Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Savoring the ... leaves ... of our labor!

I finally got to make my first dinner using something from our garden! It was pretty exciting, although unfortunately the only things ready to eat right now are our herbs. Both of our basil plants were starting to get pretty big, so I attacked them with a pair of clippers and came up with 5 large sprigs.

The question was, what to do with that much fresh basil? Green curry, of course! YUMMMM!

I stole this picture from somebody's food blog, because I never remember to take pictures of anything I cook- partly because Frank attacks it the minute it's finished and there just isn't time to set up the perfect presentation! But you get the idea. Green curry paste, coconut milk, a bunch of veggies, some stir fried chicken tossed in and a heap of fresh basil. Very tasty!

Looking forward to more fresh goodies coming out of that garden. The tomatoes continue to sprout and grow, and we should have plenty ready to pick within the next month. My two roma plants have really exploded in the last week and there are easily a dozen baby tomatoes growing on each- which means I need to start looking up tomato sauce recipes! I have never made a pasta sauce from scratch and am excited to try.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Cicada invasion!

About a week ago I started to notice a strange, high-pitched sound emanating from the woods behind our home. My first thought was that it was some sort of power equipment- perhaps the neighborhood behind ours was doing some repaving? But the sound was persistent, and after two days of listening to it I broached the subject with my husband. He was equally clueless, so we set out into the backyard in search of the source.

It definitely seemed to be coming from the wooded area. Upon closer inspection, we saw them- hordes of bugs flying around up in the trees!

I'd never seen such things before, and neither had Frank. So I put out a plea to the "experts" (ie my Facebook friends) and they concluded that these are cicadas. Just my luck that the first time in 13 years they appear in the South is the year I plant my first garden!

Fortunately they seem content with the trees, so far... I really hope it stays that way. I found one in a tomato plant this afternoon and promptly shooed it off. Fingers crossed they don't trash my plants. :(

Impending doom aside, my garden seems to be doing quite well! Here's an updated shot:

 Check out my formerly teeny tomatillo plant! Unfortunately it hasn't started fruiting yet, and neither has my coveted Mr. Stripey. But everything else has tiny tomatoes starting to appear!

 My container plants were the first to start fruiting. The potted Early Girl is still ahead of the game, as her name implies:

 These are my biggest babies so far, approximately golf ball sized.

A few more sproutlings. Lovely!

My Roma plants are the most recent to take fruit, with tiny beginnings starting to pop in the last 24 hours. Very cool, though.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Puppy update

Just a quick update on our foster puppies - all of which are doing great! They're now about 3 weeks old, have opened their eyes and are turning into fat little goobers.

Here's an updated shot of the little brindle boy I posted earlier. I've taken to calling him Bear for obvious reasons.

Frank's been a champ helping me out with this bunch. He's definitely not one for getting up for 4am feedings, but thankfully they're old enough to sleep through the night now.

I anticipate we'll have them another week and a half to two weeks, by which time they'll be off the bottle and can go finish up their foster period with another family before going up for adoption. As much as I'd like to keep them for the duration, there are just too many parts of our house that are "off limits" due to a parvo exposure we had a few months ago with some previous fosters.