"Peanuts, Pizza & Big Bugs!"

It's Week 12 of kinderGARDENS, time for an update!

"The Green Roof" - not so much, 100+ degree temps have pretty much cooked everything in the rooftop planter except a bean plant.

Apparently it's not too hot for "Mockers" our evil mockingbird to make a nest there!

The kids' Peanut Box is doing very well! Not that surprising since that is a cash crop here in our sandy soil and hot temps, it's just fun since we have never thought to try them before. If anyone is interested, they are a very tidy looking garden plant and appear to not be bothered by any insects!

Yellow flowers are the peanut blossoms apparently. They will eventually develop "pegs" which will flop down to soil level where the peanuts will grow from.

The kids' garden, mom wasn't allowed to plant here, but they did a great job. They decided on Butterfly Weed along with some other miscellaneous stuff they stole from my flats. I see petunias, sunflowers, Bells of Ireland (dead), and some blanketflower I think.

See the Smiley Face?

We have been so busy enjoying cooler weather that we have been working and playing non stop in the yard and I haven't had time to cook proper meals, so I made a cruddy W@lM@rt pizza into something lovely with the addition of our tomatoes and basil!

Turned out pretty well! It's nothing like Daddy's homemade thin crust pizzas, but ooops, I never bothered to pay attention to him when he makes the dough - I thought that was me being smart that way I never had to cook on pizza night - that worked out fine until he deployed!

Kids are having fun with THESE GUYS! Awesome "DogDay Cicadas"... they are everywhere right now. I know some people hate the noise, but I love how loud they get in the evening. It drowns out the thundering FA-18's as they roar over the house!

Mr. Dog Day Cicada

If you or your kids have these guys and want to know more, I found an article with some good pictures here! I admit they are pretty fun to play with!

I have so much going on in the yard, but no time to write as of now.... suffice it to say temps have been 78-80 degrees for 3 days, NO humidity, and cool nights in the lower 60's... my windows are open enjoying an evening breeze. Hard to believe we spent the last few weeks in a virtual steam oven. Temps are to return to that on Monday, but for now we are busy enjoying. Tonight is forecast for 58 degrees so I am thinking about setting up the tent and camping with the kids in the garden. We'll play "flashlight" and listen to cicadas! Oh, I can't wait until they are old enough for "real" scary stories!

got earplugs?

Two guesses on which kid is learning to play fiddle!

In today's harvest: The "Orange Wellingtons" have arrived!

I have been anxiously awaiting these tomatoes, they are very pretty, and my first non-red/black tomatoes I have grown. They are much more orange than they look on my camera!

I have been running non stop since yesterday morning trying to be as productive as possible during our cool weather. It seems that all our appointments, bill paying, swimming lessons, shopping, errands have all been begging for attention and I capped it off with our monthly grocery trip, ugh! This morning after spending 2 hours in the commissary on base (on military payday at that!) fighting the crowds, I finally made it to the freezer section which I am usually able to bypass pretty quickly - my usual is to cruise by one door, fling some Boca burgers (my kids love 'em!) into the cart and boogie to the checkouts - but nooooooo! Kids start begging for this:

Don't know where/whom they heard about these from (tv?), but begged and begged until I finally said, "whatever" and put 2 in the cart. I was looking over my shoulder all embarrassed until I saw a lady with 4 overweight kids with a stack of them in her cart. I figured I could fly under the radar with her next to me, so I hid them under some other stuff and trucked on. I can't believe I did this, but my kids never eat junk, not lunchables, corn dogs, pizza rolls, none of that - so I relaxed this one day since I knew I was not going to have time for cooking anyways tonight.

The best part was watching them as they prepared to eat it. They went from jumping up and down excited while is was spinning 'round in the microwave, to just plain being dumbfounded when it was done. Check out the faces!

Fledgling Fiddler Lochlann says "Mom, it looks like the plastic food we had in our play kitchen"! I believe he's right...

I got LOTS of stuff done today! Loving the weather - will be working hopefully outside all day tomorrow. Should have some pics of what's going on once I clear away the weeds.

Maybe Loch should practice his fiddle outside, maybe that will work on those Japanese Beetles, nothing else seems to scare them off!

Bringing Out the Dead

As promised, I will now present to you the things I did not post pics of while showing what has been loving our heat and humidity lately! I can no longer sit here all smug with my green lush photos... it was all a lie...!

Here it comes... the death and destruction of the past month's heat wave. 15 straight days of heat indexes in the triple digits has taken its toll.

My only heirloom Yellow Pear tomato plant

My only Red Zebra... they were chugging along fine, then bam! Never even got to see pink...

Heirloom Paul Robeson

I pulled out all my Edamame, found this volunteer True Black Brandywine in my hand, and tried to frantically "stick it back in"... not so much.

Yeah, this was an Artichoke... all 3 look exactly like it... can you see it? The brown toothy leaved stuff!

Lessons learned: DO NOT try to contain heirloom tomatoes in containers! (I just had to try!)

No more Artichokes

Luckily, all my other tomatoes are doing fine! Severe weather passed through last night, and on the other side, cool temps! It's not that I haven't had anything to blog about in the garden, more like I have so much backlog to do that I haven't had time to sit at the computer! This morning I felt the glass storm door fire-style before I let the dogs out...COOL! I was so excited I woke the kids up screaming "it's not 100"!! For the next 3 days we are supposed to have temps ranging from 78-83 during the day, high 60's at night, I am so excited to get back and enjoy my garden again, at least for the next 3 days. Hope you are all having good weather, too! I will be back with you all as soon as I can get caught up on the garden stuff!

1st Salsa of 2010!

Still heatstroke-hot out there, but I got a few things accomplished today. Wednesday we are supposed to have a cool front come through that will bring our temps back down to norms of mid-80's, so I expect I won't get much real outside work done until then. We are all bored, but honestly, what can we do with heat indexes in the triple digits? This morning, both my kids told me I was "lazy". I guess because they can't go outside to play until evenings and are bored and saw me reading a book that means I am lazy. I know I shouldn't let that get to me since they are little kids, but it bothered me a bit since that is the #1 pet peeve of mine: laziness! Never mind that I did dishes, swept, did laundry, brushed the dogs.... I'm lazy!

Not wanting myself to spiral down into self-hatred because of that little remark (hey, it doesn't take much with our heat induced low morales), I decided to go ahead and do something with the harvest that has been accumulating.

Today's Harvest:

Raspberries are always eaten fresh right away, but these blackberries were combined with the ones from yesterday and juiced. I ended up with 2 more pints of pure blackberry juice for the freezer and a little extra for an adult beverage tonight for the lazy mom! I am actually thinking of making blackberry wine I have so much coming in this year. A few years ago I would have turned my nose up at the thought of such a sweet wine, but now that I grow my own the wonderful redneck-ness of the idea has got me wanting to try it!

By now I was feeling a bit more energetic so I decided to move on to the tomatoes that have been staged on my counter from the past couple of days. This is an odd time for tomatoes, a bit much to eat fresh right away, but not yet the saucing & canning days of late summer...

Salsa Time!

Back out to the garden to get some jalapenos and a couple of immature mini-stuffing bell peppers, fish peppers and cilantro. I combined this with one of the onions still hanging, and the very last of 2009's garlic and shallot.

After mixing it all and adding a bit of lime juice and vinegar, it is now "chilling out" in the fridge to be enjoyed as a meal for me! Loch won't eat it and it's a bit much to expect them to eat this as a meal in itself, but I will thoroughly enjoy it! I think Finn will have a bit with some chips, though... see the video below for a huge step in the vegetable/kid combo!

The video below just blows me away....!

Honestly, I really want to get back to being "lazy" - I am reading a lovely trashy romance/murder novel set in the hot and humid Louisiana swamps... I have been reading so much non-fiction and biography type stuff I forgot how wonderful it is to get lost in a good fiction novel! This is the perfect book for me in the lawn chair tonight watching the kids play while I'm sweating and swatting skeeters off of me, I can pretend I'm right there in the swamps!

A Work Day!

It was 87 degrees today, heat index of 91... feels like FALL! I finally got back into the garden to get some work done. Although it was still sweaty, it was the kind of sweaty where you feel good once you have a shower, not the kind of heat where I need to make sure my kids know how to dial 9-1-1 on the phone!

Today's Harvest (upside-down, apparently!)

Blackberries, Raspberries, Radishes, 1 Fourth of July Tomato and the 1st Brandywine of the year, even if it was a small one!

I rigged some shade over my lettuces until I can figure out something better...

Massacred a few Japanese Beetles by hand, but then decided it was time to spray Neem anyways all over the apples and grapes since it was overcast. I still had to kill a few by hand just for the sick pleasure of it!

Other things accomplished today include hanging 2 loads of laundry on the line and weeding the fenced-in garden pathways. Since there is no relief in sight for the heat, I decided to clear off the deck, sweep it, rearrange chairs and plants and make room for some containers of lettuces. I have a bamboo screen stretched over the pergola so there is filtered shade there. Now we have 3 chairs so we can at least go read a book or something in the late afternoon in the shade. At least it's fresh air and not being cooped up inside! Bonus, I can sit in an uncomfortable chair and stare longingly at my hammock that can't be used until it cools off!

Not a ton of work done, but after the past 2 weeks, I'll take it! Tomorrow is back into the upper 90's so not sure if I will have anything worthwhile to post, I'll probably be cleaning my house and checking in throughout the day go garden vicariously through you all!

Today!

I am hot, tired, and cranky. That's the best post title I could come up with!

We really need to get on a better schedule again. I have been letting the kids stay up late, not even letting them out to ride bikes and such until after 7 pm, gardening up until it gets too dark to see at about 8:30 or 9 pm, and then watching tv, reading, etc until well after midnight! I am an early riser usually so being tired in the morning or the alternative, sleeping later and then feeling lazy for it, well, it's just not working! Today was the hottest so far, actual temp of 103 at 5 pm, heat index of 117. I knew it was going to be bad when I woke up and could barely see through the haze in the backyard, so I forced myself to do inside chores, but ended up really happy that I used the time wisely instead of just laying around all day!

Today's chore: Onion Day!

Because of the humidity, I have had my onions hanging and curing in the house for several weeks. I was able to ignore them for quite awhile since they were so pretty, but lately every time I walk by them or look at them sideways, the browned skins and tops would crumble and fall all over the floor! I took today as an opportunity to clean it all up finally. The few that were perfect were hung in mesh bags, but many were already bolting with wide necks when I harvested them, so all of those got chopped for the freezer.

I'm only cooking for myself and 2 little kids, so this will do nicely for stir fry and salsas into fall.

On to my pathetic garlic harvest. I "forgot" to order my garlic last year and on my way out the door headed to Minnesota for Thanksgiving I hurriedly planted a few of the previous year's harvest, thinking I would do more when I got back, but never did!

That's all I've got for this year, yikes! Good thing hubby the pizza chef isn't here, because I can hear him now, "oh, this won't do at all"!

The shallots, however, completely rocked out this year and I have no shortage of!

On the right is the remaining 1/2 garlic bulb and 3 shallots leftover from last year, I planted exactly enough!

Tonight, it's supposed to thunderstorm again so I didn't do anything in the garden except walk around with the camera wondering how the heck that stuff is living out there...

(sorry for hazy photos, humidity got inside my camera!)

The 1st Brandywine of the year

Sorry, I am obsessed with these Polish UFO's... they are getting so big!

"We're gonna need a bigger boat"

What am I going to do with all these peppers?

I just love the variegated leaves, even if the peppers look like yucky Okra, LOL

I didn't even know these were out there!

All those peppers are in this one bed!

Yuk, the Japanese Beetles are here... luckily they prefer my grapes and I noticed them over there tonight. These are my first apples, ever, so I really want them to live!

heehee, anyone have a bed that looks like this? pretty bad....! I kind of forgot about it back behind a shed and now it's full of weeds and Sassafras tree seedlings. I just dug it a month ago, but it's already been taken back by the yard.

Bells of Ireland - won't grow again, they fall over and look horrible!

My favorite right now!

I heard a rumor about the weather breaking tomorrow - I hope so because from the looks of things, I have some harvesting and spraying to do!

kinderGARDENS Week 11 Update

Week 11 is a total bust for us, we will be lucky if the "green roof" doesn't completely die on us!

Actual air temp at 5 pm today! The heat index was 117... we are actively keeping kids OUT of the garden this week!

The Amaranthus heads are draping nicely now over the rooftop garden box and we should see some color soon, but almost everything else has curled up and been burned at the stake. The heat has been like this for over a week straight now. Even the squash, which I thought would survive, cannot take the container box. We still have a little hope in the form of Malabar Spinach, while still small, it is laughing off the heat like a champ.

Although it is too hot for the kids to play outside, they have been finding things to do that do not include tv or video games.

Remember these?! Everyone beware of the dreaded potholders at Christmastime - I'll make sure they get the most hideous colors I can find!

Other things keeping the kids busy are swimming lessons. If it wasn't for getting out of the house to lessons, I think they would have gone stir crazy. Posting video for hubby, he doesn't seem to be able to load any video via email on the ship, but he can get the blog! Notice Finn's teacher doesn't let Finn get away with the "I don't know how" routine anymore!

Loch is getting better every day, he finally seems to have found a sport he is better at than the other kids his age, and I know it is a big confidence booster for him.

Finn just being "Finn"... just the past 2 weeks he has decided he doesn't know how to swim anymore, I think it's because they moved him up a class and now he is the youngest and in the deep end the whole time. He was doing well with the younger group so I might move him back next session, I want him to enjoy this!

Hoping the weather breaks soon and we can get back out there and garden again!

As usual, check out The Inadvertent Farmer for links to other kinderGARDEN participants!