5.05.2011

Garden Update...It's Beautiful Inside and Out!

Hello All-

I wanted to give you all an update on some of my indoor plants.  I have actually been having some trouble with a few of them...too much sun!!  I have always had a hard time getting my seedlings enough sunlight, while also trying not to let them bake in the south sun.  I have had a few shriveled casualties, but I think I have caught most of them before I've lost them for good. 

I'll wait a bit longer before planting my violas and daisies outside, but they are coming along nicely.  My tea garden isn't growing very fast, but it is still growing none the less.  I think I might transplant the three survivors into a larger pot so they don't dry out so quickly.  We'll see.


 My summer squash and cucumbers are growing really well!!  It won't be long before I can pop them into my outdoor garden.  I did lose my broccoli seedlings, but I planted more seeds that seemed to grow in record time!  I actually put them outside the other day, along with my lettuce seedlings, but I forgot to snap a photo.  If they don't drown with the rain we have headed our way, I'll snap a photo when the sun comes out.  Thankfully both the broccoli and lettuce can be planted outside as seeds right now too, so if I lose the seedlings, I can start over and not lose too much time.

 The other day I picked up a tomato plant.  I know, I know, it is too early for tomatoes, but at 50 cents, I couldn't resist.  I picked up a large pot for this little beauty and I am going to try to get tomatoes inside this year.  I just have to remember to play bee with a Q-tip once the flowers bloom.  If it doesn't look like I'll be successful, I'll just plant it outside.


This pot of herbs has a story behind it.  Yes, I still have the smaller pot that I created a few weeks back...those herbs are doing great.  We went to our friends' house for Easter dinner, and hubby and I decided to bring them a pot of herbs as a Hostess gift.  We found this lush pot at Canadian Tire for $25.  It has oregano, basil, chives, rosemary, thyme, and sage.  We bought it the day before Easter and leave it to me, I forgot it on our kitchen table when we left to go to Easter dinner on Sunday.  By the time I thought of it, we were too far to turn back.  So, back to Canadian Tire we went to buy pot #2!  So, I ended up keeping the first one, and I have already used a bunch of the herbs.  They don't go to waste in this house, that's for sure.  Hubby thinks I forgot pot #1 on purpose so I could keep it, but once we started using some of the herbs, he realized that it was a convenient mistake on my part.

Last weekend we roasted two chickens and used some of the thyme and rosemary inside the cavity of each bird.  Now that I know how to make my own chicken stock, I couldn't let him throw away the bones from the chickens, so I made lots of stock this week.  I used more thyme and rosemary in it, and it was delicious!!  I already had another chicken carcass in the freezer for the next time I made stock, so I threw that in too.  I also used carrots, onions, leeks, peppercorns, bay leaves, and lots of water.  In the end, I had 20.5 cups, as well as one ice cube tray, of stock!  (Hubby loves it when I freeze some stock into ice cubes...he used a bunch of them in some Queso he made the day we had the chickens, and the cubes were so handy!!
I don't know about you, but I think my freezer is going to be very happy with all of this yumminess filling it up!!!  I am going to make some homemade noodles and make up some soup this week too...I can't wait!!!

Cheers!
Sharon

1 comment:

Rachael said...

That's some good stuff! I make and jar my own chicken soup from scratch too...best thing ever.