Mid-season garden update

I absolutely love this time of year. The garden really starts to pay off in June and July. We have more lovely salad greens than I know what to do with. The peas are getting quite prolific, lovely dark green heads of broccoli are appearing. Veggie Paradise!

Something new we tried this year was potatoes and boy was it worth it! 10 Yukon gold starts have yielded more gorgeous spuds than I ever thought possible. They are so large the ground above the plants is crumbling as they burst through. It is so much fun to dig into the ground and find large new-skinned potatoes just lying around like rich women on lawn chairs!

The spinach is all gone now. It got fairly large but bolted too quickly and began to gather powdery mold due to all the rain. I had to run outside and pull it up all at once to save it. In it's place I've planted a multi-colored carrot mix. The package promises purple, white and red carrots. If they really turn out, that is going to look so cool! We have a juicer and I want to drink some purple carrot juice.

Ahhh, soybeans. Such enigmatic little plants. I fear our climate gets too much rain and too little heat for them. But they shyly hold their own. I really have high hopes for them.

Also new this year: exotic radishes. Why radishes? I just don't know. Max likes them, they are easy to grow, and there are some wicked cool varieties available. We planted these monster sized red radishes that looked just like carrots. They were pretty nifty. But check this out, I just planted some variety of Black radishes. And since we are big lovers of Japanese food, Daikon radish has been planted as well. More on that later.

Also new, the herb garden. The unused space just outside the front door under the eaves is our new herb garden location. Up and running are Borage, Cilantro, Sage,Mint, Chamomile, Parsley,Rosemary and Marjoram. The Thyme is dead. What is it about Thyme? It always dies! Is there some Thyme god I need to sacrifice to , to get this stuff to grow?

Newly planted herbs include Lemon Balm, Coriander and, ummmmm..... shoot I forgot. Something else.

On the far end of the herb garden Is a new wooden trellis I added specifically for growing climbing beans. The particular variety we are growing this year are bright red. The pretty vines are winding themselves up the trellis and climbing higher each day. One of the vines has wound itself around a sunflower. Yes, that's right. Sunflower.

All those years I lived in Kansas and never grew the dang things. Now I have three of them in my front yard! It happened because we use our rabbit compost in the garden. The rabbits eat a mix of grain and seeds, i.e. sunflower seeds. A few of them sprouted and I am letting them do their thing out of sheer curiosity.

Also new this year strawberry plants in large flower garden and baby's breath growing around the mailbox. Whew! I'm almost as tired typing this as I was doing all that work. Thank goodness Dante' is such a good helper. :)

Confessions of a Face Book Junkie

My posts to this blog have been more and more infrequent lately. Some friends turned me onto Face Book and it has been occupying way too much of my time.

Call it and addiction, call it what you want- I think for me it just became a "reality avoidance" hobby, LOL :)

Another factor has been the flakiness of my camera.

To combat my writer's block and laziness, I am publicly vowing to post to Eating Oregon every day for a week. Now that I have said it, it will have to be done.

Wish me luck,
-E

Part II

Day Tripping part I

Although these pictures appear totally unrelated, they were taken during an afternoon outing. We drove about an hour to a small , rural town. Much smaller and vastly more rural than our own.

In just one day we encountered such a diversity of life it was amazing. I can't do it justice in just one posting so here is part I:





pic 1- Dante' and Rex by the river. Note the greenness of the water.

pic 2- An utterly gorgeous bloodhound sits watchfully on his porch.

pic 3- Max on the 'upside' of a teeter-totter.

Bleeding heart, Oregano, Society Garlic, lettuce....

Just some beautiful photos from our garden. :)

Eating Seaweed

Went to Eugene on Monday to take Dante' to airport. (she's in Colorado for the week) Took advantage of the trip to shop at the Asian Grocery store. Bought too many cool things to list all at once.

Max's choice? A jar of seasoned, roasted, seaweed. mmmm-mmmm. Actually they aren't too bad. Salty, crunchy and vaguely reminiscent of chips.

So we get home, open the jar and start sampling. Next thing I know, Max is feeding one to the dog-And he likes it! Now the three of us are chewing away when our cat Aphrodite suddenly wants a piece of the action. I tear it up and offer it to her. She likes it.

So Max, Rex, Aphrodite and myself had this odd seaweed eating moment together. Who knew it was a foodstuff that worthy of attention?

grins,
Ellen

I'm back finally!

Yes, I know I've been a bit of a sluggard lately. No posts, no pictures.

Lately I have been entertaining a bit of ennui and malaise all rolled into one lovely package. But enough of that. Writing is my place of peace and self expression, and it's good to be back.

Stay tuned for a deluge of mini-posts.

hugs,
Ellen