You say toMAYto, I say toMAHto

I think our friend, Traci, over at Mischief & Mayhem had her first fresh garden tomato over a week or two ago (she's in Seattle). I was so jealous but now it seems to be our turn. FINALLY!! Our big, fat green tomatoes are now turning into big, fat RED TOMATOES!! YAY! I am so excited because I am so not a very patient person. I want instant gratification, I want it now and I usually want it covered in chocolate! But the anticipation for these delicious, red bulbs of goodness made the wait all worthwhile. (hey, isn't there a song about that?)

J made us over sized BLTs for dinner tonight and cut huge slabs of this tomato on the left.

The flavor was just divine!!

These are Super Fantastics

These are our Heartlands. They'll be ready tomorrow.

Another Super Fantastic waiting to be plucked!

We have a bucketful of fresh basil so tomorrow I will make caprese salad for dinner and this weekend I will make fresh red sauce for spaghetti! Yum! We will have tomatoes coming our our ears! We also have groves of cherry tomato plants that we are having a hard time keeping up with harvesting! Most likely we will make salsa like we did last fall. We made so much that we still have a few jars left!

Ahhhh, the tomato. . .the gift that keeps on giving!

Bountiful Harvest

We went through the garden today after work and got quite a payload for dinner tonight. J made a fabulous dinner of steak Gorgonzola that rivaled any restaurant entree I've ordered. He also whipped up ratatouille of our own garden harvested zukes, onions and chili peppers and added a store bought tomato (ours aren't ripe yet). The fingerling potatoes were to DIE for and melted in our mouths. J slightly boiled then pan fried whole with a tiny bit of butter & salt. Wow. Superb!

There is something to be said about growing and eating your own food that makes it taste so much better!! Also something to be said about a spouse who is great at cooking said food we "growed"! Thank you, Honey! You are such an awesome chef! SMOOOOOOOCH!

How Does Our Garden Grow?

. . . apparently with all this rain, the garden grows very well! Except my zucchini. Those just aren't producing like normal. Usually we are up to our earballs in zucchini!!

Here are some picts of what *is* actually growing -- check it out!

White hollyhock. Purdy flower.

Raspberry colored hollyhock. There were a bunch of beez doing their thang with this right before I snapped the pict. I really wanted to get them in it because you know they are disappearing, don't you? I am glad I saw the bees. Whew!

Big, fat green tomatos. Let's hope they ripen before the first frost in two weeks. ha ha. As I was looking at this pict, I was wondering how anything grows in this ground with the tons of rock in the soil. Sheesh!

Here's my insane flower bed and my insane puppy, Artie.
He's fixin to bark at something at the end of the yard.
See how he's standing all at attention?

The secret, ancient dojo (or whatever I called it in the other post) is practically

hidden in the jungle of wild daisy things. The plants to the right

aren't blooming yet, but will be soon in case you were interested
(and I *know* you were! wink, wink!)

To make this post a little more interesting, here is the post at the beginning of the spring/summer when we first started growing the stuff. So I guess this would be the link to the BEFORE pictures! http://jakldays.blogspot.com/2009/05/springs-garden-makeover-pt-3.html

Again, hope you enjoyed!

My First Slug

Growing up in Wyoming it's easy to understand that I have never, ever in my life entire life seen a slug. . .until today. The weather has been so wet that the moisture has driven them above ground. J said hadn't seen a slug in over 20 yrs. since he was back East. He brought this little guy in on the palm of his hand to show me. At the time, the little critter looked like nothing more than something hacked up out of a smoker's brown lung. We put him back out side where he was and he when he started becoming less afraid, he was on the move and had his horns out.

Slugs are cool.

A long, long time ago. . .

. . .in a flower bed not so far away; in a hidey-hole one thousand feet below an ancient pagoda . .





lies the Garden of the Lost. . .

The Garden of the Lost. . .

The Garden of the Lost!!!! (ROAWR!!!!)

Birdbath CAM Pt. 2

We put the Birdbath CAM on today while we were at our most awesome white water rafting trip. We had a few friends stop by. Some are difficult to see. . .can you spot the visitor? Enjoy!

Birdbath CAM

So J bought a wildlife game trail camera to install up at the cabin to record the animals that happen by. We call this camera: moose1. Today, J wanted to test the viability so he set the camera up towards the birdbath to see the visitors.

moose1, test 1:

A Squirrel - represent!

Birds. . .thankfully!

Can't see it here, but this is a yellow fellow that frequents the bath.

A robin -- behind the rock

A pigeon? Or dove? I am definitely no ornithologist, that's for sure.
Artie managed to get his big butt in and trip quite a few picts too.

We plan to test a couple more time. This camera also has night vision! TOO COOL! Maybe we can capture a few pictures of the bats that fly around the neighborhood. Wouldn't that be cool?

Spring's Garden Makeover Pt. 3

This set of pictures was taken 5/25/09. Veggies are planted. Visual growth is apparent. Soon the beds will be mature and full of wonderful green leaves.

This bed is home to a huge yellow columbine that planted itself 2 yrs ago. In front of that are various tomato plants. In the front of the bed we planted green onions.

On the left, radishes. On the right, cherry tomato plants.

Okay, what we have here is the zucchini & squash that have barely poked thru. You can see only 2 sprouts -- upper-right corner and lower left corner. The others didn't germinate so I had to replant. I was surprised because I usually have ZERO problems growing squash.
Strawberries in front, hot peppers in back row. Mint is in the barrel and two more cherry tomato plants in terracotta planter to the right. Hopefully we'll have tons of tomatoes.

Close up of the most fragrant mint. This sucker is so hearty that it grew out of the bottom of the container and now comes up in the ground AROUND the barrel. WOW!
Here is my flower bed. Looks good so far. The three flowering plants on the right are spreaders or ground cover and the two greenies on the left are hostas which will spread too and fill in the blank spots. J was dissecting the lighting so please don't mind the mess.

Here's my beloved pagoda! I adore this yard ornament. I feel calm when I see it. You can see the privacy fence that J has been putting up for the past week or so.

My "artsy" shot. More pagoda, more fence.

I thought this would make a good little hidey-hole for a miniature garden gnome. That's it for now. More to come on the garden. Stay tuned.

Spring's Garden Makeover Pt. 2

On May 16th, I cleaned out the flower bed at the end of our patio by the hot tub. I don't know why I didn't take "real" before pictures of this but these are the shots I took right after planting the new plants & seeds on either end. The big massive ground cover in the middle is the sole surivor of my not-so-green-thumb planting from a few years ago. As with cooking, I am developing better skills in the flower garden as well. I have great luck with veggies, but for some reason flowers and plants hate me.

Stay tuned for even more growth!

Spring's Garden Makeover Pt. 1

Well, we've paid our dues in the winter department and we never thought Springtime let alone warmer weather would come. But the time seemed to materialize quicker than a blink. I love taking picutres of our yard at various times during the season just to see how far we've come. I took the following picts over April 23rd when we were cleaning up winter's rath and preparing the beds for sowing. These beds will grow our veggies.

At this point in time, I'm always sad and excited at the same time. Sad because it feels like forever before our yard looks decent again and excited knowing that if my impatient nature stops getting the best of me, our garden will soon blossom into full color before I know it.

Consider this post the BEFORE pictures of this makeover and the following posts we'll track the amazing transformation!

Cherry Blossom Trees

We had quite the weekend last week. Not only did we run the race, but we had loads of yardwork we got done. Our cherry blossom tree was blooming and I am so happy I was here to see them and take pictures before our wonderful Wyoming Wind wisked the colorful petals away. Sure enough, when I returned from my business trip on Thursday night, there was not a flower one left on our tree. I will have to just tuck away the memory of the beautiful fragrance until next year. But I did manage to take some pretty pictures. . .they are good for me anyway.

Hope you enjoyed these. Stay tuned for more on our gardens - vegetable & flower - as well as some handy composting hints and tips.