Adventures in Gardening

Last year, I ventured into the world of vegetable gardening.  I wasn't too successful, only getting a few green beans for all my hard work.  This year, I am determined to do better and actually get more than 2 meals worth of vegetables!  I made a few changes to last year's plan and got started last month.

My husband found this little upside down planter on clearance at the end of the season last year.  It has rosemary, parsley and basil on the top.  Planted in the holes on the bottom are tomatoes and strawberries.

 Last year, I used a pot for my potatoes, I didn't get any edible ones.  This year, I went for a different variety and also used kitty litter containers with the bottom cut off.  There are 4 plants in each container.  As they grew, I added dirt to cover the plants until they reached the top of the containers.

These little plants were in the soil from last year.  I am pretty sure they are green beans since they are in the same spot I planted them last year, and now the leaves are looking like green beans.  I hope I am right!

One month later, the herbs and tomato plant are still thriving.  I even have a tomato growing, and have used the herbs to cook with.  The strawberry plant is all but dead.  Back to the drawing board on that one!

 As you can see, the potatoes (in the yellow containers) and green beans are doing great!  I bought a tomato cage that unfolds and is perfect for supporting the green beans as they grow.  I have also planted peas and carrots in the open space.  There is still room in the center for something else.  I am not sure what I will plant there, if anything.  Last year, I also planted pumpkins, which completely overtook the small garden space I have, then the vine was inundated with bugs and died!  This year, I am trying to start the pumpkins in the blue container in the grass to the left.  There is plenty of room for them to spill out of the container and grow to their heart's content in the grass.  We are hoping to use these for our Halloween pumpkins *fingers crossed*!

 Last but not least, this is my lemon bush.  I have had her for 2 years and she has yet to produce any lemons.  She looks MUCH healthier and happier this year, so hopefully we will see something good soon.

At the beginning of the year, I got sucked in by the Arbor Day Foundation.  I sent them some money, and they sent me 12 "trees".  Now I had done some research, so I knew I would be getting "sticks" and not "trees".  When they arrived, my husband laughed and said "Honey, we have tree mail."  I opened my tree mail and had a good laugh when we looked at a bag of 12 sticks.  I really should have taken a picture of them, it was quite priceless.  Flash forward about a week when I finally had time to plant my sticks.  I started to dig my first hole, and realized that there was no way I was going to dig 12 holes in our horrible hard, rocky, clay soil!  I got one good hole in the ground and gave up.  I only had 3 pots laying around, so only 4 "trees" were planted.  The rest were given away to friends or tossed in the trash.  Here are my 4 sticks in all their glory...

This is how my trees looked this morning.  Still sticks, but now they are sticks with leaves (which are really hard to see in this picture because the grass is finally growing back).  Two of the trees have some sort of bug which is eating perfect half circles out of the leaves.  I have to do some research on how to get rid of them and not hurt my precious babies in the process!

I can't wait until I can start eating my veggies this year.  There is something so satisfying in eating something you planted and grew in your own yard, don't you think?

Cookie of the Month - December

This month for my daughter's teacher, I decided to use some of the cookies from our Christmas Cookie Baking Extravaganza.  I selected 3 different types and tied them up in this cute little snowman bag I found in my stash.

This batch was given a bit later this month because my daughter's teacher was not in the classroom for the first week of December.

Christmas Cookie Baking Extravaganza

Every year, the women in my family get together between Thanksgiving and Christmas to have our Annual Christmas Cookie Baking Extravaganza.  Each person brings 2 recipes and we spend the whole day baking, eating and enjoying each other's company.  Now that I live in a different state from the rest of my family, I don't always get to participate, however, while my mom was in town, we had our own Mini Christmas Cookie Baking Extravaganza.  I didn't get pictures of all we made, but here is a small sample of the yummy goodness...

Wintermint Wafers

Peanut Butter Blossoms

Cappuccino Crinkles

Sugar Free Chocolate Chip (especially for my Dad, who is diabetic)

Don't you just want to take a bite out of your computer screen?  I know I do!

Cookie of the Month - October & November

I forgot to post October's Cookie of the Month, so here is a quick snapshot of what I did for October.  I made Carmel Apple Bites.  They looked like little carmel apples down to the stick, but they were actually cookies.  Because October's holiday is Halloween, I included a few plastic spiders to set the mood and wrapped them up all pretty.

 My mom found this fantastic cookie recipe that tastes just like Twix bars.  Oh my...they are so good, I could eat the whole recipe in one sitting!  Anyway, they are called Thousand Dollar Bars.  The recipe can be found here on the King Arthur Flour website.  I wanted something cute to package the cookies in, and I happened on this tutorial from Dandelions and Dust Bunnies.  Perfect!  I made the strips a bit longer (about 10 inches) to accommodate the cookies inside, cut a large leaf from green paper and wrote out the words.

So cute, now to start thinking about what I will do for December.  There are so many cookie recipes to choose from!

Cookie of the Month - August & September

I am a bit late getting this posted, but here goes...

I decided that I wanted to do a little something special for my daughter's teacher.  Teachers do so very much for our children, and they do not get enough thanks for all of their hard work.  One of my friends told me about something she did last year called Cookie of the Month.  Each month, she baked a new cookie recipe and gave it to each of her kid's teachers.  I thought this would be a great thing to start with my daughter.  Hopefully I can keep it up for the full year.  Here is what I have done so far...

August:  Chocolate Chip Cookies

 I included a note explaining Cookie of the Month Club and asking her to let us know if she has any allergies.

September:  Chocolate Glazed Shortbread

This actually isn't the finished product, because I wanted to show the cookies in the picture.  To make the bag:
* Cut down a 12x12 sheet of scrapbook paper to the size of a sandwich Ziploc bag.
* Fold paper in half and about 1/2 inch from the bottom of each end.
* Line up the bag and paper and punch 2 holes.
* Feed ribbon through the holes and tie in a bow.
* Glue bottom flaps to form a flat bottom to make the final presentation below.

I tell my daughter about the cookies in her backpack and she gives them to her teacher.  My daughter loves giving them to her and I love being able to say Thank You each month!

Impossible Cheeseburger Pie Disaster

I tried a new recipe tonight...Impossible Cheeseburger Pie from Bisquick. It should have been a simple, easy dinner. I guess I should have heeded the word "impossible" in the title. It was a complete disaster! I am not sure what I did wrong, but it was a soupy, disgusting mess. It was so bad, I couldn't make my family eat it. I ended up tossing it down the garbage disposal. How sad...and such a waste of money. But look at this picture, would you eat this slop???

We ended up eating this instead. It was very dissatisfying. Ho Hum, I guess you can't win them all.