Sunberry the Wonderberry

I love fruits but the hard thing about growing fruits is you usually have to wait several years after planting before you get edible fruits from the bush or tree. However earlier this year I came across one that can be grown from seed in one season. It's called a sunberry. I planted three plants and they have grown like crazy. So far they have had no pest or disease problems and seem to require average water. I also have some scarlet runner beans that are growing through them and it doesn't seem to bother them one bit. They are also planted pretty close together.

My son accidentally dragged the water hose over the plants yesterday and I realized that some of the berries were ripe. The berries closest to the ground ripen before the outer ones and they hide under the leaves. They are smaller than a blueberry and deep purple in color when ripe. They do take awhile to pick as they are so small. I picked about 1/2 lb in 20 minutes. When eaten fresh they have a slight citrus flavor. Ok, but not outstanding. I checked online to see what could be done with them and found they could be cooked just like blueberries. So I made these beautiful muffins from a recipe I found on Yahoo.

They were amazing. The flavor was just like perfect sweet blueberries. I don't know if anyone could tell the difference if I had a taste test with a blueberry muffin. These are just amazing plants and it's definitely something I will grow again next year.

rain rain and more rain

It has rained for three days and the garden has exploded the last few days.

This is not the best pictures as it is still raining. But I wanted to show how big everything is getting. We are still eaiting alot of kale and lettuce. But we had a few green beans the other day and there are tomatoes on my tomato plants. The zucchini and yellow squash are huge and I think the corn grew a foot this week alone. There is green everywhere.

Bridal Shower

She was the first newborn baby I ever remember holding in my arms. I was 12 and there are pictures of me holding her tiny body. I played with her and babysat her until I grew older and moved away to live my own life. Officially she is my second cousin, the granddaughter of my father's sister. I have a ton of cousins, including second, third and fourth cousins. Yesterday was her bridal shower. She seems so young as she has always been a tiny girl and in my mind I still see the child that I used to swing around in circles. It is strange to see someone grow up.

I sat in a group of women all related to me. Cousins and aunts that had spent countless years together. We talked about our lives growing up and our lives now. Many of my cousins have children of their own and there was a range of daughters from 19 to 6. The youngest ones were dressed in their pretty little summer dresses and they helped carry gifts that were as big as they were. My godmother was there. I hadn't seen her in years, but her daughter is one of the bridesmaids and it was amazing to see her all grown up, willowy and beautiful. It was a time for women and girls and a time for memories and laughter.

planting planting and more planting

I love to plant. I fill my beds with everything I can find. Today I added more lettuces, some asian greens, a few pepper plants, a range of basil and some borage. One of these days I will run out of room in the yard and I'll have to start planting at other people's homes just to satisfy my urge to plant stuff. I just love to watch the plants come up and I get so excited when I get to taste some new interesting foods.

Wine Monday on Wednesday

Ok So I am a few days late on this. I would have posted it on Monday but the Gallo brands were still on sale and I had two bottles to finish. I finally bought a bottle of German white wine yesterday. I like German wines. They tend to be cheap, light and refreshing. I tried a 2006 Schmitt Sohne Liebfraumilch. It's a good thing I don't have to pronouce the wines, I just have to drink them. At only $5.99 a bottle, I was impressed. It must have been really good because I drank almost the entire bottle and barely had enough left to refresh my taste buds as I write this. I like wines that I can just sip after dinner. This was like a crisp pear, slightly tangy but very good. This would also be a good picnic wine as it has a screw cap instead of a cork.

Sometimes they die

A little over three years ago my husband and I got our first place together. When we made the decision to move in together he insisted on a place where we could have a garden. I was a bit skeptical because I claimed to have a black thumb that could kill just about anything. But I learned that first year that plants often grow even when I am taking care of them. Since then I have learned more about how to take care of plants so that they produce even more and I am excited to get more and more out of my garden. But I have also learned that no matter what I do, sometimes my plants end up looking like this.....

I don't know what happened to it. It was my biggest and most beautiful cabbage plant. It had the same amount of water as the other cabbage plants. It doesn't appear that the slugs ate it. It just drooped and died within a few days. Things like this has taught me the importance of planting many different varieties of vegetables. Some days, for no apparent reason, seeds don't sprout or plants just die. It's just how life in a garden goes.

A child's recipe

I bought my son his first cookbook this weekend. It's called Cooking with Herb, the Vegetarian Dragon. It's a funny little book with some decent recipes. Kaydn wanted to make something from it last night and I just couldn't find anything that we had all the ingredients for since I had depleted most of the general ingredients before we left for the weekend. It had allot of recipes that would be good this summer when we have fresh tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. So instead Kaydn decided to make up his own recipe. He wanted to make potato soup, but we only had 1 potato and we had already had potato soup this weekend, then he wanted to make eggplant soup but we really didn't have anything to go with it. Then he decided on mashed potatoes but I had to tell him we only had one potato and it wouldn't make enough. At this point he burst into tears and cried that I wouldn't make any of his recipes. I normally don't give into fits, but this was more broken hearted than fit throwing so I said we'd see what we could do.





"How about adding some carrots to the mashed potatoes?" I gently suggested.


" Ok." he brightened up and quit crying. "I'll write down the recipe." He wrote "The Most Amazing Smash Potatoes"


1 potatoe


3 carits





"How about we add some cabbage?" I suggested.


"Ok"


He added 2 q cabbage to the list.


" I think we should add some radishes" He said. I wasn't so sure about the radishes but what the heck it wouldn't hurt it. So 5 radishes were added to the list of ingredients. We sliced the potato and added it to a pot of water and brought it to a boil. Then we sliced the carrots and added them to the pot. We let them cook together until they had started to soften and then added 1/4 of a small cabbage and the diced radishes. We let them cook for another 15 minutes until everything was tender. We drained the water off and put all of the vegetables into the food processor. We added 2 tablespoons of butter, 1/2 cup of cheddar cheese and about 1/4 cup of milk. We added 1 tablespoon of roasted garlic and salt and pepper to taste and then pulsed it in the food processor until it was creamy but still a little chunky.



Here's what it looked like.






GONE!!!


It was delicious. Creamy from the potato, sweet with the carrots and cabbage. And it's my son's first recipe. I can't wait to see what his next one is.