San Antonio Week

What a great vacation! It was my mother and nephew's birthdays so we made a trip to San Antonio for a couple birthdays and lots of Tex-Mex food.  I hate Texas in August - it is just disgusting - UNBEARABLE WHO COULD LIVE HERE HEAT - however with a pool, LOTS  of air conditioning, BBQ ribs, puffy tacos, queso, guacamole, an unbelievable brunch ( Thank You Linda!) , lots of brain hemorrhage shots at my brother's nightclub Zombies and some outlet mall shopping in San Marcos - it was hmmmm tolerable.  However, United Airlines - the worst airlines ever! Exhausted, but Happy Birthday Mom!  Happy Birthday Devin!

Sookie Napping

Sookie is getting more mature and calm now that she is exiting her terrible twos.  However, she still hasn't mastered lady like sleeping behavior.  She sprawls wherever she feels comfortable.  She gets this from Tim.

DIY Herb Drying

When Tim and I were designing our gardens - it was essential that we had a herb garden right outside our back door.  What we love about summer cooking is being able to step outside the kitchen and pick any herb we would need for recipes.  In addition, we grow a lot of extra herbs for tea blends that we make and we added blueberry bushes and an apple and pear espalier.  We need to add raised lettuce beds out there next summer.  However, we started picking herbs to dry and store this past weekend.  The best thing about this is that we know that the herbs are pesticide free. 

For DIY dried herbs, simply do the following.

1. Harvest your herbs. Make sure you cut herbs in the morning, before the heat of the afternoon sun wilts the leaves.

2. Tie bundles of herbs together at the stems, using thin twine or ribbon.

3. Hang your bundles to dry in a cool, dark place. We hang dry our herbs in the basement or we use pasta racks in the kitchen.  Hang drying takes a week to a few weeks, depending on the moisture level of the herbs and moisture levels in the air. Check on your herbs every few days, and once they are dry and crumbly to the touch, remove any twigs or sticks and crush the leaves (you can use a fine sieve for this too).

4. Store your dried herbs in small glass jars with tight fitting lids or corks.  We like the jars with the chalkboard paint lids so you can write on them.

Garden Before and After

I have been looking at a number of before and after blogs for gardens and home remodeling and it just reminds me of how much work we have done over the past few years and how much has transformed.  This summer was a turning point and as a result of July 4th week and preparing - we got so much done.    Now it's time to just chill out for the balance of the summer and enjoy.

When we bought the property there was nothing on it - just a small clearing.  We had one cabin put on the property for camping and a second one for our friends to join us which then led to gardens , having the pond put in and eventually building the house.  Lots of work and lots of good times.

Bread and Butter Pickles

It's mid-Summer and it's time to start harvesting those vegetables.  Despite how hot it's been, we managed to still have a decent crop of cucumbers, potatoes, zucchini, tomatoes,  and onions.  We also need some new recipes.  I love Bread and Butter Pickles and I have been looking for a good recipe.  I am going to try this one this weekend but if anyone has a better one, email it to me.

Preparation Instructions

Mix everything together cold and store in covered container in refrigerator. 

It’s best to allow it to sit for about 5 days so the flavors can mingle. These keep for months. 

Ingredients

• 7 cubes Sliced, Unpeeled Cucumbers
• 1 cup Sliced Onion
• 1 cup Slice Green Peppers
• 1 cup Cider Vinegar
• 2 cups Sugar
• 1 Tablespoon Celery Seed
• 1 Tablespoon Salt

Alternative Composting Ideas

Tim and I are beyond frustrated with our composting efforts.  Every time, we build something to contain it - the bears and raccoons destroy it.  We have been looking for alternatives, some of which I have posted before like putting metal garbage cans in the ground but digging through the stone in our yard is impossible.  Here are a couple new ideas which we might try:

Trench Composting

Trench composting is as simple as it sounds: just dig a trench about 12" deep and fill it with 4"-6" of kitchen scraps before recovering with soil. Depending on the material and soil type, the scraps will usually take between one month and one year to break down. If you'll be regularly composting scraps using this method, you may want to develop a long-term plan for your garden. According to Colleen Vanderlinden at About.com, there are three general methods:

Trench Rotation

This is a method of incorporating organic matter into a garden a bit at a time while maintaining active growing and path areas. The general idea is that you divide your garden into three zones: a trench composting zone, a pathway zone, and a growing zone. Each year, you move the trench compost to a different part of the garden, and shift the paths and growing areas as needed. By the end of three years, you've got compost under every part of your garden bed, and you can start the rotation over again. If you like things very orderly, this is probably the method for you.

Trenching Between Rows

This works in any vegetable or annual garden in which you would plant in fairly regularly-spaced rows. Basically, plant your crops as usual. In the space between the rows, dig a trench to toss your compostables into. Fill the trench as you add materials, and it will break down and nourish the plants nearby.

"Dig and Drop"

This is the easiest way to do trench composting, and works even in perennial gardens and shrub borders. Say you've collected a large bowl of vegetable and fruit peelings. Simply take it into the garden, dig a 12" deep hole wherever you can find a spot, dump the kitchen waste in, and cover it over. It's fast, it's easy, and it requires very little digging.

In addition to no visible collection bin or odor, another advantage of trench composting is that the buried nutrients encourage a deeper, stronger root structure from nearby plants. The only downside - if you have a curious dog, this might not be the best method!

Building a Worm Tower

A worm tower not only enables worms do their work at composting, but it also helps them spread out and distribute the compost in your tank garden. This is such a low maintenance way of keeping nutrients cycling in your garden, and easy to put together.

All you'll need is a 3 or 4 foot piece of PVC piping (or a 12" concrete pipe) and a flower pot.

According to Ecofilms, be sure to use a food grade PVC pipe to avoid any chemical contamination - and the concrete pipe often works best. Punch holes in the side of the pipe. This is where the worms will travel back and forth between the compost and the garden patch.

Once you've got your pipe, the next step is to bury the tower half way down in your garden with half of the pipe sticking out the top.

Then, add some manure, compost worms (it's important to use compost worms), and secure with a flower pot lid. It's also important that you feed your worms every couple of days with vegetable scraps from your kitchen ... and voila! The worms will do the work for you!

COFFER SHORT FILM

I loved this short film from Lost and Found Films on a guy named John Coffer who now lives in NY.  It's from a series of short films called THIS MUST BE THE PLACE  that explore the idea of Home.

http://vimeo.com/28676720