On the Bright Side ... My Cucumbers Are Looking Great!

So while I'm struggling a little with two of my pepper plants (well, just one now that I know what that black stem was), my cucumbers are doing great!

And they are starting to climb my new trellis that I love, so far, from Gardener's Supply.

Cucumbers on my trellis from Gardeners Supply.

When I return from vacation, I anticipate I'll see more than what appear to be very small pickles hanging off that vine. The two cucumber plants already look better than the two I had last year.

2 Pepper Problems: Black Stems and Brown Patches on the Leaves

Why are my mucho nacho pepper plants turning black? I noticed a week or so ago that the stems were turning black, and I was worried. But other than the black stem, the plant was actually flowering and growing, which it wasn't.

My black-stemmed beauty ... Mucho Nacho Pepper

A quick Google search, and I find (correct me if it’s wrong) that it’s perfectly normal for some pepper plants to have black on their stems.

One of my bell pepper plants is also looking a little funky lately. The leaves look drier than they should, the plant appears to have stopped growing, and there’s a little bit of brown patch on the pepper leaves. The leaves are also curling. This problem I do not believe is “normal.” My golden bell pepper plant seems more than healthy, so the problem – whatever it is – appears to be isolated to this guy.

Bell pepper plant - not looking so healthy ...

I am on vacation right now, but I did find this helpful guide I plan to use when I get back. If my plant is still looking sickly, I'll take some action.

Here Come the Tomatoes

My tomatoes are growing! My Christmas Grape is producing ...

And my beefsteak tomato plant is certainly looking promising.

I've been torn on how much I should prune the tomato plants, however. My research is mixed. Some say that you should just leave it as nature intended. My plants definitely got large and sprawled last year. one produced well (the Christmas Grape) and the other not so well. Well, it grew, but it did not produce a lot of fruit. I decided to pinch off suckers and a few of the stems at the lower end of the plant.

I fertilized my tomatoes and peppers a week or two ago. The peppers are still struggling to grow, however. The bell pepper is doing much better than my Macho Nacho pepper. I pinched off a flower off my Macho Nacho hot pepper plant - the first one there - as I read that it can divert the energy away from the flower into the rest of the plant. Not sure I'm seeing the results yet!

I'm getting eager for my tomatoes and peppers to produce some fruit!

Strawberry Plant in Bloom

My strawberry plant is flowering. That's about it, but I love blooms because they signal the flower is growing and liking something about what I've done!

Kale Superfood Salad, Modified

I didn't have all the ingredients I needed to make the kale superfood salad I've seen at grocery stores the other day, so I modified it slightly. Really I just used whatever ingredients I had in the house, so it was simplified quite a bit.

I used the kale from my garden, chopped up (sans stem).

Half a container of blueberries. Yum!

Chopped red pepper.

And golden raisins.

The dressing I had was Caesar, so I tossed the salad lightly in that, and it turned out deliciously. Even my husband liked it. We served it alongside half a sweet potato and grilled tenderloin pork.

Inspired by … 3 New Ways to Eat Kale

I have a lot of kale in my garden.

As I’ve written before, I am growing eight kale plants right now. And they’re all doing well. Which means I need to find ways to eat them. And just for the record, I’m not crazy about kale chips. Doing a little research, and I found a few ways to prepare and eat kale, all of which look like more fun than a simple salad (which I love too!):

1. Kale Pesto. My co-worker mentioned this use to me, and I wasn’t sure, but I looked it up and found this recipe from Love and Lemons. The recipe calls for blanched kale, olive oil, walnuts, a garlic clove and lemon juice and zest, and parmesan cheese. I’m excited to try it!

2. Braised Chicken with Kale. This is from Cooking Light magazine.  I get bored with chicken, so trying something new would be good – and with kale – bonus!

3. Eggs with Kale. Who knew? I hadn’t thought of mixing in kale, sautéed in butter, with scrambled eggs. But I love adding veggies like broccoli to my eggs. So why not kale?

This is one of the benefits of a garden. You are forced to find new ways to try the veggies, lest they go to waste!

Planting Red Potatoes, a Little Late in the Season

My other project this weekend was figuring out what to plant in a side planter I have next to my garden. My original plan was flowers - nasturtiums or some other flower that also acts as natural pest control.

But I've been wanting to try out potatoes this year, and I was considering a grow bag, like these from Gardeners' Supply.  But then it occurred to me while wandering at the nursery this weekend that I could plant potatoes in the side planter. It's plenty deep and separate from the rest of the garden.

Planting Strawberries in a Hanging Planter

We finally planted strawberries. I know it's a little late to do so, but we really wanted to use strawberries in a hanging planter this year, knowing that we (read: I) are not good at keeping flowers in hanging planters alive. Somehow edibles are more my forte.

My original plan was to get alpine strawberries, which are a small and tasty variety that is good for container plants. They didn't have those, so we went for a bushy variety of strawberry, the Tristan, which should suit the hanging planter well. It will also provide some pretty flowers.

First I put rocks in the bottom of the planter I bought the other day at Lowe's. I do this with all my containers to allow for better drainage.

What Are Those Tiny Red Mites Hanging Out with My Coleus?

I've got fading coleus leaves and red spider mites. These tiny, tiny red bugs are hanging out on my raised flower bed where my two coleus plants are not exactly thriving. (They are growing, just much more slowly than I had anticipated.)

So what do I do about those spider mites? According to this website, the poppy-seed sized red mites thrive when humidity is low and can be controlled by cleaning the leaves, increasing humidity near the plants (not sure how that is accomplished outside!) or spraying the leaves with a soap spray. I think I'll start with the latter.

As for the fading color of my red coleus leaves, I may have over-fertilized. Or the sun exposure is affecting it. The jury's still out, but because it is still growing, I'm not going to worry yet!

Fading red coleus leaves ...

Oh, the Joy of Pulling Weeds ...

Weeds, weeds and more weeds!

We bought our house a little over a year ago. It has a modestly sized yard on about a quarter-acre lot.

A relatively large portion of our yard however is bordered by river rock. An absurd amount, really. It's like the landscapers got lazy, and had space to fill, so they just threw down rock. I would much prefer a balance between that and mulch. And one day we'll have that. But not this year.

So as a result of the rock and the fact the landscape fabric probably hasn't been replaced since the house was built over a decade ago (hard to say, but I'm guessing it's true), we get a lot of weeds popping up in between all that rock. Managing our weeds has got to be one of my least favorite parts of owning a house.

Yesterday I caught my dog, who has not been feeling well, chomping down on a set of said weeds in the corner of our yard. So my husband and I spent about an hour pulling all the weeds that appeared during the week that we were out of town. They seem to come from nowhere!

Since we caught my dog eating the weeds, we are reluctant to spray in these areas particularly in the backyard, even though the spray says it is pet-friendly. Instead, we're just going to stay on top of the weeds.

On the bright side, I pull weeds no matter how small in my vegetable garden every day when I check on it, and our mulch project in the front yard areas has helped minimize the weeds that pop up there. I guess we've made some progress!

The one challenge we have, not being familiar with every plant, is knowing what's a weed and what to leave.

2 More in the Garden: San Marzano Heirloom Tomato and a Golden Bell Pepper

I planted two more veggies in my garden today in space left blank by failed garlic and onion. These will be my final additions until maybe August when I plant some fall crops, including some winter squash and some more lettuce.

I decided I loved tomatoes too much not to add a third to my garden this year. I chose an heirloom variety, San Marzano, a thinner, pointier early version of a Roma tomato. I plan to use it to make tomato sauce for chili, which is a favorite of mine in the winter!

I also added a pepper plant, this one a golden bell pepper, which joins a macho nacho hot pepper (like a jalapeno) and a simple green bell in the garden.

Eggs with Fresh Parsley, Monterey Jack & Ham = Delicious

Fresh Italian Parsley, ready to chop and add
to my eggs.

One of my new favorite ways to cook eggs on the weekends is with fresh parsley.

Yesterday I snipped a couple sprigs of parsley from my deck, chopped it up and threw it in with scrambled eggs. I also added cubed monterey jack cheese and chopped deli ham. I seasoned the eggs with Lawry's Seasoned Salt.

Delicious!

I love fresh herbs. In fact, I'm planning to go out today and purchase a few more to fill in the empty slots on my deck.

As a related tip, I saw an episode of America's Test Kitchen where they made the "perfect" scrambled eggs. I have not followed their recipe perfectly, but their approach - cooked on lower temps, slowly, constantly moving the eggs around the pan - results in a delicious, fluffy and moist breakfast!

Inspired by ... Camping Gourmet

A shot of a campfire from when we camped at Buffalo Creek
recreation area near Evergreen, CO, a couple of years ago.

I am planning a camping trip for my fourth wedding anniversary to the Grand Tetons. The plan is to stay there for five days or so, camping for most of the time.

The plan is also to save money by not eating out; in other words, we plan to eat primarily at the campsite. Which I love. And I think will be fun if I can plan the menu out ahead of time.
I love all parts of camping but the actual sleeping part. I don't remember the sleeping part bothering me when I was younger, when my parents would take us to Yankton, SD, or to the Black Hills on the other side of South Dakota during the summer. I have very fond memories of camping.

So I think it's the result of getting older. The air mattress and the larger tent do help.

I also prefer to car camp. Which means that we can really bring whatever we want to cook with when we go at the end of June.

To that end, I found this article with 16 Delicious Camping Meals from Sunset Magazine very inspiring!

I'll probably skip the steak recipes, but I did like the idea of bringing chili with us and making camp pizza in our new cast iron skillet. I'll have to test out some gluten-free crust recipes before that though.

The chicken enchilada nacho bowls also looked like a nice change from our regular diet of bratwurst and hamburgers.

What do you like to eat when camping?

Purplish Spots Mean My Basil Has Burned ... I Think

I was thinking that the purplish spots on my sweet basil were actually just how my basil was supposed to look. I planted the basil in my garden, between my two types of tomatoes. If what I'm finding on the Internet is true, I may have planted the seedling too quickly before hardening it off.

I harvested a pile of leaves today from the plant, so I'm hoping that the two tomato plants it's near will grow and shade it sufficiently to protect the basil going forward.

Other than what appears to be burned leaves, the plant is growing well, much better and faster than the basil growing in a container on my deck. It gets full sun for much of the day, which basil is supposed to love, and sufficient water. I'll be watching it to see how it does!

Basil!

I mentioned yesterday how I love to add basil to my salads now. It's a simple way to add a little surprise to your salad.

I'm growing three types of basil, and I may plant more yet so that I can stock up on pesto, which I'll freeze in cubes and brush on chicken or fish.

I'm eager for my basil to grow faster and for my recently planted tomatoes to catch up. One of my favorite treats from the garden last year was layering basil and slices of tomato as an easy appetizer or happy hour treat.

I'm sure I'll dig up more ways to eat basil this year!

The purple of the red rubin basil is beautiful in my deck rail planter.

Our Daily Salad Routine, Now Straight from the Garden

How wonderful is it that I can just walk out to my garden in the morning and harvest some lettuce for my salad for lunch? Pretty darn wonderful.

I was almost tempted yesterday to skip my daily salad. For over a year now, my husband and I have been taking salads nearly daily to work for lunch. I think it's made a huge difference in our health, and on our wallet.