it's summertime!

i love summer, don't you?  so far we've spent some fun afternoons at the beach, hanging out with friends, keeping our garden alive, and cooking some good meals.


here are a few snaps of our life these days.

 ^^tell me about it^^

when life gives you lemons...you bake them.

have you tried coconut oil from TJ's?  if you do, spread it on some cut peaches, grill said peaches, top with ice cream and thank me later.

just so you don't think all we eat are sweets, here is the dinner which preceded the peach dessert.

chicken recipe from saveur, found here.  served with brown rice and black beans, recipe on its way (:

i hope you're all enjoying the warm weather and sunny days!

gardening.

hello!  we have been very quiet over here for a bit...for a few reasons (: ...one of which being that a lot of our time is taken up lately working on our gardens!

you might remember from this post that this year we decided to do two gardens- one starting early for the cool-weather crops {lettuce, fennel, peas, spinach & arugula}, and one a bit later for the usual summer veggies.

here is the progress from the cool garden- not bad, eh?

 also, i used my cork garden markers again!  here is the tutorial in case you missed it (:

don't you love the little tendrils??


stay tuned for more gardening updates - and of course some recipes!

watch that garden grow.

has this ever happened to you?

you go for a head of garlic and realize that it's taken on a whole new personality.

usually i try to salvage what i can and compost the rest, but this time i decided to plant it!

 

i didn't get too fussy- just separated the cloves and kind of threw them in a pot and 

covered them up with dirt.

i figured they'd already started growing, so they probably didn't need much help.

 and, happily...they're growing like crazy!  i'm starting them inside because it's still a little too 

cold out on the porch...so they've set up camp in our guest room, next to our 

avocado tree...i cannot wait for some home-grown guacamole in a few years.

 

check out the progress!

this is about 3 weeks after planting... they grow so quickly!

so, adventures in container gardening...sort of.

stay tuned...hopefully we'll have some garlic recipes coming up soon!

a garden DIY

do you like to garden?  we do too, and we definitely learn something new each year.

this year, we feel pretty good about things.  we have a sturdy fence in place to keep out furry animals, we did more research on which plants play well with others, and we were able to start a good portion of our garden from seed this year, which we've been aiming to do for some time.

box #1: tomato, snap peas, velour beans

box #2: jalapenos, green pepper, cucumber, squash, bush beans, more peas












so since we started some of these plants as seeds, i needed to figure out a way to remember which row has which plant...here's what i came up with: quick, easy, inexpensive garden markers:



what you need:  a permanent marker, bamboo skewers {don't use any treated wood products, only natural}, and wine corks {champagne corks also worked really well, if you need a reason to celebrate ;) }

step one: what are you planting these days?

 

  

step two: poke the sharp end of the bamboo                                                                         done!

        skewer into the bottom of the cork

here's how they turned out for us...happy gardening!