Apple of my Eye

We headed to a local orchard last weekend, to pick a half bushel of apples.  How many?  Er... a gigantic bag full?  Enough to eat some, bake a pie, make 6 pints of applesauce AND have a dozen left over - which will soon be turned into cider.   Soon-ish, anyway.

JimDad was on the hunt for the perfect apple:  big and red.  He would always spot the 'perfect' one near the top, and try to convince Kaden to climb / jump / fly up there to go grab one.

Wonder boy was much more comfortable with two feet on the ground.  He loved going under and through the trees, and at one point declared himself the "lower picker upper".   

He was also less concerned with finding a 'perfect' apple, as he was with grabbing ANY apple in his reach.  We did convince him not to grab the half rotted ones, and to try to find ones with more red than green.

It was fun all around.  Though it is getting chilly for our Florida blood, and so we probably shouldn't be headed out for field expeditions in shorts.  Slow learning curve we have sometimes!

Worth it, though.  Since we're here, we might as well embrace Fall !

Philosophy... or Fair Trade Coffee?

I've been in a bit of a philosophizing mood lately... (quick, put on an Indigo Girl song!).  None of it extremely productive.  I was remembering college days, when we had (almost) no experience and lots of time to sit around a solve the world's problems.  By sitting around!  for hours!

Anyway, there's half a post rattling around in my head, about 'wanting more' and adjusting expectations and.. oh phooey, it sounds more like a middle age lecture than an insight.  Sigh.   Well, it did coincide with a neat memory of finding a cookie in the pocket of winter jacket.  I'll go think some more, and maybe it'll finally come out a bit more coherent?

In the meantime, how about a chance to win some Fair Trade Coffee?  It's the Green Mountain brand, and it comes with one of those single cup coffee machines.   Good luck!

(oooh, there's another post:  Fair Trade Coffee and all the other ways I'm a sellout lately!)

Garden- for real, this time.

Okay, so I finally got some photos!  A few friends have been curious about the patio garden we have.  It's not incredibly productive, but it has been fun.  And I feel like my Dad would be proud of some of the stuff I'm trying (sub irrigation).  Anyway, I'm describing the garden here, and welcoming any feedback for improvement-- or even what to do in the winter here in the (almost) Artic Circle.

Above, a photo of most of the plants.  Left to right, there's a wooden box planter that Jim built for me.  It's 3 foot long, and about 12-16 inches tall.  In front of it, there's a Lowe's bucket that has various uses- right now, its storing garden tools.  Behind the bucket and to the right of the wooden planter are TWO large plastic bins (maybe 16 qt?).  Then, along the brick wall is a plastic shelf (5 shelves, over 6 ft tall).  There's a few decorative plants up top- a bromeliad and a donkey tail cactus.  Not pictured, to the right of the shelves, is a wooden desk my dad built and I use as a workshop area for potting or puttering :).  There's a houseplant arrangement on that area as well.

Above, a close up of one of the watermelon.  We've about 3 this size, and I think that's as big as they'll get.  We bought the smaller ones since they're better for containers, and I've loved watching the vines grow all over.  I've used both the shelves and a few strategically placed sticks to guide the vines back onto the porch.

Above is a closeup of one of the watermelons when it was first starting.  Kaden- heck, all of us- have really gotten a kick out of watching stuff grow from seeds to green leaves to tiny something to: food!  Look closely in the back left of that photo and you'll see what looks like trash... a plastic water bottle.  It's actually part of our irrigation system.

 Above, here's a photo of the sub-irrigation system BEFORE we planted anything.  It was quite fun researching this and then figuring out how to make it work (I used pinterest for the initial research).  I got a few 2 liters from some family members, then asked at a garden place for the smaller trays they were going to throw away.  A detailed explanation is here.  Basically, the plastic forms pocket for air and water under the soil, and the roots can suck up what they need without drowning. Except, I didn't drill any overflow holes, but I just checked the water level from the outside (also didn't pretty-fy the outside of the clear plastic, lol).

One of the bins had carrots and watermelon - plus somehow a parsley plant that snuck in.  The carrot greens were gorgeous, and the carrots were small and tasty- but I don't have any pics of those.  Above, is about 3 watermelon vines, with celery sticking up the middle.  I'm trying to get it to go to seed so I can collect for next season (or maybe spices?!).

Here's a close up of the celery flowers.  The neat thing about this plant is that I bought organic celery at the store, and when I was done with the stalks, replanted the bottom!  Details here.  The celery certainly wasn't as  large as the store version, but it was rather tasty- even Kaden had some, and he normally doesn't eat it.

Above, a photo of a wine box we got at a really cool Habitat ReStore (find one near you) and planted tomato, basil and nasturtium in it.  Below is a close up, but since it's late in the season the basil is leggy, the flowers are half dead and the tomatoes are gone.  Look closely to the left most stalk and you'll see a nice yellow tomato blossom- I'm tempted to see if we can nurse another fruit out of it, but it's a bit late for that.

Oh, and the sticks above are just part of our collection...  pay no attention to them...

I had a brief fling with miniature gardens this year.  The end result being that I had extra decorative stuff laying around.  To clean up, I made some of the plant pots a bit more pretty-fied :)

Oooh, here's a close up of our pepper- above.  What you can't tell from the photo is that this is a CHOCOLATE pepper.  I can't remember what that means.  Will it taste chocolatey?  Will it turn chocolate brown if I let it ripen fully?  The other thing you can't tell from the photo is how excited Kaden gets over this- almost every day.  I'll be lucky if I get a taste!

Above to the right, a wee pine tree seedling.  It's just started to have the needles turn yellow, but I'm not too focused on it yet.  Mostly because I have no idea how to over-winter it (no room to bring indoors).  In the middle is a fine rosemary plant- I love to put clippings in the car as an air freshener.  And to the left is the parsley plant- this thing will grow no matter what.  It's good for my green ego.

Above, another shot of the pepper plant- here you can see it's surrounded by a (chocolate) mint plant too.  I keep cutting the mint back to try and give the pepper some room.  You can see how well that's working!

 And here's the most adorable sight so far-- a baby bunny.  This one made it, thank goodness, but its siblings weren't as lucky- a lawn mower ran over the nest, we think.  But seeing this one hop around really made our day (and night!)

And finally-- a photo of our fresh basil, fresh tomato sandwich.  Add a little provolone to Italian bread, warm and... sigh.  I'll leave you with that good taste in your mouth!

Growing....

Well, I wanted to do this neat little garden update, complete with photos.  It's exciting times here because it's getting so close to yummy harvest.  So I'm pretty sure I took some photos.  And I'm pretty sure Kaden took some photos.  But I can't find any of them :(

It's a balcony garden, and kind of neat because we've had a great response with the few herbs and tree seedlings.  The tomato (yes, sole one!) is finally starting to turn red.  We got a few earlier from that plant and they were good (so says my mom, I don't eat them).   The peppers are FINALLY having little tiny peppers, after an entire! freaking! summer! with nothing coming from its blooms.  I'm excited about that because they are *chocolate* peppers, and we'll see what THAT means finally.   The sunflowers never, ever, took :(  I probably should have planted them along the building instead of on the porch.  The celery is giving me some seeds, so I can finally collect those and take it out.  The carrots are finally growing orange, so not far now Papa Smurf!  The watermelons are going nutso, little sugar babies and blossoms growing all over and very exciting for all of us.

You know what ELSE is exciting?  A few times this past week, Kaden has been eating something and decided he liked it enough that we should plant some in our garden.  So far, his list is green beans, corn and peas.  And more watermelon.  I'm excited.  Too bad none of those will survive in a Fall garden here.

You know what I just noticed?  In this post, I've used the words FINALLY and EXCITING a lot. So far it's been unintentionally!  But now I'm going to go underline them all.  Hee hee.

You know what else I think of these days, when I hear the words FINALLY and EXCITING and GROWING?

This.