Weekend Craftiness

Ok, I'll admit it.  I'm the least crafty mom out there.  Max found a star shaped lens from sunglasses and wanted to know how he could make it stay on his head.  I used scotch tape to affix it on his forehead and he was a happy camper.

I'm much more crafty in the kitchen.  Here's this weekend's no-knead rosemary bread.

Question for the peanut gallery:  at what age does it start to get creepy when you photograph your child when they are sleeping?  Extra cute points: she was snoring.

Garden snacks

We're just starting to harvest some of our garden treats.  How exciting!  Max and Ginger each picked a radish a few days ago.  I have no idea why Max decided to pose with it on its head.  Oh right, 'cuz he's four!  Ginger happily shows off the radish she refuses to eat. 

One of the fun things about growing your own is the irregularities.  Notice that some of the radishes look like a funky shape!  These irregulars would probably never make it to the store or the farmer's market stand but we ate them just fine!  We ate them along side butter lettuce greens, which I forgot to photograph.

We also cooked up the radish greens with some olive oil and salt & pepper. 

In other garden fun, we harvested our first kale, and some of our trustee volunteer chard ...

... and made a fresh batch of mean green juice for breakfast!

Garden Update - November 16, 2013

One of the things I'm really enjoying in gardening this time around is the picking up new skills.  In the past, I'd plant something and hope for the best, but I didn't really have a plan for what to do when something goes wrong, or what to do to increase yields.  I was an emotional gardener, but not a strategic one.  Here's a walk through of some of the gems of knowledge that have been dropped on me.

Here are some of my carrot seedlings.  I've learned how to thin the plants so that they have enough room to develop into good sized carrots.  You pick a good looking seedling that has started growing the secondary leaves, and then you thin out the plants an inch around it.

Also learned to thin radishes.  It occurred to me that I was crowding them before because when I think of radishes, I think of how they look in bunches at the grocery store -- but clearly, they can't be that close in the ground.  I think these are making it to the plate tomorrow.  I'll let the kids each pick one.

Potato plant going like gangbusters in the compost pile!

Yellow leaves on celery are a sign of over watering.  Guilty as charged.

Cauliflower varietals progressing nicely at their own pace

Gave up the ghost on the beets, which never came up.  Instead we planted some lettuce and leeks!  In the past, I would never give up so soon and would probably lose a growing season for it.

These cabbages (and the broccoli out front) have been a lesson in pest management.  I've spotted green caterpillars called Loopers which will kill the plant.  Deal with them by taking them off plant or squishing onto leaves.  Theory is that it will be a lesson to their friends.  I've also found little meal bugs -- those have to be sprayed off with a strong hose.  I was worried that the plant would suffer from the direct spray, but it looked fine.

Mint is happy in its new home.

No, we aren't being pre-holiday festive.  The red bands are scare tape.  That appears to be doing the job of keeping the crows away.

The lettuce has really bounced back.  I knew there was such a thing as plant shock, but I didn't know it could last a month.  I picked a handful of leaves tonight for our salad and I can't wait to use more!

Dry Run Festivus

I really like Thanksgiving food.  I think it might be because it's one of the few times in the year where, as a culture, we really eat with the season and celebrate the harvest.   Since my mom has the monopoly on cooking during actual Thanksgiving day, our nuclear family has started a mini-tradition we call pre-giving where we cook the same recipes.

On the menu was: 

• 14 lb. Apricot glazed turkey
• Duck fat potatoes
• Shallot and onion gravy
• Ginger and garlic cranberry sauce
• Italian sausage, leek, apple, cellery cranberry stuffing
• Salad

We invited friends (who brought yummy stuffed cupcakes) to share in the fun.  We ate them too fast to take a picture. :-/

One of my favorite things about this menu is that I got to use parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme ... all from the garden.

Garden Update - November 10, 2013

Here are some picks from the backyard.  I'm being lazy by not going outside in the cold to take pictures of front yard.

We have two types of cauliflower here.  The type in back has really taken off.  The ones in front are moving along slowly.  I think a crow has munched on some of them.  Upcoming family project: build a scarecrow or take up shooting. 

The tall things are garlic and onions.  They looks really happy here.  The celery -- not so much.

The beets mock me by not even sprouting.

Kale, carrots and radishes

One of the raised beds visible from the street.  

Another raised bed visible from street.

Lettuce -- still looking kinda weak.  Carrots and violas.  I figured out that the neighborhood cats must have eaten my backyard violas because they were planted close to the ground, while the ones in the elevated raised beds out front are fine.

Spinach.

Peas in succession planting.

Swiss chard.  I think crows are eating these because there are a lot less sprouts than there were before.

More peas and cilantro.

Broccoli, carrots, lettuce.

Monster parsley plant!

Cabbage and peas.  Man, it was harder than I anticipated to get the peas to climb the trellis.

New addition to the farm: some mint.  Because mama needs a mojito.

Today we have our second installment of garden instruction.  Looking forward to learning more and figuring out which plants I should give up on.

Playing Nice?

I wonder if anyone out there has constructive advice on sibling play.  The kids are just getting to an age where they are interested in some of the same things and can play together.  What I don't have a good sense for, is when I as a parent should jump in and mediate screaming, screechy disputes and when I should just back off and let them figure it out or take the fight to its epic meltdown conclusion. 

A few nights ago, the kids were playing and after a few minutes of screeching, J. checked in on them and Max had his feet locked around Ginger's neck.  Other times I feel like Ginger screeches just because she knows it will get someone to run into the room and she likes the attention.  Neither scenario is ideal.  How do you navigate sibling mediation?

We have now reached that pre-halloween time when the kids wants to
wear their costumes every day.  Here they are playing in the
garden and picking tomatoes for dinner.