I Wish My Garden Was This Cool

Carrot Hand?  What?!

Check out the full story.  http://stoddard.kfvs12.com/news/home-garden/48368-need-hand-garden

Canning - Trial 1

I'm calling my first canning attempt a success.  Although it doesn't quite match what I had imagined, it is totally my own fault for sucking a following directions.  I refused (was too lazy) to measure out the spices the salsa recipe called for, so my salsa ended up with too much cumin.  I probably could have added some sugar to help balance it out, but I got too impatient.

Sigh.  Story of my life.

But, it turned out edible, and not too shabby for a first attempt.  Any ways, I'm no Casey Rhea, so I won't go into the canning details too much more.  Plus, I'm a horribly sloppy cook and pictures would have demonstrated me sloshing tomato juice and seeds all over my counters, floor, stove, and even poor Martini's head.

For the next batch, I'm thinking I'll have a salsa making party like a couple people have mentioned.  Then I won't spend all night chopping up tomatoes, onions, and cilantro.  Get ready for your Facebook event invite. 

No worries though, I'll bribe every one to help with some margaritas and cheese dip!

Wordless Wednesday - Today's Harvest

Too Hot For Gardening!

For those of you are lucky enough not to know, lately the Midwest has been experiencing kind of a scorcher.  And believe it or not, when the temperatures rises above 100, it isn't that much fun to spend time outside in the direct sunlight.

So long story short, my garden is being ignored.  I go outside only long enough to pick the ripe veggies and occasionally water my poor plants when they look like they are on death's bed.

But, never fear.  I have enough tomatoes to try to can a batch of salsa!  If every thing goes as planned, I'll have that adventure to share tomorrow night.

In the mean time, I thought I'd share how much gardening has been impacting my small little life.  The Hubby and I have recently been house hunting.  We're being a little picky and taking our time with our next house, so it's kind of fun.  The sad thing is, I am now judging a house on how garden friendly it is.  I already know I went too small scale with this year's, so I have to make sure our future home will allow me to continue my new little hobby!

Here's my three current faves.

http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/Carbondale_IL_62901_M77203-62474

http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/615-S-Main_Anna_IL_62906_M79291-83818

http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/21663-Enyenhausen-Rd_Creal-Springs_IL_62922_M84721-52849

Effing Ameren

*Mom, you're welcome, and you're right, "effing" instead of "fucking" does make me seem classier.*

A couple weeks ago, I received a little post card in the mail from Ameren notifying me they would be trimming the trees in my neighborhood, and I was entitled to free woodchips if I was interested.

Obviously I was interested.  While my little veggie garden booming, the rest of the landscaping is kind of lacking.  Free mulch could only help.

Now, we have two giant trees in our front yard that shade our humble abode.  These beautiful, nay magnificent, trees even survived the inland tornado of May 8, 2009 (also known as my 25th Birthday Storm).

But they didn't survive Ameren.  My poor trees are now just giant trunks.  It looks like the sad tree from The Giving Tree, only without a little boy to love.  Not only are the trees sad, but my plants in my front flowerbed, which have always been full shade plants, are now wilted as they are in direct sunlight.

But, as if that wasn't enough, this was sitting in my driveway.

Why yes, that is a 5 ton pile of mulch in my driveway.  What am I supposed to do with all of this?!?!?!

I HATE AMEREN!

Future Schemes

I have way too many effing tomatoes, especially considering the Hubby doesn't like them.  But, he does like them cooked into things, and I spend a fortune on diced tomatoes from Krogers year round.  

These lead to the logical solution that I need to learn to can this shit.  I have high hopes of canning home made salsa, diced tomatoes, dill pickles, and sweet pickles.

It looks like there are a couple canning methods, and surely it can't be that hard, right?  I mean, people used to do this kind of stuff back before the power of Google and YouTube, which means I can definitely conquer this.

Wordless Wednesday

Blackberry Success!

Despite my futile attempts earlier in the year to tame the wild blackberries growing next to my house, I have found a little path to enable me to have a blackberry snack whenever I want.  My first berry picking mission started out with high hopes.  I took a little Tupperware bowl turned basket, and envisioned myself quite quaint as I strolled off to pick blackberries.

Problem.  It was fucking hot and they have crazy-long thorns.  What I thought would be a quick stroll through the country side picking blackberries ended up being a battle to get out without tearing a hole in my shirt or lose an eye.  Imagine when Maleficent cursed Princess Aurora's castle in Disney's Sleeping Beauty.  

Didn't see a Disney reference coming, did ya?

So after my battle with the thorns, I did make it out alive with about 2 cups of blackberries.  Because I was anxious for my hard work to pay off, I immediately went to Allrecipes.com and made the the first blackberry cobbler recipe I could find for the Hubby and I to enjoy.  

Sadly, the cobbler came out kind of mediocre, to put it nicely.  It was more like a blackberry muffin in an 8x8 square pan.  Next time I'll just shove the blackberries in the freezer and do my homework to find a recipe worth cooking.  If any one knows of a good cobbler recipe, let me know.  I'm talking to you, CaseyRhea.

Blaming the Dogs Again

As many of you, I was drunk or out of town most of the holiday weekend.  [Except for a quick trip to the ER for the stupid hives.  Sigh.]  Which means I was unable to check my garden until today after work. 

Sadly, it appears one of my zucchini plants suffered some unknown illness in my absence.  

The other plants are fine, this one is just really, really wilted.  To solve the issue, I googled my little heart out, and found some possible answers.  This site seemed to sum up what every other site was saying.  You know it's a good sign when "causes of wilted zucchini" appears in the URL.

BUT - this didn't really seem to actually answer my problem.  There were no visible signs of disease, or nasty looking beetles.  (Which is a good thing because the chances of me actually hand picking beetles off of my plants is highly unlikely.  Ick.)  And while it was ridiculously hot this weekend, none of the other plants were wilted.

So after some more amazing CSI sleuth work, I came to a startling conclusion.  Rocky fucking pissed on my plant.  

I guess I get it.  In my dogs' eyes, I've been spending too much time in my little garden.  Besides sitting on the other side of the chicken wire and whining any time I'm in my garden, Rocky constantly needs to remind the world that the garden is "his".  No matter how much I yell and scream, as soon as I let him outside, he now runs to the garden and hikes his leg.  

Gross.  I need to make a sign to warn people to never eat any thing straight off the vine from my garden.  

Once the sun sets tonight, I'm going to try to go out and rejuvenate the poor piss plant with some water and possibly Miracle Grow.  

New Goal: Grow Basil Immediately

This weekend, my dear friend Casey got me drunk.

But wait?!  What does this have to do with gardening you ask?  Oh don't worry, Casey is such a culinary genius that she mixed up a great cocktail with fresh basil from her garden, fresh locally grown strawberries*, lemonade, and gin.

The only downside is that it tastes so delish you don't realize how drunk you are until you make your husband drive you to McDonald's, order some french fries, and pass out before he can pull forward to the second window.  I'm not saying that happened to me, but I'm not saying it didn't.

What I learned from this experience is first, the way to a woman's heart is through a basil gin drink, and second, that I need to buy a basil plant asap.

*In full disclosure, I am not positive that the strawberries were local.  It is irrelevant to my drunkenness of that night.

Wordless Wednesday

Gardening = Extreme Couponing

Whoa Buddy!  I've got a baby zucchini growing!  I'm very impatient and wanted to pick it as soon as as I saw it today, but some how I was able to contain my excitement.  I'll post a picture of the little duder tomorrow.

I noticed yesterday that Kroger wanted $0.79 for a zucchini.  Fuck that noise.  Growing your own stuff is kind of like extreme couponing.  Maybe once I'm actually picking veggies I'll try to keep track of how much money I'm saving.  Sigh.  As if I needed to be an even bigger nerd, I'm now planning an Excel spreadsheet charting my cost-saving veggies?  What's wrong with me?  [Don't answer that.  I will not hesitate to shank a mother fucker.]

In other news, I've got about 6 green tomatoes.  I've already decided that this first batch of tomatoes are going to be picked green for fried green tomatoes.  They don't sell green tomatoes at Kroger, which probably makes them more valuable for my tally.  Plus, picking them early will help with my ridiculous impatience.

Miracle Grow Mishap

About two weeks ago, I went to Rural King during my lunch hour.  I originally went to get some plant supports for my tomatoes that seemed to be going through a growth spurt, but got easily sidetracked, like a baby distracted by shiny objects.

Not only does Rural King offer free popcorn (oh yeah, now you're interested, right?), but they have a pretty kick ass gardening section.  I was able to score some gardening gloves that are both functionable and fashionable.  What what?!  (My next shopping mission will include a floppy hat.)

I also picked up some Miracle Grow especially formatted for garden veggies.  A farmer who was in there talked me into it.  Okay, I'm not positive he was a farmer, but he was nice and old and in Rural King on a Monday at 12:30 wearing jeans instead of office clothes.  Using this criteria he seemed like a garden expert to me.  He promised me that I would see results if I used Miracle Grow once every two weeks or so.  Game on.

Fast forward through the rest of the boring day at work until I get home with my sweet new gardening paraphernalia.  As soon as the afternoon heat had passed, I carefully followed the directions to mix the Miracle Grow in my cute two-gallon watering can (another great purchase of the day), and watered my little garden.  It didn't take long.

Seemed like mission accomplished.

Later that night, as I tried to go to bed, I realized that I had a couple mosquito bites.  Not a big deal.  Then I noticed a couple more.  I finally rolled my lazy ass out of bed and went to the bathroom to grab some anti-itch cream.  In the (completely unflattering) light of the bathroom, I was able to actually see myself.  No, I didn't have a couple mosquito bites on my legs.  I had hives all over my freaking body, with a couple of very well pronounced ones on my legs.

Fuck.

I'll spare the details of my miserable night with hives.  It ended with me going to Urgent Care and getting a shot in my ass.  High point - the nurse complimented me on my pig tattoo.

After reviewing the day and what could have possibly caused the hives, I logically blamed the Miracle Grow.  And so, the box was shoved to the corner of the garage where I eventually planned on guilting the Hubby into applying it to my garden for me.

But yesterday, I broke out in hives at work.  Only this time, there is not Miracle Grow to blame.

Double Fuck.

So, it looks like giving my garden some Miracle Grow is on the to-do list for tonight.

Wordless Wednesday

First Squash of the Season!

Although, it didn't come from my garden, tonight the Hubby and I had our first home-grown squash of the season!

It was quite a great gift from my great Mother-In-Law, since they were some of their first garden picks.  I decided to keep it simple and saute it up.

Served with cornish hen that I roasted all day in the crock pot and some red potatoes.  Yes, I know, I'm a paralegal by day and rockstar chef by night.

Made for a nice Tuesday night!  Can't wait til I get veggies out of my garden!  Next year, I'll add squash to my must-have list.

Operation Blackberry

Next to our little homestead is an empty lot.  Well, empty as there isn't a house.  It is actually overgrown with all sorts of vegetation.  Usually, we just ignore it, and hey, at least wild green growth is better than neighbors, right?

But, if you look closely, you can see that there are some pretty awesome blackberries growing in there.   Who wouldn’t love to have blackberries available at any time?  The problem is, that before I can even try to fight with the birds for the delish fruit, many of the blackberry bushes are choked out by honeysuckle vines.

[Sidebar, many people think they are weeds, and I understand they can quickly take over an area.  I am not that person.  I love honeysuckles.  One of my favorite things about our little house is the scent of honeysuckles floating through the windows on a late spring night.]

So began Operation Blackberry, initiated by my dear friend Nikki.  Only she could believe that gardening is appropriate after drinking wine for 8 hours on the wine trails.  After arming ourselves with shovels, we were prepared to attempt a rescue mission for a couple of blackberry bushes to plant in my yard.

Things got ugly.

I was not as strong of a gardening rockstar as Nikki, and quickly gave up once I got the wine spins.  However, we (okay, she) successfully managed to free three plants from the wilderness.

We then planted them, albeit some what hastily, in a safe location along my back fence where they would get plenty of sunshine.

And then they died.

The End.

Wordless Wednesday

[As this is my first Wordless Wednesday I thought I had better give credit where credit was due.  So, in full disclosure, I completely plagerized this amazing idea from Grow Damnit!]

True Dedication

Dinner with the Girls = Watering the garden at 10 pm with a glass of wine in my free hand. 

I'm calling this night a success.

Failures - Blah

Well, my first attempt at the garden failed.  Not because of me, but because of my two monsters pictured below.

Yeah, they're cute, and I love them, but they decided it would be a grand idea to dig up my garden as first planted.  And why wouldn't they?  I mean, it was a nice soft ground, so they didn't have to work as hard to dig a deep hole and roll around in the mud.  Effing spoiled bastards.

But, I didn't let this stop me.  I have since replanted the garden, minimizing the contents, which is probably a good thing for my first one.  I cut out the lettuce, radishes, and green onions.  They weren't salvageable from garden massacre, and I didn't think with the heat that they would sprout back up.

Also this time, I laid out the black landscaping mesh down, and then cut holes for my plants.  That should cut down on having to weed.  My Dear Hubby has also constructed an awesome dog blocker out of some chicken wire.  Although the giant beasts could still get in there if they really wanted, I'm counting on their laziness.

Overall, I'm happier with this final project than my original.  So, maybe the first failure was really a success.  I'll post pictures soon of the actual garden, but until then, here's my new streamlined garden, courtesy of www.growveg.com.

Planning Stage

Everyone has a plan - until they get punched in the face. - Mike Tyson


Being the inner nerd I am, and possibly procrastinating the digging process a little, I scoured Google for help on how to plan my garden.  I used my mad Google skills to help me stumble across this little website.  www.growveg.com.  It was actually an amazing resource, and let me download a program to help me see how my garden would actually grow.


I had an idea of how big I wanted it to be, but to be safe and not use my "eye ball" technique I use in cooking, I took the tape measure outside and actually measured out my area.  I determined that a good beginner garden for me would be 9x7 feet.  Then the growveg.com plan makes it easy.  I entered in the diminsions, and voila.  There's my empty garden on the screen ready for me to add any vegetable I so please. 


After thinking long and hard about what vegetables me and the Hubby would most enjoy, we came up with this list:

• Tomatoes
• Green Pepper
• Jalapeño
• Zucchini
• Summer Squash
• Cucumbers
• Radishes
• Lettuce
• Green Onions
• Cantaloupe 

Okay, maybe it wasn't a long and hard decision, but a quick trip to Menard,s with an impatient husband.  Then, I used the simple drag and drop tool in the growveg.com plan, and my garden was complete!  

Back Story

Growing up, my family always had a garden.  Every summer the kitchen would overflow with tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, green beans, cantaloupe, and peppers.  My dad was even skilled enough to grow asparagus and okra.  His one complaint was always that he didn’t have enough land to have a garden big enough for his liking on our corner lot of land.  


Fast forward and now I’m married and on my own, with an entire acre of flat land perfect for gardening.  I know it is perfect, because my dad has always told me that every time he comes over and sees my empty back yard.  My husband and I have lived in our home for five years now, and I have never attempted a garden.  I have tried container gardens on the patio, but I quickly gave these up to sit in the air conditioned house and drink wine.  But, that all changes this year.  This year, this ex-sorority girl turned wino becomes a gardener.