without (like the sandwich coasters above. Yes, I own them and use them at cook-outs. Classy, no?)

{I'm linking up with The Whimsical Gardener's 30 Day Challenge to post about something you're thankful for every day. I'm not able to post every day, so I'm combining days. All my posts related to this challenge are found under the giving thanks tag.}

30 Day Thanksgiving Challenge - Day 8

2011-11-10T04:13:00.008-05:00

I probably should have posted about being thankful for family and friends sooner... :)

It goes without saying, but I am thankful for them, and thankful that many of them enjoy relaxing with a nice glass of wine.

I'm also thankful for you, my new friends in the blogging community. Thank you for stopping by my site and leaving comments and words of encouragement about my garden. And thank you for having blogs too, so I can see your beautiful pictures, get gardening tips, and get inspiration for things I want to try in my own garden!

{I'm linking up with The Whimsical Gardener's 30 Day Challenge to post about something you're thankful for every day. I'm not able to post every day, so sometimes I'm combining days. All my posts related to this challenge are found under the giving thanks tag.}

30 Day Thanksgiving Challenge - Days 6 - 7

2011-11-09T03:59:00.028-05:00

Today I'm thankful for this year's good kitchen garden harvest. Over the weekend we picked the last pint of green beans, and we're still collecting bell and cherry peppers.

I'm also thankful for our highly productive pepper plants. I confess that they suffered a few days of neglect here and there, but they thrived anyway. It's a lesson that plants are often tougher than I think.

{I'm linking up with The Whimsical Gardener's 30 Day Challenge to post about something you're thankful for every day. I'm not able to post every day, so I'm combining days. All my posts related to this challenge are found under the giving thanks tag}

30 Day Thanksgiving Challenge - Days 2 - 5

2011-11-07T05:00:00.076-05:00

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower." - Albert Camus

Once again I'm linking up with The Whimsical Gardener's 30 Day Thanksgiving Challenge (albeit a few days behind, so I'm combining days). I'm thankful that I live in a part of the country that experiences the four seasons. Autumn is my favorite season. As much as I love seeing color in my summer garden, nothing rivals the bright reds, yellows, and oranges of the changing leaves. I love the quote above by Albert Camus--autumn really is like a second spring!

{picture of Walden Pond in autumn via New England Travel Planner}

I always associate autumn with New England. I lived in Boston for a few years when I was in school, and autumn there is beautiful--the colors just seem more vibrant than they are here in DC. When I lived there, I made a few trips to Walden Pond in Concord, MA, where Henry David Thoreau lived for a couple of years, and his experience was the inspiration for the book Walden. Although this park gets a lot of warm weather visitors, to me it is synonymous with the peace and tranquility of autumn, when everything starts to slow down a bit and you can appreciate nature from a different perspective.

I'm thankful for moments like this. In the technological world we live in, it's nice that there are still places to go where you can remove yourself from everything except nature, whether that's at a park or in your own garden.

{top picture: Thoreau's house on Walden Pond; bottom picture: view of Walden Pond from his house, both via New England Travel Planner}

I'm also thankful that I was able to visit Walden Pond, a place that I had read about and wondered about when I was younger, and I'm thankful that I've had the opportunity to live in many different places (though I don't miss New England winters!)

{p.s. For any literature/trivia buffs, Louisa May Alcott knew Thoreau and wrote Little Women while living in Concord}

30 Day Thanksgiving Challenge - Day 1

2011-11-04T05:43:00.115-04:00

When I read that Cat of The Whimsical Gardener was beginning a 30 Days of Thanksgiving challenge, I thought this would be a perfect way to slow down and count my blessings this season. I'm starting late, and don't know if I can post every day, or always post about the garden, but I shall try my best. [Here's Cat's original post about the challenge and what inspired her to do it. ]

Today I'm thankful for my pets, my two cats, Pickles and Cleo. They are not skittish hide-under-the-bed cats. They are good little companions who follow us from room to room, hang out with us while we watch TV, and Pickles likes to join me outside in the garden. He sits on the deck, either directly in the sun or hiding among plants to better watch the birds. He is content to sit peacefully outside, observing.

I am thankful that my Pickles and Cleo are healthy. I am also thankful for veterinarians who take care of the non-human loves of our life. I'm thankful for all the people who go to rescue groups or shelters and adopt dogs, cats, rabbits, lizards, etc., and I'm especially thankful to anyone who simply shows a little kindness to the smallest of Earth's creatures.

A Halloween October Garden Recap

2011-10-31T05:13:00.015-04:00

The month of October got away from me. I've composed a month's worth of posts in my head, but never got around to recording them in my online journal. This is a recap of what went on this month:

October ended with snow. SNOW! We woke up on Saturday to heavy rain, which then turned into icy rain, and then turned into snow by late afternoon. The snow didn't stick, but it was still bizarre to have such freezing temperatures this early in the year. Apparently this has been record-breaking all along the east coast.
There haven't been many fall colors in the neighborhood this year. This is the only tree in the neighborhood that has changed leaves.

We've been harvesting handfuls of tomatoes throughout the month--nothing like an August harvest, but I've enjoyed these late blooming tomatoes.

The peppers get gold stars this year. They all have continued to crank out fruit, as I mentioned in my post at the beginning of the month.

Even Pickles' cat grass has continued to grow well.

But here's the REAL reason I haven't been able to post much this month:

Another batch of foster kittens! We've had them for about 4 weeks, and even though there are only three of them, they've been sick and not eating well so I've been spending a lot of time with them--more than with the five foster kittens I had earlier this year. This little trio is much healthier now and gaining weight nicely. I think in two weeks they'll be ready to go up for adoption--just in time for Thanksgiving!

And it hasn't escaped my attention that today is Halloween--one of the funnest days of the year because you're never too old to dress up and ask strangers for candy. Happy Halloween!!

Garden Harvest Welcome Home

2011-10-06T05:30:00.021-04:00

The garden did well while we were on vacation. It rained a lot here, so the plants didn't get thirsty. The peppers did really, really well while we were gone, despite the cool fall temperatures that have settled around the DC area. We have more purple peppers to look forward to.

And what a wonderful homecoming gift--we harvested a couple of bell peppers, choricero peppers, a pint of cherry peppers, and a handful of cayenne, jalapeno, and green beans when we got home last week.

I should have mentioned in my anniversary post a Happy Anniversary to my wonderful husband. He's definitely the muscle in the Bumble Lush garden. He does all the heavy lifting and is always on bug patrol. I wouldn't have this garden without him. Plus, he's super cute. Love you! xoxoxoxox

Bumble Lush at Rest (Wordless Wednesday)

2011-10-05T05:28:00.001-04:00

A Tropical Anniversary

2011-10-03T05:30:00.063-04:00

My husband and I recently celebrated our one year anniversary with a trip to Grenada, which was a beautiful tropical island paradise. It's extremely hard to come back to reality, and the cold, rainy weather that greeted us when we returned hasn't helped me adjust to the daily grind. I've been away from the internet for a while, and I thought I'd get back into things by posting a few of the floral pics I took from our trip:

pink ginger lily

Red ginger lilies (Alpinia purpurata) were everywhere, and I saw many pink colored ones as well.

Heliconia abounded in Grenada. I believe this is Heliconia pendula.

{top to bottom: passion fruit, papaya tree, coconut, conch shell, and cactus}

Bougainvillea was all over the island and in many home gardens. I don't think I took any pictures of bougainvillea, but I haven't finished going through all the photos yet, so there may be some. The tropical flowers all over the island were absolutely gorgeous, and so many homes had such beautiful gardens. I was envious of the cactus and other tropical fruit they were able to grow, especially the papaya, and I think it would be so fun to have a coconut tree in my yard!

Does anyone know what this plant is? I think it's a Ti plant (Cordyline fruticosa), also known as Hawaiian Good Luck plant. We have one in our house, but it sort of died off. It's coming back to life though, and I'm wondering if it will look like this when it re-blooms?

Happy Fall! (and a last taste of Summer)

2011-09-23T04:58:00.065-04:00

Today is the official first day of Fall--my favorite season! I'm looking forward to cooler temperatures, wearing cozy sweaters and boots, and eating lots of pie and soup. Temperatures are still a bit warm around these parts, though, so it's hard to get into a complete autumn mindset. While looking at food porn online yesterday, I came across some summer salad recipes that I wish I had found, oh, about 3 months ago.

Tomato Carpaccio - does this scream summer, or what? I don't really have any garden-grown tomatoes left, but next summer I plan to grow some big slicing tomatoes for salads just like this.

Endive and Warm Pear Salad - Well, this salad seems a little high-brow for my simple taste, but it looks delicious. And I confess that I do love pears in salads, and pears and endive seem to be a common combo that works very well. Maybe one day, when I'm a proper lady, I'll have dinner parties where I start the meal off with something classy like this instead of the beer-burger-and-guacamole parties we have now. Maybe.

Avocado and Corn - And speaking of guacamole, I think this avocado and corn salad is my favorite. I love avocados and ate a lot of avocado and tomato salads this summer. I wish I lived in a more tropical zone where I could grow healthy avocado (and citrus) trees.

So farewell Summer! Here's hoping for a happy fall season.

(all food photos via Mark Bittman)

Alien

2011-09-21T04:57:00.019-04:00

Last weekend, when we were cleaning off the patio, we noticed this praying mantid under the leaf of one of the sunflowers. The problem with these bugs is that they eat the good and bad insects, so I've learned not to get too excited when I see them in the garden. We took him off the leaf and put him in the strawberry patch, which right now is a buffet of ants and possibly a Japanese beetle.

Garden Clean-Up

2011-09-19T05:14:00.017-04:00

Technically there is still one more week of summer, but recent temperatures have been cool and very fall-like. With overnight lows in the 50s and low 60s, I think veggie production is going to slow down considerably. I think we got all we could out of our only bush bean plant--two pints! Not bad considering we started it late. Our tomato plants have slowed down a lot, but the peppers are loaded with fruit and still cranking them out. The pictures above are recent harvests of peppers and beans. Garden chores accomplished over the weekend: We cleaned a lot of pots off the deck, specifically the sunflowers and squash plants, which were dead and brown and scraggly.

The Sweet Chocolate peppers are FINALLY starting to ripen into their dark brown color--I think. They look a little orange right now.

Purple Beauties

2011-09-12T05:01:00.066-04:00

{deep sigh}......What a September this has been. I'm going to avoid the emotional topics that have been in the news lately, especially in DC--hurricane/tropical storm/heavy rains and floods, the September 11 anniversary, and general job/economic woes--and instead post something completely superficial. (However, NY Magazine has interesting coverage/tributes of the 10-year Sept 11 anniversary, if you're interested).

Purple is my favorite color, and purple fruits and veggies fascinate me because there just don't seem to be that many of them {don't even get me started on how totally awesome purple potatoes are}. I tried growing purple bell peppers last year but didn't have any luck getting purple ones from a "miscellaneous variety" seed packet I bought. So this year, I specifically ordered Purple Beauty seeds.

It was worth the wait. My Purple Beauties are stars! The plant has been cranking out peppers steadily in the last few weeks.

So far, I have harvested one pound of purple bell peppers. Next up: cooking a couple and freezing the rest. The Purple Beauty plant, along with the Sweet Chocolate plant, have grown so much that Husband transplanted them both to bigger pots over the weekend.

sweet chocolate peppers waiting to ripen

P for Purple Pepper!

Like all our other peppers, the Purple Beauties and Sweet Chocolates are in containers and have done very well in their pots. They were both grown from seed. The Sweet Chocolates haven't changed color yet, and I hope that I get to see them turn that nice dark chocolate brown color as promised on the seed packet. But for now I'm very happy with the purple peppers. :)

Our Goldfish Pond

2011-09-08T05:18:00.011-04:00

I've done an entire post on our new kitten and have shown pics of our sweet 3-year-old cat, so now I want to mention our gilled garden companions. This goldfish pond was part of the house when we bought it, and we love listening to the soothing sounds of the running water. The birds and squirrels seem to like it too, and we frequently see them stopping by for a drink.

The pond has five goldfish and water lilies which bloom briefly every spring. Our first year in the house, there was a huge toad that lived in the pond. We'd see it swimming and sitting on the lily pads or hiding under the Japanese maple that's near the pond. Last year we saw the toad and a smaller frog briefly in early spring. We were excited that there were two, and then they disappeared. We didn't see either of them again for the rest of the 2010 summer. We hoped to see one or both again this year, but we didn't see anything this spring either, and then...

...a few weeks ago, we saw a little frog! This picture is awful, but it's the only proof I have that there's a frog in the pond! I've read that frogs are a sign that your pond is healthy, so I'm very happy to see it. He should have plenty to eat with all the mosquitos and flies swarming about, and I hope he stays and invites a couple of friends too.

Do you have a pond in your yard?

Strawberry Resurrection

2011-09-07T05:12:00.017-04:00

I thought they were done for the season, but the strawberries are making a comeback. Blossoms, buds, and even one bright red strawberry have emerged (circled in yellow). I took this picture last night during a break from the heavy rain we got yesterday. Temperatures were cooler, too--in the 60s during the day! I actually had to wear a jacket, and for the first time in months, I wore pants to work (as opposed to a skirt. I don't usually go bottomless ;)) Between the weather and all the school buses on the road, I guess summer really is over.

Looking Forward to Beans and Loofah

2011-09-05T05:15:00.026-04:00

Happy Labor Day! I wish every week had a 3-day weekend. I find myself more productive at work and home when the schedule works out this way. I'm a wino, and one of the highlights of my weekend was a visit to the Narmada Winery, which I highly recommend to anyone in the Virginia area.

As I look forward to a possible tomato bumper crop and more pepper harvests, I also have two new crops that are maturing in September: green beans and loofah (as in an exfoliating loofah sponge!).

We planted bush beans in a container, and the five seedlings have just matured into producing plants. We harvested about a pint and a half late last week. We started these seeds in late June, but I wish we had started them earlier or planted more. Note to self: plant more beans next year. We love beans, too, I don't know why we didn't this year.

Loofah plants are something we tried growing on a whim last year, and the plants did so well that we had to grow them again this year. Loofahs are in the cucurbit family. The vines and flowers resemble cucumbers, and the fruit looks like a giant zucchini. I don't have any pictures of the actual fruit from last year, but here's a picture with more info. We have loofah planted in our small ground plant, and the vines grow wild. Last year they reached up to the deck, and it looks like they're on their way to reaching that far this year too.

Loofahs grow all summer, but really take off when the summer heat breaks. Last week the weather was absolutely gorgeous here (the one good thing about tropical storms is that they often leave nice weather in their wake). With temperatures in the 80s during the day and 60s overnight, the conditions were ideal for the plants to take off. The bumbles love the flowers, and the plants were covered in bees all weekend long. Yay! Keep pollinating!

We have two fruit already! You can see that they resemble zucchini. Although you can eat the fruit, we're going to let them grow and dry out. Then we'll peel them and process them to get the sponge that you see so often in the store.

Here's hoping for a good bean and loofah harvest!

August Harvests

2011-09-01T05:30:00.048-04:00

This week has been uneventful, compared to Mother Nature's Earthquake/Hurricane Smack Down last week. She has been nice to DC this week, with clear, sunny days and cool nights with temps in the 60s. I love it! I wish I could send these cool temperatures and rain to friends in Texas, the midwest, and other parts suffering from heat and drought.

August was a good month for harvesting. We collected a lot of peppers and tomatoes--I know, "a lot" is not exact, but I wasn't as meticulous as I wanted to be when tracking our harvest. Also, sadly, a lot of my tomatoes split, exposing the flesh. On Sunday, once it stopped raining, I went out to the garden and saw tons of flies and other bugs in the cracks. There was a slight rotten smell, too. I picked the tomatoes and threw them out. I've come to accept bugs in the garden, but I'm not going to eat after a fly.

It looks like some of the tomato plants are getting a second wind, though. I've seen new blossoms on the grape tomato plants and others have tomatoes that are green and/or blushing.

Peppers--they were the stars in August. We collected from all the different varieties and I expect more for September. The cherry peppers are producing so well that we're thinking of keeping a plant or two inside over winter. They taste so sweet and are perfectly bite-sized, this variety is quickly becoming a favorite. (Click here for a full list of the peppers we're growing this summer).

August was also a good month for harvesting cucumbers. We have four cucumber plants, but it looks like three of them have finished producing. I don't know how much we can get out of the last one.

For those who asked, the Bumble Lush furballs did fine during the storm. I hope all your pets were OK too! I thought I'd share a shot of Pickles hiding amongst some vines.

Earthquakes and Hurricanes

2011-08-29T05:36:00.067-04:00

Dark skies Friday night

The view out the window all day Saturday

Wow. Mother Nature has been busy on the the East Coast over the last five days. Here in the DC area, we had an earthquake on Tuesday and then Hurricane Irene stopped by over the weekend. In my neighborhood, we got rain from the hurricane Friday night and all day Saturday. Since we were forced to stay inside, it was a good excuse to watch bad TV, drink wine, and eat junk food.

The neighborhood birds huddled on the ledge above the neighbors' door to get out of the rain. Aside from heavy rain throughout the day, the storm wasn't that bad where we live. We don't live near the coast, so we got heavy rains and wind, but no flooding or destructive wind gusts like they got near the beaches.

We were lucky. Aside from a few tree limbs and leaves, nothing else fell around us. No trees came down, no one in our neighborhood lost power.

The day after--the garden looked exactly the same as it did before the hurricane. We left the plants on the deck but moved them off the ledge and table and placed them against the house. The winds were strong but didn't knock anything over.

I took these pictures of a butterfly on the hydrangea plant on Sunday afternoon. Yesterday was a warm, sunny, gorgeous day. Butterflies, birds, bees, and other insects (especially mosquitos, ugh) went about their normal business. You'd never know that a hurricane had just blown through. That said, I'm happy to see Irene in my rear view mirror. Thanks for the free water, Irene! Please tell your friends to stay away.

Thank you, Blogging Friends, for your well-wishes during the last few crazy days. I hope all of you on the East Coast made it through the storm with no issues!

Small Flowers

2011-08-25T05:36:00.035-04:00

First, a sincere Thank You to everyone who left kind words of encouragement on my Kitchen Garden post, both in the comments section and elsewhere. I know that making mistakes helps you learn, but for some reason, garden mistakes seem so final, maybe because they sometimes involve the words "dead" or "rot." Sometimes it's also because I'm not sure what I did wrong--was it something out of my control, like weather or bugs I didn't catch in time? Or is it something I did? I certainly appreciate my new-found garden blogging community, not only for the encouragement but for your garden tips and experience as well!

In my garden, I'm still tracking and mystified by the sunflowers' blooms. Not only did they bloom late, but they're also much smaller than last year. Above is the second set of coconut ice sunflower blooms, much smaller than the first set.

Once again, this year's Chianti hybrids look smaller than last year's and not as dark red either. These pictures are of a new set of blooms that has developed over the last week or so. So what was it that made them smaller this year, weather? Soil? The seeds? We'll try again next year and see what that batch looks like.

Non-Earthquake Wednesday and Tomatoes

2011-08-24T05:21:00.050-04:00

No damage to the Bumble Lush home or garden after yesterday's earthquake. We were very fortunate. Were you in the quake zone? Was this your first earthquake? It was my second and felt more like a tremor to me (because there was no damage). If you were in the affected areas, I hope that your families are safe and property is fine.

Non sequitur: I had these tomato pictures scheduled for my Wordless Wednesday post:

top to bottom: Black Krim harvest; variety of tomatoes and tomatillos; grape tomatoes of different sizes; and a grape tomato and patio princess harvest

My Kitchen Garden

2011-08-22T16:21:00.005-04:00

Before I owned a home, I would watch hours of HGTV, dreaming of the kitchen, bath, and landscaping projects I would do once I became a home-owner. (Now that I am one, I am painfully aware of the time and money that interior and exterior decorating costs). I remember an episode of an early morning garden program that featured a woman going out to her backyard kitchen garden to decide what to eat for dinner. She picked a few herbs, an eggplant, and some other vegetables and put them into a cute little basket. I thought, "That's what I want! I want to go out into my backyard and pick fresh food for my dinner. (And I want a cute basket too.)"

I forgot all about that until one recent weekend afternoon. I was standing in my kitchen, wondering what to eat, when I decided to make an easy chickpea salad using some vegetables I had recently harvested. That's when it dawned on me that my little container garden is developing into a kitchen garden.

It is nothing like what I saw on TV that day, or what I see on websites featuring people's expansive vegetable patches with many different vegetable varieties. My garden is small and still needs a lot of work and organization. We don't have a lot of yard space for gardening, so almost everything is growing in containers, which has positives and negatives. But we grow enough for the two of us to have regular meals with fresh veggies, and we freeze the extras and/or give them to friends. We no longer "just grow" yellow squash, tomatoes, and bell peppers. We're now trying new varieities of these, as well as beans, cucumbers, luffa. Eventually I think we'll be more creative in the kitchen when it comes to meals. I think we've come a long way from the first summer when we didn't know what the heck we were doing and just wanted to grow a few tomatoes and peppers to see if we could do it.

I took a few pictures of recent meals we've had with freshly-picked vegetables. It's nice to have them on hand to throw in a pasta dish for a quick and easy dinner when it's late and you don't feel like cooking anything too complicated. We added steamed broccoli and squash to this pasta, and tossed it with olive oil, pepper, and fresh tomatoes. It was a refreshing meal on a hot summer night. (Glass of wine is often very necessary).

This was my quick and easy chickpea salad: I drained a can of chickpeas and cut up some fresh-picked orange, yellow, and green bell peppers. (Technically that green one didn't get picked. It was knocked off by fierce winds). I picked some parsley and diced up a cup of Tiny Tim tomatoes, tossed everything with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and voila, a super fast cold salad was on my plate.

Although I have a long way to go before I truly consider myself a "gardener," I am really happy with the new skills I'm learning from gardening and preserving food. I don't think we grow enough to can anything, but we do freeze some vegetables and make soups and tons of yummy tomato sauce to freeze too. This year we're learning to save seeds from our favorite and best vegetable plants.

I'm also happy to know exactly where my vegetables are coming from, how they were grown, and the taste...no tomato I've ever bought from the grocery store compares to one picked right off the vine. I hope one day to have a vegetable garden in the ground and not only in containers. I would love to grow potatoes and melons. I'd love to have a little greenhouse so I can have tomatoes all year long. I still need to find a cute basket. In the meantime, I'm very happy to have fresh vegetables right outside my door.

My Most Favorite Garden Plant

2011-08-19T05:16:00.104-04:00

In my recent 2011 Pepper List post, I mentioned that this Anaheim pepper deserves its own post. This is why:

I love it for various sentimental reasons. I started this Anaheim pepper from seed in March 2009, which was the first year we decided to grow our own vegetables. Of all the pepper seeds I planted, it was the only one that germinated. It has grown from a spindly seedling into a healthy plant and heavy producer. I was so proud of having grown something from seed that first year that I wanted to keep it over winter. (At the time I didn't know or realize that you could "over-winter" some vegetable plants and that it's actually quite a common practice). We brought it inside and settled it by the west-facing back door so it would get plenty of sunlight. We watered it and misted it every now and then to keep it humid in the dry winter air of the house.

It did very well! By early spring 2010, while still indoors, it started to produce blossoms and buds again. We moved it outside once the temperatures got warm enough, and it grew enough last summer that we transferred it to a bigger pot. Some of our other pepper plants seem to die off, but this one kept going. Last year, we decided to overwinter it again. In the fall of 2010 we moved it to our spare bedroom so we could close the door and keep our cat away from it. The room has an east-facing window, and we left the shades open all the time. The plant thrived even more. The closed door and intense morning sun created a sort-of greenhouse in the room, which stayed fairly humid throughout the winter. This is now where we keep our seedlings and other plants that we're over-wintering.

This is a tough plant! It has survived extreme temperatures like the record-breaking brutal heat of Summer 2010, cold autumn nights before we decided to keep it inside over winter, a spider mite infestation, and an attack from my cat that left it with a broken limb (part of the reason we moved it to a cat-free zone).

This plant is in now its THIRD growing season, and it continues to do well. We've been reading up on how to collect and save seeds, and we're planning to harvest and save the seeds from the best fruit. I want to preserve its genes for future totally awesome pepper plants.

Anaheim peppers are supposed to be on par with jalapeños in terms of heat, but ours are fairly mild.

Do you have any favorite plants (vegetable or otherwise)? Do you have any sturdy, repeat producers?

Little Red Harvest

2011-08-18T05:20:00.004-04:00

A recent harvest of some red stuff--a pint of grape tomatoes and about eleven cherry peppers.

The 2011 Pepper List

2011-08-16T05:10:00.035-04:00

This is a list of the various peppers we are growing. All are in containers. (A full list of all the vegetables we're growing this year can be found on the tab titled Growing This Season).

First the bell/sweet peppers:

Bell peppers (from seed): I planted a some bell peppers from a seed packet called "carnival mix." The packet contains a variety of red, orange, yellow, white, and purple peppers. It's fun because you don't know what you're going to get until the peppers start to turn colors. The seeds I planted have produced yellow and orange bell peppers. I was hoping for white or purple, but no luck. I planted these last year too, and didn't get white or purple peppers then either.

Golden Bells (bought as young plant): I guess this will be the year of the yellow pepper! In addition to the yellow ones popping out of the carnival mix, we bought a yellow pepper plant. We have harvested one already, plus a couple of green ones that fell off when a branch broke off. It is taking them a long time to turn yellow, though.

Sweet Chocolate (heirloom, from seed): This is a new variety we're trying this year. As the name implies, they are supposed to taste sweet, and the flesh should turn a rich dark brown color when ripe. They're said to ripen early. We started them from seed months ago, and they've grown so slowly! I'm anxiously waiting to see what they look like.

Purple Beauty (heirloom, from seed): These were started at the same time as the Sweet Chocolates, and at first they were growing slower than the Chocolates, but slow and steady is winning this race. There are many buds on the plant, and I spotted the first purple pepper over the weekend hidden under all the leaves.

Choricero (from seed): These seeds were a gift from my friend Emily. {Thank you, Emily!} I've never grown them before but I'm very excited to see and taste them. Emily said that in cool climates they should be sweet, but in warmer climates they'll be hot, and I read that they're supposed to grow to about three inches long and about an inch wide. It has taken these plants a loooong time to grow, but I have one fruit and many buds, so I'm crossing my fingers that they continue to grow.

Cherry Peppers (from seed): We had these last year and liked them so much we decided to do it again. These peppers are cute and compact and ripen to a beautiful bright red. They're sweet and taste very good grilled (like on a kabob), baked, or sauteed (which we did the other night with some chicken).

Now the hot peppers (aka, Husband's Section because I am a Wimp):

Cayenne peppers (bought as young plant): We're growing these for the first time, and it's fun! I love their shape and color. We've harvested quite a few of these already and they are hot. Well, to me they are. I have a pretty low tolerance for spicy food. This pepper is definitely my Husband's plant.

Jalapeño (bought as young plant): This is our third summer growing jalapeños. They are very easy to grow, although this plant has grown slower than some of the others peppers. I do see many buds and we have fruit now, so it looks like it will produce nicely for the rest of the summer.

Serrano peppers (from seed): Another new addition to the garden. We started these as seeds and have lots of fruit. Now we're just waiting for them to ripen.

Spanish pepper (from seed): I saved the best for last. This is my Most Special Plant. I started it from seed in March 2009 and it has produced a lot of fruit for three growing seasons now. I will do a separate post on it with more details later this week because I think this guy deserves his very own post.

So these are the peppers we're growing this year. I see a lot of salsa in our future.

One final picture--The Mystery Peppers

I do this every year. I forget to label my seeds, and I always think I'll be able to remember what I plant in each pot. For the most part, my memory is good. My Sweet Chocolates and Purple Beauties are in identical pots, but I know which is which. And I was able to tell the difference between three almost identical kittens. But I totally forgot what's in these pots. Actually, I know at least two (maybe all four) of these are Jupiter bell peppers. I guess I'll just have to wait and see what grows. Garden surprises seem to be a theme in my garden this year.

A few pepper growing tips: All of our peppers are in containers, and they have grown extremely well in pots. We've noticed that the bell peppers tend to suffer from blossom end rot, so we put eggshells in the soil for added calcium. As they grow tall, the plants need to be staked, similar to tomatoes. And of course, they need plenty of sun and water. We mulch all our containers to keep moisture in and weeds out. One of the benefits of growing hot peppers--the spider mites, bugs, birds, squirrels, etc., seem to avoid them.

What pepper varieties are you growing this year?

August Blooms - Sunflowers Again

2011-08-15T05:36:00.040-04:00

I'm linking up with Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day today, and am looking forward to seeing what's in other gardens around the Internets. In my garden this month it's all about the sunflowers:

The teddy bear sunflowers have begun their second life. The first set of blooms lasted a couple of weeks before succumbing to the brutal summer heat, but these new buds were on deck waiting to bloom.

I have a mystery flower. This is the mystery sunflower that bloomed amongst the Chianti sunflowers last week. Not sure what variety it is, but it's very pretty.

This is what a Chianti sunflower looks like! It bloomed a few days ago, and I'm so happy to see this beautiful flower in my garden again this year.

Unfortunately, the Chiantis are not as tall as they were last year, and the heads aren't as big either. But there are other Chianti buds growing behind the first bloom, so I should have more flowers soon.

Sadly the Coconut Ice sunflowers that bloomed last month didn't even last two weeks, but there are new buds growing on the stalk, so I should have another set of Coconut Ice blooms later this summer.

The Pink Diamond hydrangea tree is blooming. The blooms are white in the summer, but by fall they will turn a deep shade of pink. The tree has been slower to bloom this year compared to last, and there don't seem to be as many blooms or as many butterflies, bees, and other winged visitors as there were last year.

Also in bloom, as I mentioned on Friday, the Mighty Petunia.

Happy GBBD!

The Mighty Petunia

2011-08-12T05:44:00.014-04:00

Petunia - June 12

Petunia - August 11

I had no idea petunias were so tough! I have neglected the petunia this summer. It's in the front yard in a spot between my driveway and the neighbors', and quite frankly, I just forget about it sometimes. My focus is always on the vegetables in the back. Until last night, I had not watered it since June, but look at it! The blooms are as pretty as they were months ago when I planted them. If anything, the plants have grown in the last two months! And best of all, they were on sale for maybe $1 each. I am impressed, Miss Petunia!

Sunflower Surprise?

2011-08-10T05:11:00.029-04:00

I've been anxiously waiting for the rest of my sunflowers to bloom. But now that they are blooming, they don't look quite like I expected...

Almost a Mammoth Sunflower, August 6

August 9 bloom. The flower is a lot smaller than last year's. At first glance, I thought the flower looked nothing like the mammoths I grew before, because the center seems smaller in proportion to the rest of the flower, and the petals just looked different. But when I compared pictures, I realized the petals and center do look the way they should.

Three almost Chianti hybrid Sunflowers, August 6

The first one bloomed yesterday...This is not a Chianti sunflower. Chiantis have dark red petals--no yellow! My baby got switched at birth!

Did a different kind of seed get slipped into the packet? Could something have happened during pollination? It's pretty, but this does not look like the Chiantis I grew last year. This flower came from a bud (top picture) that didn't look like the other buds, which have the tell-tale purple markings of a Chianti. I'm crossing my fingers that I get my beautiful deep red flowers. In the meantime, I'll enjoy this pretty sunflower, but I'd like to know what variety it is.

I'm linking up with Fishtail Cottage's Cottage Flora weekly meme this week. Looking forward to seeing other blooms around the Internets.

Tomato/Tomatillo Tuesday

2011-08-09T05:50:00.052-04:00

omg, omg, omg, a purple tomatillo. I'm so excited!!!!

Some of the tomatillo husks are starting to turn brown and peel away, which I've read is a sign that they're getting ripe enough to pick.

The Supersweet tomatoes are growing nicely. But did we start these seeds too late? (Probably).

It's nice to see so many grape tomatoes in various states of ripening (my favorite picture here). These are all Bonnie grape tomatoes that we bought as plans from a nursery. They're good, but not as sweet as the Napa Grape hybrids we grew in the past. Unfortunately I couldn't find Napa Grapes anywhere this year.

The most recent tomato harvest included a pint of grape tomatoes and five Patio Princesses (grown from seed).

I list our Harvest to Date on this page, but I'm also tracking our harvest in a Super Nerdy Spreadsheet I created. Last year I also tried to do a cost-savings analysis of growing our own veggies, but lines got sort of blurred because sometimes we bought mulch and soil for the flowers and not necessarily the veggie pots. I admit that I haven't really kept precise records this year either, but I plan to do a general cost savings analysis for my own curiosity.

I can tell you that I stopped buying tomatoes a few months ago, and because we froze most of our pepper harvest last year, I haven't bought a single pepper since May 2010. Have you seen the cost of red, yellow, orange, etc., peppers? That's serious savings.

Also, an update on the Black Krims I wrote about on Friday. They didn't taste as salty as I expected, as the seed packet led me to believe. They were very juicy though. We diced them up and threw them into an omelet, and the dark red color made for an interesting look.

First August Weekend: Rain and Peppers

2011-08-08T05:31:00.004-04:00

I wish I could say it's raining peppers, but no...not yet!

The first weekend in August brought nice rain showers on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Love free water.

I think August is going to be The Month of the Pepper. These golden bells are looking so good. I hope I didn't just jinx myself.

We've already harvested some yummy cherry peppers.

The Sweet Chocolate peppers have buds and blooms; I'm just waiting for them to produce some peppers. We started this plant from seed and it is growing...so...slowly. We [i.e., Husband] had to pick a horn worm off the plant after we noticed a million holes in the leaves. The holes remind me of that book from my childhood, The Hungry Little Caterpillar. I can't believe there was a time when I actually thought caterpillars were cute.

A more detailed post on the peppers we're growing coming soon. In the meantime, I list all the things we're growing on this page, and I note whether the veggies were bought as plants from a nursery or started from seed.

Friday Focus: Black Krim Tomatoes

2011-08-05T05:49:00.029-04:00

I'm so excited to see many of the Black Krim tomatoes turning a beautiful shade of dark red. We got some rain Wednesday and during the early morning hours on Thursday, but no violent winds like earlier in the week. It was nice to see the pots all watered when I went outside Thursday morning. Some of the Black Krims are starting to crack, which I've read can be caused by a sudden surge of water after a dry period. I don't want the cracks to expose the insides and invite bugs to make themselves at home. We picked the cracked ones, and we're leaving them in a sunny spot in our kitchen to finish ripening. We're growing the Black Krims from seed. According to the seed packet, these tomatoes are supposed to have a natural salty taste. I can't wait to taste them!

Update: They didn't really taste that salty, just tasted like regular tomatoes. We diced them up into an omelet and they were very juicy.

July Recap and August Anticipation

2011-08-04T06:53:00.003-04:00

I'm a few days late in posting my recap for my July garden. My garden has been slow to grow this year compared to last year. Our squash supply seems to have dried up, but we've been collecting a decent amount of cucumbers. The late July heat has kicked the peppers into ripening. We harvested this batch last weekend.

Two of my four sunflower varieties finally bloomed in July, but the blooms only lasted a couple of weeks (teddy bears bloomed mid-July) and coconut ice just last week). The teddy bear (top photo) looks burnt around the edges, thanks to the scorching sun. Bugs seem to have gotten to the coconut ice (bottom), as the petals and leaves have little holes. Sadly, I haven't seen any butterflies or bees around them this year. This truly makes me sad, as sunflowers and bees are one of my favorite garden combos (hence the BumbleLush name and blog picture).

tomatillo--we can feel the fruit within the husk

tomato harvest August 1

tiny tim tomatoes with eggshells in the soil for added calcium to help prevent blossom end rot

Most of my positive garden thoughts in August are focused on the tomatoes. It seems they've been slow to ripen this year compared to last. We're able to collect a half-pint to a full pint of grapes and early girls every two to three days. That's too slow for me!! The tomatillos seem to be progressing nicely. We can feel the fruit inside the husks. The other tomato plants have fruit ranging in color from red to green.

I love this picture. There's a ripe cluster on the left and a green one on the right. This perfectly captures my hopes for a good tomato harvest in August.

Thunderstorms

2011-08-02T05:22:00.020-04:00

Well, these are the hazards of a container garden. We got some much-needed rain last night. Unfortunately it came in the form of a flash thunderstorm that knocked over most of our pots. My Sweet Chocolate and Purple Beauty peppers fell over (top photo) and so did most of my Black Krim tomato and tomatillo pots. We'll need to re-stake the tomatoes, but thankfully we didn't lose too many fruit.

p.s. In the last picture, you can see a Black Krim starting to turn red (lower right corner)!

Post #100: Black, White, and Cute All Over

2011-08-01T05:28:00.004-04:00

Bumble Lush has reached its 100th post! Ironically, I will not be marking this happy occasion by talking about vegetables or flowers. Just for today, this will be "Kitten Lush" because I want to introduce my new garden helper, Cleo.

Cleo was one of the five kittens we fostered this summer. They were feral kittens that someone found in his backyard and brought into the shelter when they were about 2 months old. We took them home as fosters a few days later with the assignment of getting them healthy, making sure they gain weight, and getting them used to human contact. They are now 3 months old. We brought Cleo's sister and three brothers back to the shelter last Tuesday so they could go up for adoption. I miss their cute little faces, but I'm very happy that my house now looks and smells back to normal.

For a while, we'd been thinking about getting a second cat to be a playmate for our other cat, Pickles. We decided to adopt Cleo because Pickles seemed to get along with her best out of all the fosterlings. In the last few days they've become good friends and are playing together and grooming each other. It's really very sweet.

She's still too young to go out on the deck with me and Pickles. She's small (almost 3 pounds!) and really fast, and if she decided to run off I know I wouldn't be fast enough to catch her. For now, she'll just have to stay inside learning the bookkeeping and helping take inventory when we pick veggies.

I never considered myself to be cat person until we adopted this little guy last year (from the same animal shelter). He's a good little pet, and he loves coming outside with us and sitting amongst the vegetable pots, watching us work in the garden and staring at the birds and squirrels from the cover of the plants. I hope to have Cleo join him out there soon.

This picture was taken the night we brought the 5 kittens home to start our foster assignment. Cleo is the one on the far left. I went to the shelter yesterday to log some volunteer hours and met a nice couple who was planning on adopting one of the males (not pictured). Here's hoping the others find permanent homes soon!

The Wilted Garden and an Edible Hostess Gift

2011-07-29T05:24:00.013-04:00

dead oat grass

on right--cilantro, my nemesis!

various dead herbs--basil and parsley :(

Things have been busy around the Bumble Lush Homestead, some of it fun, but most of it work related (blah). As a result, I have neglected my gardens, both real and in blogger land. My regrets to my online garden friends for not responding to comments or visiting your sites. I also apologize to my herbs and to my cat's oat grass for letting you all die. (How the heck do you kill cat grass?? I didn't think it was possible). This is all quite frustrating for many reasons. I hate that I'm wasting perfectly good plants, but also, space is such a premium in my little container garden that I really get upset when something dies.

The cilantro is another story. Cilantro has been our nemesis plant for two years running now. Maybe Year 3 will be the charm?

I don't want to end this post or start my weekend on a negative note, so I will wrap up with this picture of a recent harvest. We went to a BBQ last Sunday and I didn't have time to get a pie, or flowers, or some other kind of hostess gift. So we picked a few fresh veggies from our garden, and our hosts were very happy. The husband LOVES to cook. We collected cucumbers, Early Girl tomatoes, cayenne peppers, a yellow bell pepper, a Spanish pepper, and a jalapeno--all freshly picked! That bag smelled so good. Happy Weekend!

Introducing Coconut Ice Sunflowers

2011-07-28T05:33:00.026-04:00

Yes! They're here! The Coconut Ice sunflowers have finally bloomed. There are only two flowers, but I'm just glad they made it, considering the other sunflower troubles I've had this season.

Like my other sunflowers, the Coconut Ice hybrids are in a container and they were grown from seed. My sunflowers seem to do well in pots, but I'm sure they would be taller in the ground. The beauty of containers is that I can move them around and they make a nice little privacy screen from my neighbors. They're not quite as tall as I am (5'2"), and it doesn't look like they'll grow any taller. I'm really pleased with these flowers; I love the contrasting white and chocolate brown colors.

And just so they don't feel left out, this is a picture of my Teddy Bear sunflowers from yesterday. We now have six flowers! They're in a container and the tallest stems have grown to about 3 feet high. They are really pretty and I think they'll be regular flowers in my garden from now on.

I'm so excited about my flowers and am sharing them with Fishtail Cottage's Cottage Flora Thursday today.