Mae’r mafon yma yn barod i’w casglu (Autumn Bliss). Dydi nhw ddim i fod i ffrwytho tan yr Hydref. Debyg bod y gwanwyn poeth a’r glaw dros yr wythnosau diwethaf wedi eu drysu falla? Dwi heb fod yn garddio digon hir i wybod os mai jyst rwbath ‘one-off’ ydi hwn yntau arwydd arall o ‘global warming’.

Dwi wedi cael cychwyn araf eleni achos mod i wedi bod yn defnyddio amsar sbâr i gyd i baratoi a rhoi croen newydd ar y twnnel. Mae’r tomatos i gyd mewn potiau - dwi heb drio hyn o’r blaen. Heb osod y drysau ar y twnnel eto felly mae’r ieir (Melys yn y llun) yn crwydro mewn - yn edrych ar ôl y gwlithod ond yn bwyta peth o’r letys!

And, just for fun...from my garden :) :

and my sunflowers:

Sing this to the tune of Pink Floyd's, "The Wall Part 2."

We don't need no salmonella
We don't need the crops at all
No ill tomatoes in the market
People, leave those fruits alone
Hey! People! Leave those fruits alone!
All in all you're better off with nothing at all
All in all there just 'maters with no worth at all

We don't need no salmonella
We don't need the crops at all
No ill tomatoes in the market
People, leave those fruits alone
Hey! People! Leave those fruits alone!
All in all you're better off with nothing at all
All in all there just 'maters with no worth at all

Wrong, plant them again!
If you don't guard your crops, how can you have any profit?
How can you have any profits if you don't guard your crops?
You! Yes, you behind LULAC, stand still, senor!

Someone gets sick. "Where did you eat last?" "I had a vegie sandwich at Dell's Deli". Go to Dell's and ask where he bought his tomatoes, then order your turkey breast and swiss on whole wheat, hold the tomatoes. Head over to Joe's Wholesale Produce and ask which farms he bought from. Then you go to Tex's Red Star Farms and find out who picked them, and if they are washing their hands after using the outhouse. That's right, your salmonella may have come from poop hands.

Where did you think it came from? Dead plucked chickens dancing on the produce? Maybe a few raw eggs accidentally cracked on it? By the way, don't order ceasar salad unless the eggs in the dressing are coddled properly. They usually use raw eggs. So, poop hands, unwashed utensils in preparing food, raw chicken on the cutting board, how simple could all this be?

Instead, they try to find the source first. Which boat did they come in on, where did those go to, how do we find them now? Needle in a haystack. Hey, if you want to find the salmonella, find the tomatoes you know have it. Don't try it from the other end. Trace it backward. That's the easy way to do a maze, too. You start from the finish. Come on, let's be smart about this.

A number of years ago, San Luis Obispo County had problems with Sugar Peas or Snap Peas. Don't ask me the difference, it was a long time ago, and I stopped eating the peas because of it. It seems the field workers were "doing their business" in the fields, then continuing to pick. At least THAT's what I remember. I just remember that after that, the county made a requirement to have porta potties when picking produce. That is why you see them now, when you see field workers doing their thing. What about washing their hands? Is that a requirement?

You say that's too simple? Haven't you watched those TV news magazine shows like 20/20 and the others when they've done demonstrations on spreading bacteria? No, you just watch the ones where they trap the pervs after young girls. Anyway, they spray some harmless bacteria that are blacklight reactive  in a couple places, and see how far it goes. Pretty soon it is all over the place. On and in the fridge, the kids, the food, everywhere. Don't scratch yourself there! The people get disgusted, and you forget about it. That shows how easy it happens.

How is this stuff getting into the marketplace? Maybe inspectors are overworked. Maybe unions just want to get the government to hire more inspectors, and they can get more union dues. Maybe some inspectors just don't care. Maybe they don't like their jobs. Maybe they are incompetent. It can't be THAT many inspectors, can it? Besides, what do you look for?

Is there a magical way to tell if a tomato has salmonella? Does it look a little green behind the gills? Does it look nauseous? How does an inspector tell there is something wrong with the produce? Is there a little vial test like the cops use to tell if someone is carrying meth with them? Let's spray the tomatoes with some magical fluid and check it with a blacklight like on CSI.

I know it is already bad enough that they have to approve a whole cargo container of produce to come into this country or the grocery chain based on testing a couple pieces out of one or two boxes, or so I have been led to believe from the last time we had a scare like this. They tell horror stories about loads that come in with minimum of testing. We don't need horror stories about produce. There is enough out there without it.

Heck, if the average person went into the kitchen of their favorite restaurant and looked under everything, they wouldn't eat out any more. It is up to the stores, restaurants, sandwich shops, or wherever, to wash these things thoroughly. Do you wash YOUR produce well? Hot water. All it would take is some preparation at the place that is putting the tomatoes on my sandwich. But then again, how many of them aren't washing their hands after the restroom too?

Darn poop hands.

The Opinionator

Inside the 'family' yard, the tomatoes are wilting even though they are getting water. When they do sprout a fruit, again, the mockingbirds. I think I can net the plants and maybe save a few. My gladiolas are sprouting regularly, but a couple of the darker ones seem to be suffering the heat. The white ones are flashing their big showy blooms and grace my kitchen daily. They were so prolific this year I am going to have to figure out how and when to seperate the bulbs and move some of them. Peppers and squash seem to be all that are doing well enough, I'm to the point where the peppers are now going in the freezer.

As for the front yard - well, the cannas are still being eaten but they keep trying to come up. That's one plant I never thought I would have trouble growing. All the other plants - ice plants, salvia, petunias, zinnias - are mostly history due to rabbits and deer, and probably that squirrel. No, I'm not going to shoot them (you noticed the 'guns' in my title?).

The plants doing the best however, are my new aloe veras, mosquito plant, authentic hawaiian pineapple (It's almost two feet tall!) and the ginger root.

 The new herb gardens (3 weeks old) seem to be hanging in there and staying alive, but not much measureable growth. I'm enjoying the various teas I've concocted along with my normal hibiscus, peach, rose & mints. I made a cooling rub for my shoulder out of emu oil and lavendar - it was soothing, but not as effective as the emu/capsacian combo. If you haven't ever tried the emu oil, add it to your list to experiment with. For some reason, it soaks deeper into your pores and allows other chemicals (or herbs on my part) to sink in further. By applying emu oil followed by a pepper rub, it makes an extremely effective muscle/joint pain reliever.

 At least one hummingbird is still hanging tough and the lizards gather under one feeder and lap up the sap. I had to laugh tonite as I watered one particular garden when there was a gecko stampede. They were running over my foot and up the wall, looked like someone had stepped on a fire ant mound! Good thing I like these little guys or I'd have gone screaming (and barefoot - don't tell my doc!) into the field of dry grass and probably some new stickers.

So who is going to win - gardens - or nature? I fully expect when I leave town for a week, and return and leave again for two weeks - that nature will win the battle.

Now, for the guns. I'm not a gun buff or militant - I'm a shooting sports instructor with a healthy respect for ethics and safety. Tonite I'm reorganizing the gun safe, somewhat, and making sure all the guns I've used this year have been locked away with a little gun oil. I was amazed how many of our own personal guns I've used the past few months for various classes, and it doesn't include the ones I am occassionally provided to use with certain events. From our own stockpile, I had used 3 shotguns, three 22's, 3 pellets, 2 BB's, the Muzzleloader and even the 243 rifle. I have to now dig out from two different gun safes a couple of hand guns to practice on. I was pleased to find a somewhat limited model hand gun at a local sporting goods store that I need to practice with. I didn't BUY the thing - just wanted to feel it and see how to break it down since I'll be working with it in a few weeks. Meanwhile, I have a revolver here and my personal favorite  James Bond gun to practice with. Both guns are similar to what I'll be teaching with, so should do well enough to practice with. I think I will try to find a couple of my girl friends (or if all else fails, my poor son) and teach them how to shoot a pistol. That means load, unload, breakdown, clean, then practice different holds and stance. After that, if they want, we can go to the gun range (remember the temps here? OUCH!) and get in some live firing.

Happy Father's Day, Dad - wherever you are. I love and miss you.

Guanabee.com noticed it too, and it is kind of funny to see Manuel Uribe (who you have to admire for trying to live a normal life) with those tomatoes, but -- living in Sinaloa, where if it wasn't for tomato exports, our local farmers would be having to grow still more marijuana for the U.S. market -- it can make you a little testy to see a disaster to our local economy being used for a cheap joke.  Anyway, if Sinaloa tomatoes made people sick, why didn't Sinaloa marijuana?

Not being a Mexican, and not overweight (just the opposite, I need to gain a couple kilos), I can't say... but is this just a cheap insult at Uribe's expense (who knows damn well he's really, really fat -- and deals with it), or not so hidden racism... or just bone-headed?  Do tomatoes make you fat?

The world is in grave danger.

Hang on race fans - it's time for another left turn away from the goofy and a fast drive straight to the darkness.

Civilization as you and I know it cannot go on for much longer in its current state.

This has NOTHING to do with global warming or the Middle East or the dangers of tainted tomatoes.

We are killing ourselves by allowing the world to become a place devoid of HEROES.

When I was a child I was a super hero.

I cannot tell you how many times my ass was kicked stepping in front of a bully in an effort to protect his victim. Seriously, I can't tell you. Many times. And it sucked. I wasn't very big and it was a long time before I actually learned to cash the checks my mouth likes to write. But I never stopped because it always FELT like the RIGHT thing to do.

Today I see You Tube videos of kids ambushing each other and marketing it like part of a brutal resume to get hired on the Joker's crew. I never hear about anybody trying to stop them. Everybody wants to be the bad guy. Nobody wants to be the hero.

I hear parents bitch about the schools and the video games and the tv shows and what a bad role model Britney Spears is but I NEVER hear about a kid getting a beating trying to STOP this bullshit.

When my wife was 8 months pregnant we came upon a group of teenagers who had just had a minor car accident on a desolate road in the middle of the night. The group who had rear ended the other were menacing the younger drivers in an effort to intimidate them inot not calling the police. I pulled my truck to the side of the road and got out to assist.

One of them looked me in the eye and told me that I should get back in the truck as it was none of my business and I "didn't want any part of that action."

I did the only thing I could think to . I told him I was a cop and that if he spoke to me that way again I would bust his mouth open and make his retarded friends carry his broken ass home to his drunken mother. Then I flipped open my cell phone and called for "back up".

Thankfully the mood changed. Suddenly they had always planned to call the cops and it was a "misunderstanding". The boys in the car that had been hit were eternally grateful and I was strangely calm considering.

My wife was PISSED. ANGRY. VERY ANGRY. Maybe as angry as I have ever seen her.

She expressed the opinion that in our new family state my responsibility now was to HER safety and the safety of our child. By acting as I did, I put them both at risk unnecessarily.

She was right. I could have just called the police from my car without the dramatic showdown . . . but how many people wouldn't even do THAT?

Did you see the video of the old man in Connecticut that got hit by a car and left in the road for over 5 minutes before ANYONE even tried to stop traffic?

6 years later we were camping in Hershey PA when some back woods freak show with 3 teeth and a dream punched his girlfriend in the face 35 feet away and in direct line of sight of my daughter. My child looked at me to make some sense of what had just happened. . . She was scared of what she had seen and proceeded to say something that I will never forget.

"Dad you have to stop him." My 6 year old daughter understood it. She got it. She gets it and that son of a bitch at the campsite was lucky to get out with a night in jail because I held a sledge hammer at arms length of him with EVERY intention of taking his head off with it.

And my wife was totally cool with it. Which was nice because she could probably take me in a fair fight

Everyday when my daughter says her prayers she includes the following passage:

"Please give me the courage to stand up for those who are weaker than me and the strength to do the right thing even when it's hard."

That is incredible to me.  Imagine if we all aimed just for that.  Hell even for half of that.

We joke around on this site about Super hero issues and capes under our clothes. I'm telling you right now - I would have it no other way. I am willing to take the face shot for you if you need me to.

I did not tell you this story to brag about what a bad ass I am or tell you how incredible my daughter is (though she certainly is.)

All I'm saying in my meandering - all over the place , slightly more dramatic than necessary style is this:

If we all teach our children to be heroes, there will be less villains and fewer victims.

It ain't rocket science.

Now somebody make a joke about how old Indiana Jones is.

Had 12" tomato plants, 6" peppers in various varieties, 4" brocolli, cabbage, celery, various herbs and cauliflower. I knew I needed to get them in before we left. At least a week before and let see how they did. Up to this point, I had been putting them out during the day, a couple of nights that were warm. One day whilest planting other seeds, my 4 year old, or "the middle child" as she calls herself, decided to feed all my plants, including flowers that had not been planted yet. She added 5 Tbls of Miracle Grow to two gallons of water and had at it. 

She's such a sweet girl and helper my "middle child", but she's also very independant and very smart with a memory like a steel trap.  I think its her smarts that is her undoing at this age.  Anyway... I digress.

Immediately, I poured quite a bit of water on all of the plants to dilute the fertilizer. Worked for some, not for others. The tomatos were hard hit. By the time I put them in the garden, which I hated to do after the trauma, they had started coming back.

We left for vacation. The tomatos looked pretty good. Leggy, from all the clipings I did do get rid of dead stuff, but that didn't bother me. It seems each year because of surprise freezes I'm always doing quite a bit of "pruning" at the beginning of their growing season. Doesn't ever seem to keep them from turning into giants. Literally.

We left and while we were gone it rained everyday. Alot. With hail. We've had 13 days of rain. I knew there would be some casualties. I was pleasantly surprised at what was doing well still. Lettuce, brocolli, cabbage, cauliflower, strawberries.

The seeds, carrot, chard, spinach, kholrabi, beets and beans had come up, much to my amazement.Not all in great shape, but most of them surviving. We are south facing on a slope. Let's say that even with my numerous ditches above rows, that there was erosion and rivulets.

I've read my books and hit the internet and I know a lot now about blight and fungus.  My concerns currently are this, and I'm hoping you kind people can give me some tips;

Tomatos- Splotchy brown crackly, curling leaves, with holes here and there. At the top small tight clusters of dark green leaves. When I did my snipping I noticed that the leaves and stems at the main stem are still very green inside. Our warm weather is back as of tomorrow, will sun heal these poor vegies?

Royal Purple Bush Beans- These I had just planted the seeds when we left. They came up, hit 2 inches and now look similar to the tomatos but much, much worse off. Splotchy brown crackly.

Peppers- A very sick split green color. The leaves do not have damage such as rips and curling, but look as if the hail made some holes. The hail was hard on my seedling. Again, I'm hoping sun will heal these poor fellas too.

Oh, I'd love to hear your ideas. I'm feeling very poorly about all of this. So much hard work.

I will put in the pole beans, pole peas, corn, cucumbers  and squash this weekend. My mother says its too late, I say thank goodness I didn't put them in with the rest. The short growing season up here in the mountains can be a challenge.

Background on garden- this is new site on our property. As I said above, it is South facing, sun all day and is on a slope. Tomatos up top, beans and peppers in the middle next to each other. My husband, the soil specialist (really, it's his job), says we have a sandy loam, "perfect for both retention and drainage". You'll see in the photos that I sprinkled a general vegetable fertilizer. This I used on the whole garden & have used this kind and brand the last three years.

My poor sick tomatos. I got rid of the really bad leaves and stems. These I left. I see freeze and then the yellowing.

...and my baby beans @ 2 weeks.

...all of the peppers, regardless of variety look like this.

Tomatoes are Sinaloa's largest legal export crop -- there's even a tomato on the state's license plate (you were expecting maybe a marijuana leaf?).  In El Debate this morning, several growers were openly speculating that blaming Mexican tomato growers for the salmonella outbreak in the U.S. might have more to do with agricultural protectionism than anything else.  It makes some sense to me.  "Med flies" -- which were the big agricultural issue several years ago -- were cited as a rationale for keeping Michoacan avocados out of the U.S. ... even though the Mediterranean fruit fly can't live at the altitudes where avocados grow in Michoacan (and the insect isn't found anywhere in the state).

I also wondered if blaming the growers and the pickers might have something to do with union busting.  Burger King, and their bankers, Goldman-Sachs, have been doing everything possible to undo the affront of having to deal with the tomato pickers' union.

The PBS News Hour reported yesterday (transcript here) that so far salmonella cases (which are only serious if you have a surpressed immune system -- which tomatoes, with their high vitamin C content, keep healthy) have been traced back to New Mexico and Texas.  Given that the only way tomatoes could be contaminated is from being washed in water contaminated with snake shit (really!), it's more likely to have happened at a packing plant than anywhere else.

And, in Mexico, you wash your raw veggies in soap and water -- or, if you're really, really careful, spray them with anti-bacterial stuff (can't think of the name, but it's in every supermarket) -- before you eat them anyway. Actually, in Mexico, where you never assume the state managed to resolve all life's little problems -- you wash your hands before you handle food.  Go in the smallest mom-n-pop hole in the wall greasy cuchilla, and there's a sink in the corner for you to wash up before you eat.  The whole salmonella scare may just come down to the gringo assumption that their food is protected.

So, last night for supper, I had a cheeseburger.  The Nuevo Leon beef should be free of mad cow (something you can't say about U.S. beef).  Since you can't make a decent "hamburgesa" without jalepeños -- and anything that survives a jalepeño would have probably killed you otherwise, the only real danger (besides the cholesterol) might have been  unpasteurized Chihuahua Mennonite cheese .  Sure as hell wasn't the tomatoes.  Which were delicious.

And while I was taking pictures of my bag I snapped one of little Turner...he's so furry right now!

ApertureFNumber: f/18.0
Make: Canon
Model: Canon EOS 5D
ExposureTime: 1/125
FNumber: 18/1
ExposureProgram: 1
ISOSpeedRatings: 100
MeteringMode: 5
Flash: 16
FocalLength: 100/1

Description:
Lovely housewife with scoop in retro style

Keywords: (Report | Suggest)
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]]> http://walkaboutnyc.wordpress.com/?p=6 Sun, 25 May 2008 17:00:18 +0000 reconbot http://walkaboutnyc.wordpress.com/?p=6 Learning how to cook is fun and delicious.

You can find this recipe over at Cookagraphy!

]]> http://thegoodliferedux.wordpress.com/?p=27 Mon, 12 May 2008 12:11:04 +0000 Bob http://thegoodliferedux.wordpress.com/?p=27 Well the chance to move to the North of Scotland fell through so the thought of using the garden as not just a place to store my potato plants has came flooding back.

photo credit: southgeist

Between our front garden basically being a moss bed and our back garden being a sodden lump of clay we have our work cut out for us. I've always known the front garden, under the living room window at least, was very shallow. I had a great deal of trouble planting the roses last summer as I just couldn't find anywhere that didn't have hardcore or concrete less than 6 inches under the surface. With this in mind I set about building a raised flower bed under the window to give the plants something to grow into. I think it's not bad but it could have been built far stronger if I'd thought about it more. For instance the top soil is pushing the frame out from the wall as I only built 3 sides to it and didn't anchor the corner pegs in well enough. It seems to have settled down now though and after a friday night of planting bedding plants at 10pm with my wife it looks not bad. Now we just have to hope the grass seed we sowed comes through OK and helps cover up the mess that was made. Thats one tonne of topsoil used up and 2 more to go. I'll get those bags moved from the side of my house one of these days. Vonnie also tried to plant our cherry tree thats been languishing on our patio since last summer. Every place we come up with to plant it ends up having problems. We have a corner of our garden that the kids use as a short cut all the time and that has worn away the grass over the years and we hoped that by planting the tree they'd stop cutting that corner but as we found out the shallow topsoil covers our whole garden and not just under the window.

In the back garden we chopped down the rest of the hedge and hired a chipper so that we could use the waste on the chicken run floor as well as a mulch for the rest of the garden. We were expecting a small almost useless shredder for the price we were paying but as the hire company had got a new model in they gave us that for the same price. For an electric shredder it was a beast and my hands and arms are covered in small cuts from the branches as it ate them up. That will teach me not to wear gardening gloves and long sleeves! We were caught out with the weekend hire though and so only managed two thirds of the hedge but we plan on burning the rest over the coming week.

On Saturday we decided to build up the kids swing set which had been hidden in our loft for the last 18 months. Everything was going fine until we had all the sections laid out and had started building it. The rain started. Then the thunder came. I'm not sure just how safe building a metal frame in my garden which backs on to an electrical substation during the thunder storm is. Needless to say I panicked a bit when the first flash of lightning came.

My cucumber and tomato plants are are coming on well but unfortunately the fw that I managed to plant outside really didn't like the weather last week and didn't make it. My pepper and chilli plants are coming along now although they are still very slow in growing. As for the potatoes, I only planted 4 tubs as I ran out of containers but they are growing like wildfire. I'm having trouble giving them enough water I think as they just soak it up.

]]> http://rosemarylambchops.wordpress.com/?p=5 Mon, 05 May 2008 12:11:04 +0000 celestephua http://rosemarylambchops.wordpress.com/?p=5

It is really simple to make good pasta. The key is to keep it simple, nothing fanciful.

Ingredients:

• Any fresh pasta or you can get the dried ones
• Fresh sausages (uncooked ones - many types available at Cold Storage) or minced meat (season them)
• Basil
• Chopped Onion
• Canned Tomatoes
• Optional: Leftover Wines (Don't waste them!)

Step 1:

Boil water for the pasta. Dependent on the type of pasta, dry ones will take longer to cook so you might want to boil the pasta earlier. Fresh pasta takes a max of 8 min to cook, so i suggest putting fresh pasta in after Step 3.

Step 2:

This may sound gross: Squeeze out the fillings of the sausage into little meatballs. Stir fry it in a hot pan with olive oil. If you have oregano or rosemary or thyme, dump them in while frying will give the meat an extra boost in flavor. COVER the pan with the meat... they splatter... a lot!

Step 3:

Pick out the leaves from the basil, separating the leaves from the stems. Chop up the basil leaves and set aside. Chop up the basil stems and throw them with the chopped onions into the meat to cook. When you see the onion turning soft and a bit transparent, dump in chopped basil with canned tomatoes and squash tomatoes into small pieces in the pan with what ever u are using to stir fry (careful not to spoil your non stick frying pan). Allow to simmer while the pasta cooks.

Step 4:

When the pasta is done, add the pasta immediately into the simmering sauce, stir and allow to simmer for 2 min MAX.

Step 5:

Serve the pasta on a nice white plate and garnish with either leftover basil leaves or you can serve it with freshly shaved Paramesan cheese.

YUMMY!!!

]]> http://amryn.wordpress.com/?p=28 Mon, 28 Apr 2008 00:30:02 +0000 amryn http://amryn.wordpress.com/?p=28   My Garlic Chives

 Mom's Peppers

 My New Tomatos

 Budding Lilac

]]> http://musclerob.wordpress.com/?p=47 Sun, 06 Apr 2008 11:52:39 +0000 musclerob http://musclerob.wordpress.com/?p=47 Lycopene is a powerful antioxidant abundant in red tomatoes and processed tomato products (tomato juice).

Scientific research has discovered that lycopene may help prevent prostate cancer and some other forms of cancer, heart disease, and other serious diseases.

Research shows that lycopene in tomatoes can be absorbed more efficiently by the body if processed into juice, sauce, paste and ketchup. The chemical form of lycopene found in tomatoes is converted by the temperature changes involved in processing to make it more easily absorbed by the body.

Regular high consumption of fruits and vegetables is recommended as part of healthy eating.

]]> http://artbystrongheart.wordpress.com/?p=178 Wed, 19 Mar 2008 12:54:00 +0000 artbystrongheart http://artbystrongheart.wordpress.com/?p=178 The Good! Three more tomato plants have popped.

The Bad. Eight (8) inches of rain here yesterday. It is supposed to quit today for a short while, but the only looks of sun in the next 10 days is a few hours on Saturday.

The Ugly. There is a three-way tie between my soggy yard, the amount of driving I see myself doing in the next few days for meetings, etc. and what I saw in the mirror this morning.

Here's hoping your day (and mine!) goes well.

http://artbystrongheart.wordpress.com

]]> http://willowbridgelandscapdesign.wordpress.com/?p=38 Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:34:07 +0000 willowbridge http://willowbridgelandscapdesign.wordpress.com/?p=38 There's lots to consider when planning a vegetable garden, any gardener who has one can tell you. But one important aspect that might not make the garden to do list is adding 'friends'. Adding friends (or what's sometimes called companion planting) isn't something you do so the plants have someone to share a laugh with at 3:00 in the morning; it's for protection. Think of these friends as tiny bodyguards, willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of your dinner. These friends are simply other plants that attract little critters away from your vegetables. Love cabbage, but hate the caterpillars that help themselves to the all you can eat cabbage buffet? Plant nasturtiums next to your cabbage, the nasturtiums draw will be too much for a caterpillar to resist, affectivity leaving the cabbage crop to its rightful owner. The same thing can be said about aphids attacking tomatoes, only instead of nasturtiums use French marigolds. With a little research you can reduce many pests from your garden without an ounce of labor or pesticide which seems to me to be the best way to garden!

]]> http://caseykins.wordpress.com/?p=7 Wed, 12 Mar 2008 16:58:16 +0000 caseykins http://caseykins.wordpress.com/?p=7 It's been daylight savings time now for 17 hours and already I feel the sun baked vigor of summer creeping into my bones.  I planted a garden last week, quickly wiping the backyard of the air of death stagnating in the corners, left over from that cat corpse I found about a month ago.  It was strange and wonderful to me how quickly my backyard was transformed.  A couple of hours hard manual labor, a few tomato plants, and my backyard is no longer the city of weeds.  It's a real backyard, where you want to have a party and barbecue, spend the afternoon sunning yourself, or spend another afternoon digging in the dirt. 

I have garden plans.  I'm putting a flower garden in the back corner of the yard, and I'm filling it with all sorts of amazing and beautiful plants.  Don’t ask me what those plants are yet, but it's getting done and it will be spectacular.  I have decided.  My main problem right now is that it's a shady spot that gets literally NO sun during the day, and I don't like many shade plants.  There aren't many shade plants to like, for that matter. 

I thought I had the black thumb of death, as far as plants are concerned.  Every living chlorophyll creature I've taken care of to date has died a crisp death of brownness in a rock-hard (yet attractive) pot.  I think I'm the only human being on earth who has ever killed a cactus.  His prickliness died a soggy death of over watering- overcompensation, perhaps, for my previous attempts at keeping things alive.  It may be a sign of my increased maturity that I can be responsible enough to water plants nearly every day, because I've had a beautiful pot of pansies since Valentine's Day, and they are growing and thriving like no other plants I've ever owned.  Lovely.  Who knew I had it in me?

It's nice to know this side of me is still there.  I used to love helping my mother out in the garden when my sister and I were youthful girls still living as a family with a parent or two, as the case may be.  Then I was only ephemerally responsible.  I could plant and dig to my heart's desire and not have to keep anything alive.  That was someone else's job.  I love it still, and my biggest disappointment is going out into the yard each day and seeing no visible changes since the day before.  When I really sit and think, things have grown a lot over time, it's just hard to notice when you're out there every day.  

If you need me I'll be out in the sun, sweaty and mud flecked with a trowel in my hand.  Hopefully the plants will thrive for a little longer, and my black thumb of death will turn at least a vague shade of green.  We'll see!

]]> http://wererabbits.wordpress.com/?p=183 Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:34:33 +0000 wererabbits http://wererabbits.wordpress.com/?p=183

Something simple, but nice. The rice mix is the same as before, but a new batch - I ran out of jasmine rice to mix it with, therefore this batch is darker.
The salmon is simply sprinkled with salt and lemon pepper and grilled on a foreman grill. So is the asparagus (timesaving, right?). Tomato salad with red onions, olive oil, white wine vinegar and basil. Hollandaise from a packet.

Dessert (not very easy to see here) is the last of the pumpkin pie, a few peanuts and some sticks of sugared ginger. And a konpeitou.

]]> http://whyamistilltyping.wordpress.com/?p=80 Sat, 01 Mar 2008 23:01:10 +0000 whyamistilltyping http://whyamistilltyping.wordpress.com/?p=80 Well two recipes in less than a week, let no-one accuse me of being too focused on one subject area with my blog :) This is another recipe that I just made up and it turned out better than I expected so I thought I would share it.

What is it ? Very simply it is a rice (although pasta would work) dish with meatballs in tomato sauce and it is extremely easy to make.

UPDATE: I made it a few more times and it works much better with a few alterations. Firstly, use beef not pork. Secondly, make smaller sized meat balls as the cook better. Thirdly, powder 1/2 a vegetable stock and sprinkle over mixture of beef and onions along with small amounts of salt and pepper. If you have any around, gently drizzle a small amount of Peri Peri sauce over the mixture. Mix together well before compressing into meatballs. 

The following will serve 2:

500g Lean Pork Mince (Although Beef should work too with a few tweaks)

1 Large red onion

1 Can of chopped tomatoes

1 Vegetable stock cube

50ml Olive Oil

200g Brown rice

2x Pita bread

One spring onion

Oregano and Coriander

Chop up the red onion into very fine pieces (smaller the better) and gently fry for 10/15mins until soft. At this point I removed the onions from the pot and placed them on a plate. Take the mince and gentle mix the onions and mince until you get a nice even mix.

Take the mixture and compact in your hands to form small/medium sized balls, apply as much pressure as you can as this will be important later. I made about ten meatballs from my mince although they were on the large side. Lightly add Oregano and Coriander to each meat ball. Add these to oil (1/2mm in bottom of frying pan) and fry. It is important that you turn the meatballs frequently so they are cooked throughout and so they do not burn, you have to be careful or they might fall apart on you.

Once the meatballs are cooked thoroughly on the outside, leave simmering in oil while you make the tomato sauce. This is extremely easy, take 100ml of water and add a stock cube. When it has dissolved under heat, add a tin of tomato sauce and a bit of tomato puree stirring well. Leave this mixture on medium heat for at least ten minutes. Also start to cook a normal rice portion for two people, I recommend brown rice but feel free to use anything.

Once you are confident the meat balls are completely cooked through and through (cut one in half carefully) remove and drain the oil. Once this is done, add the tomato sauce and meatballs and cook it down for about ten minutes until the tomato mixture thickens.

Serve, adding chopped spring onion either into the sauce at the end, or just sprinkling over the top for the served dish and add a toasted pita bread to the side.

]]> http://patrioticactivist.wordpress.com/?p=61 Sat, 09 Feb 2008 15:42:21 +0000 John http://patrioticactivist.wordpress.com/?p=61

]]> http://willowbridgelandscapdesign.wordpress.com/2008/02/04/gardening-quote-4/ Mon, 04 Feb 2008 16:57:42 +0000 willowbridge http://willowbridgelandscapdesign.wordpress.com/2008/02/04/gardening-quote-4/ Tomatoes and squash never fail to reach maturity. You can spray them with acid, beat them with sticks and burn them; they love it. ~S.J. Perelman, Acres and Pains, 1951

]]> http://eatright.wordpress.com/?p=15 Sun, 13 Jan 2008 19:36:15 +0000 Bruce C http://eatright.wordpress.com/?p=15 Well, I don't mean to eat ALL of these fruits every day, but mix your colors and get at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day.

These greens can help you with your antioxidant in take, which is good for heart disease and aging among other health issues:

Avocados

• Green grapes
• Kiwifruit
• Broccoli
• Green peppers
• Spinach
• Asparagus
• Brussels sprouts
• Green beans
• Zucchini
• Green peas
• Snow peas

Most of these are delicious, but in case you cannot acquire a taste for them, dip them in fat free ranch dressing or even better, vinigar. Basalmic is my favorite.

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