Good Night Garden

So this is how the garden looked after I had taken all of the produce out(except the carrots). It was still on its various bushes and vines and the Mrs. took it all apart and it is now inside.
This is what the pile o' produce looked like. Without the bushy parts is was quite a lot less however it is still a pretty good end of the season hall.
And here are the carrots. I plan to leave them in the ground and just pick them as we need them. That way they can keep growing into the fall and I don't have to worry about them getting soft in storage.After taking all the different implements, fencing and edging out, I did a whole bunch of weeding and the garden now looks like this. Ahh, fall is definitely here.
We had shake and bake chicken, yam fries, cream soda, and ketchup chips for dinner. It was all eaten in stages so there is no photographic record.

Return of the Clan.

So we managed to make it back home today. It was a long seven or eight days but it was packed with fun. Here we go.

First lets flesh out our time at the PNE. Here are some shots of kids on rides.

I know you can't see it but we are watching the super dogs here. I think its a pretty good self portrait.The animal hits just kept on rolling with the petting zoo and the 4H exhibition. It was dusty but fun and the kids touched everything. The different armed forces were available for meeting and the kids spent some time in a LAV. We also managed to see the RCMP musical ride. Pictured here is one of the lead riders and her horse. Here is the kids trying to steal a fighter plane. The guy in the jumpsuit was onto them and didn't let them even close the hatch. Some shots were fired but no one was hurt. We did have other fun in the sunny lower mainland. Here we are picnicing down by the beach near our hotel. So nice to hang with family and just enjoy some summer.Then today, we arrived home and all plans to quickly unpack the car and organize stuff fell quickly by the way side and we hit the garden. Everything was great and the zuchinni was, as expected, huge. I am a little disappointed with our tomato harvest this year. Not that we don't have good tomatoes but the plants just aren't bearing the quantity that I yearn for. Other than the yellow cherry tomatoes everything else is moving very slowly. Ahh the joys of gardening. All in all a good way to wind down the summer. We can now start working steam up to kick off the start of the school year.

Meanwhile Back at the Ranch...

We are back baby. And the car is unpacked the trailer has been emptied and sold (now that was fast) and everyone is eating dinner. But I get ahead of myself.

You may remember that on Friday morning we were supposed to get packed and out the door to go camping. Amazingly enough we did. We managed to arrive at the campground by two in the afternoon and were fortunate to get there that early. The last totally empty first come first serve camp site belonged to us.Note the tarp covering the trailer. It was well used as it rained a fair bit the first evening and night. We were dry and snug inside. See don't they look dry and snug. Gratuitous baby shot coming up. If its not your thing then just skip this next one Our site was a double but we didn't mind someone else taking over the other half and it had a direct line of sight to the playground. Very important.The kids spent a majority of their time over their playing. My favourite quote has to be the son. After talking to some kids for five minutes we left the playground and were walkign back to our campsite. "Yeah, their my friends," he says to me matter of factly. To myself I thought, "its probably news to them." but to the son I signaled my agreement. As there is currently a campfire ban througout British Columbia the meals were less than camping spectacular. We definitely need to upgrade to the double burner Coleman stove. The single burner works when you can also cook on the fire but without that we were in trouble. Everything took a long time. So campfire ban was compounded by the weather. At times it was pretty cold. For the most part the rain held off and we just played under overcast skies. Swimming was out except for one spectacularly cold plunge I took. When I popped out I said to a friend on the beach, "my pores have shrunk down to nothing," which of course was the perfect set up for, "oh that's what shrank." Can't be lobbing up grapefruits like that. Its unbecoming. This is us bike riding down to our friends campsite. (Real friends not "five minute" friends, we had organized this trip in large part to hang out together).It is hard to see but these glasses are made of glow sticks and were glowing in the dark the whole evening, except of course when the flash went off.
We hung out a few times at the park and on the second night we went over to their site after dinner(they were sharing a double with some other friends of theirs) and we hung out till well past all our bedtimes. The lady with the kids on the left is part of the couple we were their with. Guy on the right is their friend who had organized the sites for them. My buddy is taking the picture. What a guy.

So that was the trip. No tubing, next to no swimming, weak camping meals, yet it was still a great time. I almost finished a book. I did finish my beers. The kids made tons of friends and just played their faces off. We went to the beach on the way home as it looked like the sun was going to make a break for it but in the end the clouds came back and after an hour or so we packed up and headed for home.

After arriving back home, before all the other work, I went out to the garden. This was today's haul.
Don't the eggplants look nice. I am very pleased. Also the basil continues to provide its green leafy goodness. Me likes it a lot. Below is the kids salsa. No hot peppers but with the garlic, basil, and tomato mixed in with zuchinni, apples, onions and red pepper it is really really flavourful. For dinner the wife was going to make some ground beef filled spring rolls but after cooking up the inside ingrediants I talked her out of going to the store for the wrappers and we just ate it over some rice. A very pleasant meal.Up next, another week of summer vay-cay. We have some swimming lessons and assorted paperwork and sundry coming up this week. Cleaning, gardening and possibly prepping the hallway for a paint. Back on the road next Friday so lets hope this week goes swimmingly. Weak as pun intended.

Cool enough for the Oven.

Well we decided that with a slight break in the temperature today was finally the day to make bread. Rather a late start to that but by 4:00 they were all baked up and looking good on the counter. Now I told everyone to keep their hands off and their appetites whet so that they could devour some pizza.We made two kids (ham and basil; ham, pineapple and basil) and two adults (zuchinni, mushroom, onion, olive, banana peppers and basil). The wife also talked me into putting a cup of whole wheat into the dough in the place of a cup of regular flour. The dough was a little bit firmer. This made it harder to work with but it also slid more easily off the pizza peal. I partially lost two of the pizzas off the back side of the stone and had to fish out the hanging off bits. More flavour in the dough, maybe a little bready. However, it was good and the wife was satisfied so the most important criteria was met.The zuchinni that graced our pizza is pictured here beside a cucumber and tomato that were picked from the garden today. The basil and banana peppers on the pizza also came from the garden. Everything is coming together. Looking forward to the first eggplant and all the varieties of peppers and tomatoes that have not yet ripened. Gonna pick some beans tomorrow.

Garden Update.

So I here is the long awaited (at least by me) garden update.Above you can see from left to right. Lettuce that has gone to seed, see you next year, tomatoes that didn't find a spot on the drip line and on the right, foreground banana pepper and eggplant in the back.
This is the daughters sole surviving sunflower. Doing pretty well eh?

In the front are the recently planted carrots. I am hoping that they have a little size by september. I rolled back the weed matting and then replaced the poorly producing hot peppers with these guys. Further down the line you can see the tomatoes starting to really climb the twine. Everything in that grassy area in the middle is weeds weeds weeds. Oh bother.

For dinner this evening the wife decided to make her japanese potato croquettes or Korokke. Fabulous. She didn't deep fry them this evening she just pan fried them. I don't think she even used oil. So fabulous and not horrible for you. Double happiness.

The rest of dinner consisted of guacamole with tomato chunks and rice wrapped in nori. They were not photographed as I was busy consuming.

For lunch we had a nice vegetable soup and broth. Ask my daughter about it. She made it. I'm impressed.

Three Times the Fun

Well I have been a little remiss in my blogging so this evening you get not one, not two, not three, not four, okay actually it is three blogs. I just got carried away.

Lets go back to Thursday. It was a warm afternoon and I had a school function to attend starting at seven so we decided on something simple. Smokies. I have come to enjoy my smokies on a split cheese bun. Really the bun should be toasted but even just right out of the bag it is still good. Coincidentally, these were cheese smokies so it was a double cheese night. The kids aren't much into the buns. They are all about the smoky. Unbeknownst (first time typing that and boy it sure feels wrong to type) to them there were side dishes with this evenings meal. I whipped up some garlic mashed taters to ride side saddle with some pasta salad that had been featured in the lunch portion of Thursday's menu. A grand meal all around. However, with smokies in the mix it would take another day before the daughter managed a, "these mashed potatoes are so good."

As for Friday I was feeling much the worse for wear. Late nights and general festoonary tend to have that effect on me. I am sure other people had something else but I was more than satisfied chowing down on the wifes bean salad mixed with the last portion from the third to last jar of our homemade hot salsa. I have to say the mint and cilantro in the bean salad really take the salsa to a strange and wonderful place. Once again other people ate other stuff. It just isn't coming to me right now.

Today we spent a fair bit of time out side picking stuff. It started with the last of the Hoary Alyssum in the front lawn and ended with these bad boys. Now you might be thinking that they should be a little more red before we pick them.Well the birds don't wait so if you don't get them just as they are breaking into ripeness, you just plain don't get them. Also at this stage we have yet to come across any wormy cherries. Everyone keeps warning us and I did find a few cherry pests while in the tree but so far everything is looking cherry licious. And yes we are warning the kids about the possible side effects of eating too many. But that is probably something they just have to experience first hand.

As for dinner it was a pizza night this evening. I bought some hot "something something" salami. I know it will come to me.... Not yet. Anyways, I really need to stick to the chorizo sausage I bought last time. The salami is good but not great. We managed hold off on eating the third and fourth pizza for the most part so lunch or breakfast should be pretty good tomorrow.

This last picture is a testament to the satisfaction factor of my pizza. The came, they ate, they slept.

Part two

Well it turns out I was motivated enough to get out there today and finish off the garden. I realise that the battle with the weeds is an ongoing unwinnable war, however, I really needed an all out, scorched earth beginning to get me back in the game. Now hopefully I can get a hearts and minds campaign going and keep them at bay.
(Please check out the before picture from yesterday's Post. Honestly, it looks way different)

I also managed to get the last two tomato plants planted. Then I went and popped the scapes off of the garlic. This is a very good sign and means that we are getting close to the end. Speaking of which it is time to do a second wave of planting. I am thinking some swiss chard, tonnes of carrots, some basil and pretty much anything else I can get my hands on. Cilantro, yes I have to get that in for the mid summer salsa season. Usually it has already come up by now and has gone to seed by the time the tomatoes have ripened. Speaking of which I have my first tomato flowers starting to blossom. Giddy with excitement I am. Well that and the incredible crop of raspberries that are budding. You have to know that some plague of locusts or itinerant bear will take them out but my fingers are crossed.

As for dinner the wife made some spring rolls. She also whipped up a nice green salad and some dark miso soup. I was already pretty full from all the water I have had today (32 degrees for the second day in a row) but I managed to put back five of these bad boys. We also made home made slurpees again. I sort of used this recipe here. We had it after dinner so there is no pic. However, the kids like it and the cost margin can't be beat. We will not be going to the shell for slurpees this summer if I can help it.

Fan Favourite.

Well it turns out that my kids really really love the home made mac and cheese. We use milk, flour, margarine, grated cheddar, salt, pepper and garlic powder to make the sauce. For the adult version (shown here) I sauteed mushrooms, red onion, zucchini, garlic and ginger. This was then spooned over the pasta which was then covered in cheese sauce. The soup was a yam chowder with cumin and nutmeg as its major flavours. There were also carrot and celery added as well.

This picture is the before picture. This is what the garden looked like when I had finally had enough and started to clean it out. Judging by the lack of after picture the job is probably still not finished. However, with Saturday and Sunday waiting in the wings I have a good feeling it may get done. Fingers are crossed.

Garden?

Seeing as it is the first word in the title of this blog I thought I would give an update on how things are going out back. That and the fact that I missed the dinner shot. By the way we had rice topped with a cabbage and ground beef affair. With a little ketchup on top it was great.

To start with here are some rose cuttings from the front. The wife thought cutting them and letting them blossom inside was so much nicer than leaving them outside for the deer to feast on.As for the vegetable garden. Things are going well. Here are the raspberries. With a proper frequency of waterings and some amazing attention from the local bees they are .As for the garlic from last fall it is sizing up nicely too. We are starting to see the scapes elongate and begin to curl. I will be popping them pretty soon and we will finally be back to our own fresh garlic. Yeah.
You can see the beats and beans starting to get their footing. You may also notice that the carrots, brussel sprouts and other stuff didn't do nothing. As usual the lettuce transplants are getting real bushy. Lets hope they are as sweet as they are bushy. I have a tendency to grow bitter lettuce.
Here are the tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers that I have on the drip feed. I haven't put up the line for them to climb yet but they are getting some size. It should be good. Unfortunately the hot peppers in the foreground are not loving life. Finally here are the eggplant seedlings I got from my friend in the background and the pepper plants I started from seeds in the foreground. These peppers were in their own properly sized pots for longer than the other peppers and they look much healthier.All in all the garden is coming into its own. However, I do plan to till or turn all the massively weedy parts next weekend. Honestly, it is almost a forest and I want to cry. If I am inspired I may do a before/after set of pictures. For posterity.

Who you calling Shrimp?

Well that would be the tiny critters that were succulently sauteed for this evenings meal. The Mrs. decided to put a scald on some shrimp and garlic. Nice work. This was then mixed in with a big pot of cooked pasta and some other seasonings. In another pan an assortment of vegetables was stir fried with some ginger. Result. Kids no like spicy vegetables. Kids want many plates of pasta dish. Dad's fibre intake increases greatly.
This fibre factor also came into play when the wife took a run at this recipe here. Now she did make some wifely adjustments. Half of the butter was turned into apple sauce. The sugar amount was cut in half and the peanut butter amount was doubled. I think my wife's new nickname should be half sugar. I mean any recipe she finds she just decides to use half the sugar. I am not judging. It is a good thing I am not a big sweet tooth guy. However, the daughter was not impressed. As usual I am shovelling them back.
It has been quite a nice long weekend. Manged to make it to 29 celsius here today. That is 84 for those south of the border. A very summer like day. My gardening guru hit me with some hot pepper and eggplant seedlings. The lovely lady across the way has beefed up my supply of tomato seedlings. The small plants in the dark green pots are mine. Its a learning process. Here is the garlic that was planted in the fall or the fallgarlic for short. This is the transplanted lettuce volunteers with some seeds that were started two weeks ago. Gotta get into a regular watering pattern. Everything seems to be coming but unfortunately that includes my grand selection of weeds. In some ways they are like bad credit card debt. The problem is so monumental now that I only pick a few from a select section once in a while. For example I weeded the tiny bed out front and have done nothing with the greater garden. It is probably like a two or three day job and there is so much more weedy goodness waiting to bubble up that even if I weed the whole show it will be looking green again very soon. Not the right green however. I have so much shame I haven't even taken a picture. But seeing as I am sharing I will brb after rounding up the incriminating evidence.I am cringing in my seat right now. I didn't have the courage to photograph the dandelions. I mean I mowed two day ago and they are brazenly flaunting the fact that I won't mow again until next weekend. On a positive note they attract lots of bees to our apple and cherry trees and will be useful again once the raspberries start to blossom. In then end I think I will be able to overcome the garden lethargy and it will be a great summer.