At the end of a long day

Today was a long day. Very productive in and out of the garden, but long none the less. So it was very satisfying to be able to walk outside and pick our dinner. In fact, Pooka began to run around asking what else we could eat.

Dinner tonight

Now granted, most of it just went into a salad. But when the salad is completely home grown with romaine and bib lettuce, baby spinach, sugar snap peas, basil, parsley, red onion and cherry and regular tomatoes, I would call it a very good salad. Even if Pooka has decided to have "Yummy mold that Daddy likes on it." At least I can say I didn't grow the bleu cheese (aka mold).

Snack Time

Having a garden generally means (in theory) that Pooka can go outside and pick anything she wants to eat and go. Lately Pooka has decided that it is fun to just go outside and pick the herb leaves. It got to a point where daily she was asking "Can I try this plant? What does this one taste like?" Considering how excited I am that she is trying all these things, I told her to pick whichever herbs she wanted and basically gave her blanket permission to eat anything she wants out of the front herb bed.

Herb garden

She does this about daily, just walks out there and starts munching. I just tell myself there are worst things she could be eating. However, on Tuesday, Pooka had her friend K over to play. What did they spend most of the afternoon doing? Eating out of the herb bed, especially the chives plant.

Can you find the chives? They are the most cut back plant.

 They would go over and eat a bunch of chives until they realized their breath was getting a bit stinky then run over to the mint plant and eat some of that, then go back to the chives. The poor little chive plant is looking rather depleted, but this is why we grow plants, to eat them. At least both girls are adventurous enough to try new things.

Signs of progress

A walk into the garden shows the fact we are getting close to really producing food. We have tomatillos that are starting to look like tomatillos.

Tomatillos

 We have a second broccoli head appearing on the plants.

Brocolli

 And the blue corn looks to be starting to get there as well.

blue corn

Maybe soon I can stop going to the store. Maybe

Accepting the world

Try as I might, I think I have finally lost the battle for the cilantro plants. They have flowered pretty heavily, and I am going to let them go to seed and then harvest the coriander.

Flowering cilantro

It was time to start growing some replacement plants. That means more pots that I start over again. Yesterday that was our only goal.

Back to filling pots

This time, I wanted to make sure to try restarting the pak choi. Something is loving it int he bed and the seedlings are having a hard time, so I will restart it and hopefully move it. We are also trying a new kind of cilantro from Seeds for Change. Hopefully we can actually get the saved seeds to work next year.

Seeds ready to go in the dirt

In the end, we planted 2 of each type of cilantro and 2 pak choi. Now to wait for it to grow so we can see how different the two forms of cilantro are.

Now to wait.

Lunchtime

In a bit of a rush, but I wanted to show you all what I am taking to work for lunch tonight. Everything was grown in Pooka's garden and she said I could take the second cherry tomato "since you haven't tried them yet. They are delicious."

Homegrown carrots, peas, beans and cherry tomato

I know using plastic bags isn't the best answer, but the kitchen is still in process of being rebuilt and we don't currently have a sink for dishes. I added a store bought cucumber to make sure I get enough. I am waiting impatiently for ours to come in. Hopefully I bought my last sets for awhile.

Cucumber is getting there.

Getting There

The harvests are getting bigger. On Friday, Pooka and I harvested these yellow squash from her yellow squashes from her mystery squash plant. They are fairly small still, but I heard if you harvest them smaller they are less seedy and taste better. That's the hope. We haven't had a chance to try them yet since we lost the kitchen this weekend. We are planning on trying them today.

Harvests

Pooka was so very excited to see that first yellow cherry tomato. I barely got pictures before she was jumping in and eating it. She said it tasted wonderful and is hoping for a purple cherry tomato next. I told her we will see. Brother also had a handful of blueberries in there. Those lasted about as long as the cherry tomato.

Again with the bunnies

Today we rescued yet another little bunny from our yard. He is the second one this summer that we have rescued. I am tired of the darn things since they keep me from being able to put the dog out unsupervised. What is even dumber is they seem to be nesting in the yard with the biggest dog on the block.

Scared little bunny

  It is not fun, but we managed to save this little guy that keeps giving me heart attacks. Let hope he is the last one. He froze and Daddy was able to put him in a box and then the kids and I took him to a wooded area and said goodbye to Bugs.

Run free and stay away.

Oh, and if you do a search on how to keep bunnies out of your yard, the number one answer is get a dog. That is the problem.