Harvest 2011

My entire post just got deleted. It was a long one. Sorry, but the second one is going to have a lot less writing.

We had a very hot and dry summer, which means that some things in my garden thrived, and other things didn't. The part that didn't was the tomatoes, corn, lettuce and carrots.

Clearly, the part that did was the peppers.

Lots and lots of hot peppers, which, as you can see Michael is very excited about.

Oh, should talk about the carrots. Remember Mr Carrot Pants from last year?

Well, apparently, he grew up over the winter. Haha. He also found a wife with pretty sexy legs.

Apparently they had a busy winter and produced a whole family! Mom, Dad, baby and kiddo!

We had some other freakish carrots too.

The twist.

Chicken foot?

Oh, back to the peppers. Since Michael has been slowly but thoroughly enjoying his pickled peppers from last year, we decided to can them again.

Step 1: face the daunting task of slicing. all. those. peppers.

Step 2: mixing them in my sink because I had not other vessel large enough.

Step 3: Michael made a thing for the bottom of my pot out of coat hangers to keep the jars from bouncing.

Step 4: Realize we clearly do not have enough jars and make a mad dash before Canadian Tire closes in 30 minutes.

Step 5: Admire the finished product. Wonder how long it will take to eat this many jars, since it took a year to eat the 12 from last season.

If you like really hot pickled peppers, let me know...we're sharing!

To Remember...that things really do grow.

This year has not been the best spring we've had in Manitoba. The weather has been quite cool and rainy, which means everything is growing at a painfully slow rate. I'm starting to get frustrated and impatient. I want to see how this year's experiments turn out.

A random iris that decided to come up in our gravel.

This year's garden box. Hot peppers, basil, strawberries, lettuce & carrots.

Addidtions to the front yard. Lilly of the valley (stolen from Bevan) in efforts to convince the cats that this space is NOT their litter box. More hostas and some mystery perrenial ground cover with pretty purple flowers purchased down the street for an amazing $1 each.

The irises and lillies.

I planted tulips, but forgot to take any pictures, they were beautiful. This strip is where my annuals go. I can't believe it, but I bought petunias (and a few other things).

The boxes by the front step this year.

hey carrot pants! it's harvest time!

Michael cleaning carrots.

Already partly damaged by frost, I finally broke down and picked what was left and ripped up the plants.

One potato plant and we got this basket of potatoes. I thought this was pretty good (and more than enough since we don't really eat potatoes).

Mr Carrot Pants. Enough said.

My onions that didn't really grow. :( Next year hopefully we'll have more success on the onion front.

it's back to school time

We are once again sharing our house. We had two lovely young girls move in this past weekend. It means we've had to give up the shoe shelf that is normally for tenants, but I think I can handle it.

It's crazy how different it is to have girls living here compared to the guys from last semester.

This is another piece of art I bought with my money from Opa. If you can't remember what that's all about, you can check back on this post.

Michael also decided that it was time to stop putting off the issues we have with drainage in our backyard, so he ordered some crushed limestone and built a birm around the low spot where water creeps into the garage. It seems to have solved the problem beautifully, now we just have to work at making it look prettier.

A garden update. We have harvested a lot of beans, the peas are pretty much done and the weather has been so crummy the tomatoes won't ripen.

The dirt is spread out, because we are slowly working on filling in the low spot in the lawn, in case you are wondering.

taming the tomatos

Another garden update. Our tomatoes once again, are growing strong, so we had to get them back under control. The potato plant was a similar situation. This spot in our backyard is perfect for growing veggies, that's for sure! I just wish we didn't have to work so hard to keep things from getting so wild! We also tried strawberries this year, but so far that's been rather disappointing.

Enjoying the first fresh carrot from the garden!

A big juicy caterpillar!

cheese, chocolate & summer living

Michael and I like cheese. We also like a bargain.

So, when cheese goes on sale (our threshold is $1/100g), we stock up. Cheese usually has a date of at least 6 months, sometimes even longer, so we've never had a problem with it going bad before we can eat it. Although sometimes I wonder if we eat too much cheese.

Summer is a great time to eat ice cream (then again, I think anytime is a great time to eat ice cream). There's a local ice cream shop called BDI, that has spoiled me with the most delicious hot fudge (I can't even eat Dairy Queen's now). Problem is, it's not particularly economical to go there every time I want a little ice cream. So, I thought to myself, I wonder if I could make hot fudge sauce at home? I started with a google search. Found a recipe that sounded good to me on the Eagle Brand website. I decided to go all out and use some of my swiss chocolate instead of cheap chocolate chips.

It was super easy, sweetened condensed milk, chocolate, a little butter & water melted together on the stovetop, add some vanilla, and voila, hot fudge! I'd say it's pretty darn close to the stuff from BDI. I also doctored mine up and added a bit of cinnamon, because in my books chocolate and cinnamon go together like peanut butter & jelly.

Michael and I recently spent an evening at a friend's place. They had turned their gazebo into an outdoor living room, which we thought was just great. So, we decided to cozy ours up a bit too. Michael started by hanging some lights.

He also found this chain downstairs leftover from hanging our chandeliers, so he put that up so we can hang lanterns from it.

Then we dragged our ikea chairs in, so we had a comfy place to sit.

After all this was set up, we decided to test it out by having an outdoor movie night.

It was lovely!

And, last but not least, here's an update of the garden growing:

backyard update

We got a tent! It was my birthday gift from my Dad. So, we set it up in the backyard to practice...it's very nice, and as long as it doesn't fall apart, it's the only tent we'll ever need (read: it's large, very large).

I don't know if you care, but I love to watch things grow, and putting pictures here helps me realize how fast everything grows! So here's a picture of the garden box.

There's snow peas, and beans at the far end. Lettuce & onions (which you can't see). Hot & sweet peppers, tomatoes. Carrots, and one potato plant (I wanted to try a potato plant because I've never ever grown potatoes of my own, and we only had space for the one plant).

I can't wait to eat the stuff!

yard developments

So, I know you've seen some pictures of the gazebo but here's some good ones where you can see the whole thing and see our backyard.

Here's our vegetable garden finally planted and starting to grow.

One of the planters with some flowers in it to decorate the deck.

this is war!

at least between me and the neighborhood cats...

who have decided that my flower beds make a great toilet. sigh.

Do you see the stripes of lighter coloured dirt? That's where I spread a concoction called 'cat scat' which i found in a gardening book. Contains some lovely spices such as cayenne pepper and chilli powder. It works in the sense that the cat avoids the stuff, but that didn't stop the cats from going around it.

Does anyone else have any brilliant ideas of how to win the war against the cats?

gardening...

Shirley let me dig up some irises from her garden last year, and here they are in full bloom. The rest of the flower beds are weeded and ready for planting!

My planter boxes.

Here's the stuff all planted! Now I just have to wait for things to grow, which seems really slow this year, we've had lots of rain but not enough heat & sunshine for things to flourish.