Frosty came to visit

Did you know that Frosty the snowman came to visit us? It was a short visit as it got quite warm (in the 50's) this weekend, so we lost most of our snow, including our snowman friend.

Mom can't wait for spring and summer to come! Not because she hates the snow, she actually loves it as much as I do. But she wants spring and summer because she wants to work in her garden. She is super excited this year because this year she is going to start some seeds indoor! If you recall, mom used to start her own seeds in the pre-Brofur era. It has been 3 years since she last did it and this time, she has a little helper to help out!

These are some of the thing she will be planing this year:

Hugs and slobber,

June

Wordless Wednesday - Garden Style

Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE Smartphone

Garden

Hi friends,

We(by we I meant mom) have been slacking in blogging and visiting your blogs. But things are going to chance. I am going to have a talk with mom regarding this and things will change. She has gotten a new phone, a smartphone she called it, perhaps the smartphone will help her in getting more blogging done. She said she is no longer in the stone-age.

Here is a picture from our garden. It is going great. Mom said she is gardening again, this time with a little helper. I am not allow in her garden because I like to eat the plants.

We also have some camping pictures to blog about. As soon as mom "learned" her to use her smartphone(maybe she will be smart after that), she will blog about our camping trip.

Woof from,

June.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE Smartphone

Wordless Wednesday

This and That

Where have I been? It seems like it has been a while since I last posted. It has also been a while since I posted something about my garden. My garden is doing great this year. It has been a hot and dry summer. Here are some pictures:

Chinese Red Noodle Beans

Banana peppers and jalapeno peppers

Pumpkin, Eggplant, some tomatoes and cucumber

Left: Cherokee Purple tomato

Right: Beefmaster tomato

Some Black Cherry tomatoes and Yellow Pear tomatoes and 1 Opalka tomato

My potatoes

Do you know that in 4 months time my little one will be here? It is a boy! Here is a picture of him. I probably won't be posting many pictures of him mainly because hubby is not very fond of the idea about posting kid's pictures on the internet, therefore I must respect his wishes.

Some Harvest

Baby carrots

Basil and parsley in the bowl. Peppers and cucumbers.

1 banana pepper, some jalapeno peppers and italian pepperoncini

I haz sweet potatoes! And corn and more zucchinis and cucumbers

Still picking zukes and cukes

Some new potatoes

Had to pick the corn while they are still small-ish. Birds kept eating them. I do not know that birds will actually peel away the husk to get to the corn!!! I know they have to eat too but sheesh, eat the zucchinis(which I have plenty) and not my corn, damnit!

Some words Wednesday

What happens when you forget to pick a zucchini? It turned into a monster! This one is at least 15" long!!!

Wordless Wednesday

Pea'd out

I am all pea'd out. I've been picking and eating a lot of peas lately. I have been picking peas almost every other day and thank goodness I think they are almost done. You see, in the previous years I almost never planted enough peas, not even enough to make it out of the garden. So this year I went crazy and planted the entire package of seeds. Now, I have

endless peas. I've given some away and I've freeze some.

This are garlic scapes. Scapes are immature flower stalks from garlics. They should be removed in order to focus all the garlic's energy into bulb growth, that way you get bigger bulbs. But don't throw the scapes away! The scapes are delicious when cooked(or you can eat it raw). They taste just like garlic. You can stir-fry them, steam them, or saute them.

Below are pictures of my garden.

In the far end are peas, some NG Impatiens, 3 types of peppers(Jalapenos, Sweet Banana & Italian Pepperoncini), Marigold and Eggplants. In the front are various tomatoes(Opalka, Yellow Pear, Black Cherry, Betterboy, Beefmaster, Cherokee Purple) with basil and marigold in between.

My Three-Sisters planting: Corn(Sugar Buns), Beans(Chinese Red Noodle) and Squash(Pumpkin & Sweet Dumpling)

Three-sisters planting in the back left. Front left: cukes, zukes and sweet potatoes.

On the right: 4 varieties of Garlics and next to them are my row of herbs and onions.

Another look at the garlics. Behind the garlics are carrots, which you can't see from the picture.

My potatoes: Yukon Gold, Dark Red Norland, Laratte fingerlings and All Blue. In the far right end are some strawberries.

Wordless Wednesday

Grow and Meme

We were tagged by our friend Sammie to do this meme. We have done something similar before. The rules are: Open the first photo file folder. Go to the 10th photo. Post and tell the story about that photo. Then tag 5 other bloggers to do this meme.

Ok, we went to our first photo file folder for 2010(because the ones from previous years, you have already seen) and the 10th(we had to include 11th & 12th also) photo is this(below):

Want to take a guess who done it? If you guessed Samantha, you got it right! Samantha, the toy-hog & toy-destroyer, got a purple Wubba for Christmas and she destroyed it in February.

It is Spring and it is planting season. Yay! About 2 weeks ago I went to Lowes and got an inexpensive plastic shelf and some grow lights and made myself a grow-rack.

So far I have got almost everything started except for the cucumbers, zucchinis, pumpkins and winter squash. I'll be starting those in another week or so. Here are what I have started:

• Peppers (Jalapenos, Sweet Banana, Italian Pepperoncini)
• Tomatoes (Cherokee Purple, BetterBoy, Beefmaster, Yellow Pear, Black Cherry, Costoluto Genovese*)
• Herbs (Sweet Basil, Cinnamon Basil, Parsley, Fennel)
• Onions (Red Marble Cipollini, Copra)
• Flowers (Marigold, Carousel Mix Zinnias*, Lilliput Mix Zinnias)
• Asian Greens (Baby Bok Choy, Pai Tsai, Kyona, Napa Cabbage) - These were transplanted outside yesterday
• Cabbage (Couer De Boeuf Des Vertus - a French bull-heart type) - Transplanted outside yesterday

*Got these from Lena from Sleeping Dog Bakery

I've also planted outside the following:

• Snap Peas (Sugar Sprint)
• Lettuce (Mesclun Mix, Grand Rapids, Amish Deer Tongue*)
• Radishes (Sparkler, Watermelon)
• Carrots (Red Cored Chantenay, Purple Haze)

A Pumpkin Story

Happy 2010 everyone! Hope you all had an enjoyable holidays celebration. Our holidays were pretty nice, mostly quiet and relaxing. The girls had a great time as well. They each got a few new toys and some nommies, which they couldn't wait to tell you all about but will wait till Friday.

You may wonder what my post title is about. Here's the story:
Sometime late on Christmas eve, while watching an episode of "According to Jim" where Jim was eating a piece of pumpkin pie, hubby said to me:
M: "Did you get pumpkin pie for dinner for Christmas?"
Y: "Oh s***, I forgot all about it. I'll make one tomorrow morning."
M: "Ok, gotta have pumpkin pie."
Y: "I don't have any pumpkin puree but I'm sure Walmart will be open for a few hours, they were opened for Thanksgiving."

Early next morning(Christmas day), hubby headed out to Stewart's Shop(kinda like a general store, they are every where in NY) to get coffee, so I asked him to look for pumpkin puree. He came home empty handed because they didn't have any. So I decided to head out to Walmart, of course it's just my luck, Walmart was closed for Christmas. Crap! Then I remembered that Walgreens will be opened for Christmas, so I drove there(it's a good thing they are just close by, this is the only time I didn't wish to live in the country where there is no store for miles). Well, Walgreens didn't have any pumpkin puree but they did have Mrs. Smith brand frozen pie. You know what they say: "Desperate times call for desperate measures" - I bought a frozen pie. Eeeekkkkkk!!!!!! I guess frozen pumpkin pie is better than no pumpkin pie.

So after that episode, I have decided to plant pumpkin this summer. That way I will have pumpkin puree in my freezer, in case I forget to make a pumpkin pie again. Below are a few of my choices and I need your help to pick which one. I will set up a poll(on the left sidebar) and please vote for the pumpkin you think I should plant. Please vote by Noon on Wednesday, January 6th 2010. I will plant the one with the most votes. Please don't worry about not knowing anything about pumpkin. The ones I have selected are smaller size fruits(except for the Cinderella pumpkin) and they are good for pies.

Small Sugar Pumpkin, about 5-8 lbs. Please see Pinetree Garden Seeds for details.

Winter Luxury Pie Pumpkin, about 6lbs. Please see Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds for details.

Rouge Vif D'Etampes Pumpkin, also known as the Cinderella pumpkin. Please see Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds for details.

Orange Smoothie Pumpkin, about 7-8 lbs. Please see Pinetree Garden Seeds for details.