there goes September!

We finally did some garden maintenance over the weekend. It was badly overgrown, and a lot of our veggies were inaccessible. So we harvested what we could, hacked away at crazy vines, pulled plants that were all done, and made a whole lot of good stuff for composting. Many of the tomato plants seem to be about to produce another big crop of tomatoes, and it's still been pretty warm outside, so I'm hoping we get another good sized batch all at once so we can make some more sauce.

We got 21 butternuts (with about that many still on the vine) - it's a good thing these will store for months!

And lots of peppers that we're dehydrating...

The watermelons still aren't ready. Here's a new little one I just discovered this morning. The vines are taking over a huge part of the yard, and I'm wondering if I should be trimming them back so the plant can focus on the melons it has instead of swallowing our house.

We did some canning - more blackberry jam with berries we picked from Underwood Family Farms, and some marinara sauce to use up the tomatoes we had.

And finally, here's Pheobe trying to get in on our wedding pictures :D

Fork you!

A few months ago I was trying everything to keep the cats out of the garden. On some forum or blog, someone had suggested planting plastic forks, tines up, in the soil. "WHAT A GREAT IDEA!" I thought. And I did just that... shoved probably 300 little forks into the ground.

They totally didn't work (but THE SCARECROW did!). The garden is huge and overgrown, and there are no more walkways through it... the plants have overgrown every possible way through and around. So I find myself walking through one of the beds that has a tiny bit of space along it, only it's loaded with little fork landmines! I can't tell you how many tines I've snapped off, and I'm sure it's only luck that I haven't been forked through the foot yet. Now I shuffle through, barely lifting my feet. Kind of like you're supposed to do in the ocean for avoiding stingrays.

Gardening. I'm pretty sure we're doing it wrong, but it's been fun :D

Happy Tomatoes!

How can you tell... you might ask?

AND....

We celebrated our first anniversary!

Not quite...

And here's Neil with the first watermelon we picked! We were so sad when we cut it open and it wasn't ripe. But we have more growing, and we're trying to be more patient.

Some good things in jars!

Mmmm... fire roasted salsa, tomato basil sauce, and tomato jam:

Reasons & Excuses

I haven't blogged in a long time. This is why:

The garden is huge and out of control, and we've been super busy trying to keep up with our canning so that nothing goes to waste. We've processed about 300lbs of tomatoes, 40lbs of various peppers, lots of corn, onions, beets, cucumbers, zucchini, butternut squash, acorn squash... and most recently, eggplant and watermelon! We've made pasta sauce, tomato sauce, fire roasted salsas, tomato jam, peach jam, pluot jam, pear jam, plum jam, marmalade, pickles, dried peppers, and more. We've dried beans, tomatoes, peppers, fruits, and spices. Roasted sunflower seeds and tomatoes. And we've traveled and done lots of stuff with friends and family too. I've been taking a lot of pictures along the way, but when I've sat down to do a new post, I'm overwhelmed by all the catching up there is to do and I simply close the new post window. So this will have to do as an update, or I'll never get one done :)

I hope everyone has enjoyed their summer!

There's no problem here...

What? This is a totally normal amount of tomatoes for one couple to grow.

Srsly.

Look what I found hiding in the squash. It weighs in at 4.5 lbs., which is about half the size of Neil when he was born.

Summer went ahead and arrived

So, we've been pretty busy around here! Rose and Patrick came down from Seattle for a visit, and we had a barbeque at our house for Father's Day since all the Bornn-Gilman kids were together. Ernie and Melanie came over, and we ate fresh veggies from the garden, of course... (we sauteed these up with garlic and shallots from the garden too!)

Everyone took the obligatory garden tour to see how huge everything was... 

Rose and I took the opportunity to stress-test the hammock, since she and I had been on the tour three times already. I'm happy to report that it held!

Here we all are together (just missing Deanna, but she had plans with her family, and a bounce house). I noticed I'm whiter than Pat even, and he lives in Seattle!

Later, after lots of good food and much wine, Ernie got crazy and danced for us.

All in all, it was a nice evening, although I really missed my own dad.

Here's one of many self-portraits of the ridiculously cute Rose & Patrick that I found on my camera after they went home:

We went camping last week at Leo Carillo State Park. We loaded up the trailer with everyone's camping gear, and made the 45 minute drive to Malibu. We had a pretty good campsite, with big trees, good tent spots, and it wasn't too far from the beach. We brought our hammock... it's a good thing Rose and I tested it the day before. 

The weather was beautiful, not too hot during the day but cool enough for a sweater and a fire in the evening.

Sparky played frisbee until his tongue almost fell out...

and we had a lot of fun camping with everyone. 

But when we got back home to Reseda, we discovered that summer went ahead and arrived while we were camping. It was really hot, and in just a couple of days the garden exploded again. I keep thinking things have got to slow down, that nothing can keep growing that fast. Neil just shakes his head and and tries not to say "I told you so."

But seriously. This is what the squash looked like when we got back. Remember, there's a huge compost structure behind those monster plants, and you can't even see it! It's like the squash plants got hungry and ate it. Which, by the way, I'm pretty sure they tried to do to me yesterday when I went in to cut them back. They also ate the peas, but that's ok because the pea plants had mildew on them and needed to go.

The tomatoes also decided to grow another foot, and now they wave above the trellises. It's kind of like they're taunting me, because I can't reach them any longer. Neil took this picture looking down along the top of the trellis.

We did some garden maintenance yesterday morning, before it got hot. We pulled out the peas and cilantro, and I braved the squash. Neil topped off the compost and planted more onions where the peas were, and worked on irrigation while I got to work on the wall 'o 'maters. 

I thought I had been keeping up pretty good with the tomato vines. I pinch off all the suckers, keep the dead leaves cleared, and watch dutifully for pests. When we got back from camping, there were all these rogue vines going everywhere. I don't even know where they all came from, and because they have fruit on them, I can't bring myself to cut them off. So I twist-tied the crap out of them! Here I am contemplating my mess. But I don't care, I love it <3

I'm so glad we found out about Tomatomania this year. Almost all the tomatoes we started from seed died, and the 3 or 4 that did survive are not doing nearly as well as the ones we purchased from Tomatomania. Every plant is thriving, and I know in about two or three weeks we're going to be drowning in tomatoes!

We didn't have any luck with starting peppers from seed either, but the ones we've picked up at various nurseries are all doing really well. These are Anaheims.

Even the succulents on the patio are happy - this one makes little plants all along the edges of its leaves, and then they fall off and start roots of their own. That's what I was told, anyhow. 

Sadly, our glorious sunflowers are nearing their end. We had a few fall over, so we cut them and put them in water while the seeds continue to mature. They're almost ready! We want to save some for planting, and roast the rest.

This coming weekend we're going to Huntington Beach to celebrate the 4th of July with my family. My cousin Saz is coming... so excited to see her and the rest of the fam! We'll be bringing corn, green beans, squash, and hopefully a few tomatoes to share!

Paste Tomatoes!

My friend Kim shared some pictures on her blog of her patio herb garden and the homemade meatballs and marinara sauce she makes from her grandma's recipe. She says San Marzano tomatoes are the best for sauce, and we just happen to be growing some! I can't wait for them to ripen so we can try her recipe :)

It's June already??

I know, I haven't blogged in ages. We've been busy, and I had surgery, but I still took lots of pictures. Now the update seems like an overwhelming task, so of course I've put it off even longer. But no more!

Ok... first, the garden is huge, and awesome. Here are some pictures of: the sunflower forest; Neil + beet; best overall view I could get; our first corn harvest; and some veggies I picked for a big pot of soup. Ta-da!

I remember late last year researching what kinds of plants to plant with what, and how to be all organic and stuff. I read all about "companion plants" and which kinds to plant to ward off pests. Nasturtiums and Marigolds were at the top of the list of anti-pest plants (one of each in the first two photos below). So that didn't work.  The middle picture shows our "wall 'o 'maters" - once again, Neil told me this would happen. Instead of nice vines going up the strings and each staying in their areas, we've got a hedge of tomatoes. Only the lima beans are giving them a run for their money as far as growth rate. I keep training the lima vines back down and up other strings, and they've quickly become a woven mat that blocks out all the sun for the plants on the other side. Bottom pictures are a Tatume squash on the left (although I thought they were supposed to be zucchini shaped....), and on the right, just a few of the hundreds of tomatoes we have. Honest. It's out of control.

Enough about the garden-gone-wild. My family came to visit before my surgery, and we had a nice afternoon catching up. My dad, Kat, & Patrick had to go back but my mom stayed for a week and a half to help me out. So in the pictures below are: Paul & Carmen (they came over for a barbeque on Memorial Day); my dad, mom and Kat; our Memorial Day feast in the center; beautiful get-well-soon flowers from my dad; and finally... Kat picking grapefruit.

All our animals are doing well. I had lots of pictures of them, so they get an update too. The only real news is Sparky's new best rat friend, Phoebe.

And finally, we've been enjoying the first real produce from our garden. From our two zucchini plants we've already got more than we can eat, so I've been making bread with it, and my mom used some in a lasagna. I'm sure I'll be getting more creative with it this summer. We got enough green beans for dinner one night last week, and enough onions, carrots, squash, beans and peas for beef stew. We picked our first four ears of corn and roasted them on the barbeque the other night - they were super sweet, although still on the small side. We should have waited, but they looked so good!

In the picture: Neil and a bunch of chopped up veggies, ready for pickling; me & my corn, in my happy place; jars of pickles & pickled veggies; sugar for marmalade (that's two batches' worth of sugar - 18 cups!!!); and one of our huge sunflowers. The sunflowers are easily 14' tall now. Farkin' huge!

And that'll have to do as a catch-up post. Next post... all about our upcoming camping trip at Leo Carillo State Park with Steven & Deanna, Rose & Pat.

End of April Garden (& Other Stuff Too) Update

Greetings!

So, things in the garden seem to have gotten huge overnight. Check out our corns and potatoes!

And all of a sudden, the boxes are starting to look like real garden boxes, with plants that just might actually make food for us! These are the boxes with beets, onions, garlic, and carrots, with some Ranunculus and a cactus thrown in, because I said so.

Even the two big boxes are starting to fill in. About half of the tomatoes have blooms, and a few of the peppers do too.

We harvested one Sugar Snap Pea, and two strawberries. Man, were we full. At this rate, we'll be self-sustaining in no time!

The sunflowers finally outgrew me!

I can't believe how huge they are. Sparky is wearing the light jacket Aunt Debbie made him because Neil shaved him... then it got cold(ish) again the next week and the poor guy was chilly and naked.

Even the Nasturtiums are huge - they almost come up to my waist!

For the longest time after we planted stuff in the ground, it seemed like nothing was growing. Neil kept telling me not to worry... that one day it would seem like it all grew inches overnight. It certainly seems that way now :)

In other news, we went to visit with my parents in Huntington Beach. We rode bikes to have lunch at Fred's Mexican Cafe and enjoyed some beautiful beach weather. My dad gave Neil his drill press, and router (& table). We hope they know this just means more handmade Christmas gifts! Thank you!

Last weekend, we drove out to Hesperia with the trailer to pick up a couch and desk that my Uncle Dave gave me. They were my grandmas, and were the two important pieces of furniture that I was hoping to have as they always bring back good memories of her.

And on Easter Sunday, we grilled up a bunch of chiles, chicken and whole cloves of garlic, then put it all in the crock pot with tomatillos, onions and cumin and let it simmer all afternoon. We ate it with rice and a bit of sour cream that evening. It was awesome, and even better the next night as leftovers!

We hope you had a great Easter! (that's Neil's first Easter bunny - Carmen gave him to us!)

Just your average morning commute

Neil saw these guys on the freeway on his way to work this morning.

More lies!

I just can't be trusted. We have other TERRIBLY EXCITING NEWS that I was supposed to report! We have a PEA!

That is all.