A Garden Update

The vegetable garden is coming along. The tomato plant is four or five times the size it was when I planted it last month and it has at least a dozen tomatoes and even more blooms:

I've never grown a bell pepper before, so I really don't know how it's doing, but it seems to have some developing fruit (I'm not sure if you can make them out here):

The zucchini seems to be having the same problem it did last year—the fruit is dying before it matures:

It grows to about 2 inches, then turns yellow and shrivels up. I tried all sorts of things last year, but none of them worked. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

April Flowers

No need to wait for May! Now that spring is in full bloom and my backyard smells like a perfume factory exploded, I thought I'd share some pictures.

The jasmine is out of control (in a good way):

And the orange tree is getting ready for this year's crop:

 This doesn't smell as good, but it certainly looks lovely:

And I picked up these candle holders at Target for a couple of bucks each and plan to hang them from the patio cover. I'm crazy about these colors together:

What's blooming in your neck of the woods?

In the Garden: Veggies

Saturday was absolutely gorgeous, and we spent the day putting in the vegetable garden (with a little helper):

Last year's crop didn't do so well, so we replaced all the dirt with fresh soil and planted a tomato, a zucchini and a yellow bell pepper. I haven't grown bell peppers yet, but I did manage to get one zucchini and one cherry tomato last year. We'll see how this year goes. (Find out how we built the planter here.)

Are you growing anything fruits or veggies this year? I'd love to hear about it.

In the Garden: An Epic Fail

So maybe it's not epic, but it sure feels that way. This year's vegetable garden was a disaster.

It got off to a promising start. I got excited when my first zucchini came in, expecting a summer of fresh-from-the-garden squash, tomatoes and herbs. Here's what it looked like in May:

But the tomatoes never took off, and the zucchini and crook neck starting dying before they matured. The fruit would grow to a few inches long, then dry out and shrivel up.

Be Fruitful and Multiply

In addition to the vegetable garden, we have several fruit trees on our property. In the back yard are lemon, orange and grapefruit trees, and in the front is a cherry plum.

The cherry plum produces delicious little fruits—just way too many of them! The tree is pretty tall, so we can't reach most of the fruit. It ends up falling on the ground—or on my car, which I have to park in the driveway under that tree.

It's been a particularly fruitful year, so my poor car has been bombarded with sticky purple plums. Over the weekend, we cleaned up the driveway and picked or knocked down as many as we could, but the next day my car was covered again.

Sigh. The previous owners didn't think that through when they planted the darn thing!

Sadly, I'm afraid the tree is going to have to go. Erik said he saw it leaning a few times in the wind, and I don't want it falling down on my car!

For the time being, though, I have some yummy little plums to enjoy:

Supper Squash

In case you're wondering about the first zucchini of the season, I harvested it last week. It was big enough for two meals.

Photo by The Blue Room

The first night I grilled it on the stove top with some salt and pepper—simple and tasty. The second night I sliced and steamed it and served it with butter and lemon pepper.

Photo by The Blue Room

The rest of the zucchinis succumbed to the heat, I think, and shriveled up, as did the fledgling crook necks. But temps have dropped a bit, so I hope that will give the squash time to get a good start.

How do you prepare zucchini?

Gad-Zukes!

Looks like I'll be eating homegrown zucchini very soon. I just checked on the veggie garden and found this:

It looks good enough to eat, which is perfect since that's the plan. The other zucchini (or would that be zucchinis?) are taking their time (you can see one of them to the left of the big guy). But this one has grown practically overnight.

The crook-neck squash is coming along, too, but still has a ways to go before it hits the dinner table:

Holy Hydrangea

My tomatoes may not care for the crazy weather we've been having, but the hydrangea bush at the front of the house seems to love it.

I usually get a good crop, but the bush is bigger than ever this year. The heat tends to wilt the flowers, but since we haven't had much in the way of heat that hasn't been a problem yet. And it's large enough that I can see it through the window in my office.

I snipped a couple of blooms and brought them into the house. This one is brightening up my desk:

Planter Plans

In case you're interested in how I built the raised planter seen here, it was super easy. (And I can't actually take credit for building it—the husband did most of the dirty work, but I did hold the drill and the pieces of wood.)

We started with a trip to Lowe's, where we bought two 8-foot 2-by-10 redwood boards (a good choice since redwood isn't treated with chemicals) and 10-inch brass deck screws. We had the friendly guys at Lowe's cut the boards in half (free!) and we were set.

After we got home, we started putting it all together. It wasn't difficult, but as with everything home-related we do, there were some minor missteps and a bit of cursing. We basically butted the edges up against each other (no fancy mitering here!), drilled pilot holes for the screws and screwed everything together. As I said, super easy.

Here's how it looked last year (sorry there are no in-progress pics—it was done pre-blog):

We lined it with biodegradable weed barrier, filled it with five or so large bags of organic potting soil, planted some herbs and vegetables (some plants, some seeds), then covered the whole thing with more weed barrier, with holes cut out for the plants.

The herbs lasted over the winter ('cept the basil), and the box itself held up great. This spring it was just a matter of replanting and recovering with weed barrier (to keep the cat out—no, Giles, this isn't a giant litter box!).

I'd like to build another one, but that just might have to wait for next year.

Veggie Patch

Hello! I know it's been some time since I last posted anything, but I've been busy and, honestly, feeling a little silly about starting a blog. I finally got up the courage to show it to someone other than my hubby, and she had such nice things to say that I was inspired to start up again. Whether I'm brave enough to show it to anyone else is another matter...

So, to the matter at hand: Last year we built a small raised garden bed for vegetables. I successfully grew some cherry tomatoes and a few herbs, and not-so-successfully planted green beans and green onions. (I did get some green beans, but not enough to make it worth the effort.)

So this year I decided to try zucchini and yellow squash, along with the tomatoes and herbs.

The tomatoes aren't doing so well, probably because of the unseasonably cool weather we're experiencing. (Is it really almost June? I can't tell by the thermometer!) Just one puny fruit so far.

But the squash seems to be thriving. Perhaps it should be bigger by now (I don't have anything to compare it to), but I went outside today and found a gorgeous blossom! (It was actually open when I first saw it, but by the time I got around to snapping a pic it had closed up.) I got very excited and did a little zucchini dance. No, I won't demonstrate that for you. You can thank me later.

I'm hoping to have enough zucchini that I can eat some of the blossoms. I've never prepared them before (never eaten them either), but I understand they're delicious. Just need to find a recipe—something with cheese. Everything is good with cheese!

When Life Hands You Lemons...

... make lemon bars and lemon curd—and even lemonade!

We have citrus trees in the backyard, one each of lemon, orange and grapefruit. Every year around this time we're overwhelmed with fruit, especially lemons (that tree is prolific!). And since it's just the two of us, we really only use a dozen or so lemons. Really, who wants lemonade in January? So we end up giving a lot away.

This year I've had an itch to bake, so I tried my hand at making lemon bars. I found a really easy recipe in my Bisquick cookbook (what would I do without Bisquick?). They came out really good. I've made two batches so far, and I worked out a few kinks so the second one was better than the first.

I also made lemon curd using this recipe. It was surprisingly simple to make and, although I think it's runnier than it's supposed to be, quite tasty. I had some this morning drizzled over cheese blintzes.

Usually the orange tree is the laggard of the bunch, producing only two or three oranges. But this year we got dozens! They make wonderful juice, and I'm even thinking of trying to make some citrusy muffins (thanks again, Bisquick).