Changes in the Garden

Changes in the garden!!!
In my attempt at weeding and cleaning up the garden I killed my cucumber plants.  I made the mistake of letting if grow on the same trellis as the green beans and both started to strangle each other.

So in my new garden bed I am going to attempt to grow my cucumbers up a trellis of its own, by recycling my old swing.  I hope to post the new growth in a week.

I also ripped out my Zucchinni plants because they were not producing any fruits that blossoms kept falling off.  I have planted new seeds in buckets.  These were planted from seeds two weeks ago. 

Whats growing in the garden

So far we have gotten two cucumbers our of the garden and plenty of lettuce.

I have destroyed my cucumber plants by weeding around them.  I think I moved the vines too much and by allowing them to grow on the same trellis as the green beans I have damaged the green bean crop as well.

It is definitely a learning process


Here are some recent pictures


First cucumber

 

Lettuce for our dinner salad... was awesome!!!
Had another salad for dinner tonight.

Lettuce plants after I pulled off the bottom leaves, then I put the stakes in and twisty tied the plants to them.  I found these green garden stakes at Lowes for $5.50 for 25 of them.  I have been looking for a week for something like this I don't know how I missed them.

Eggplant looking healthy.   I think I need to stake these plants

Lettuce plant.  I picked the leaves from the bottom and worked my way up the stalk.

This is the structure I built to see if the peas growing will climb up.  Underneath the peas is a row of micro greens that I cut with a kitchen scissor and put in the salads.

These are the first peppers growing on one of the 8 pepper plants I have.  I can't wait, almost as exciting as eggs.

These are the first showing of tomatoes in the garden.  This is the cherry tomato bush growing every which way.  These will be a great addition to the dinner salads.

Check out whats cooking

As part of my blog I have added a tab of whats cooking.  I have been trying to get away from buying food that comes from a box.  As a kid my mom almost aways cooked from scratch with whatever we had in the fridge.  We didn't really eat hamburger helper or canned ravioli or spaghettios and as a teenager I would never choose that stuff.  So I have never really made it available to my kids.  I am not saying that they have never had it or that I have never had it or made it but it never tastes as good as I think it is going to.  I also don't feel it is that much harder to make a meal from stuff in the fridge. 

I am by no means a health nut or organic in anyway.  I enjoy cooking for my family but the challenge is always will they eat it.  And that is not always the case.  Some nights the choice is a bowl of cereal or peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  It is definitely a juggling act between making the food is good for them and taste good... for all of us.

Here is a picture of dinner last night

It was chicken divan, grapes, salad (from our garden) with homemade ranch

The chicken divan was a recipe I found online that included chicken, broccoli(I used frozen), rice(I used jasmine), cream of mushroom soup (I made from scratch), and Parmesan cheese on top.

I made three of these casseroles, one for us, and two I gave away to friends.

Jack (7) cleaned his whole plate, said it was great.

Max (7) ate two helpings of salad- tasted the casserole and said he doesn't like mushrooms so he wasn't going to eat it.- Max only likes certain vegetables and broccoli and mushrooms are not in that group.

Tyson (4) ate the grapes and some of the ranch dressing- he didn't like the lettuce or the casserole.  He did have some carrots with the ranch but either he wasn't hungry or he really didn't like it.

After talking to Max about why didn't like the casserole I have figured out that he and I are pretty similar in that we really don't like all our items of dinner mixed into one thing like a casserole.  I am not a big fan of it either so I can understand.  I loved the mushroom soup recipe though and put that on rice. 

Free range chickens

We are now considering our chickens "free range" since we have been letting them out of their coop. 

We are now up to 11 eggs as of October 3rd 2012.  We are not sure which chickens are laying eggs but we have gotten one a day since last week and for three days we got two.  We have yet to eat any eggs becasue the boys want to wait until we get a dozen first.  So Saturday morning should be a big family breakfast.  Can't wait!!!