Falling behind at keeping up!

I am constantly amazed by how fast life moves!  There are so many things that happen that never get told about. So here's what we have been up to lately, and most of it is NOT gardening related.

In February we took a little ski break to Big Bear and taught the little one how to ski. He had a blast!  The worst complaint? He couldn't keep his hands warm.

Happy!

Then a trip to Disneyland before spring break (and March Madness) rolls around and it is mobbed. We decided to try a different approach this time and just drive up and down in the same day. It was our best trip yet. We were amazed at how easily we managed to leave the house and how smoothly everything went, and we saved ourselves lots of cash in a hotel and eating out. We will definitely be doing it this way in the future.

We stayed until it was bedtime for the boys.

And on the running front a few friends and I participated in the inaugural Safari Half Marathon. I think I have taken running to a new level of lazy.  I have been to the park before, and I wasn't driving up, so I looked at nothing prior to the actual race.  I had a friend tell me where the bib pick up was and car-pooled with another friend to the race.  So the whole course was pretty much a mystery to me. And man..... it was HILLY!  My legs were still weak 6 days later when I did my group run. It was a mostly pretty course, but not very nice smelling. And the mist over the flamingos was so pretty!



Simon, Gaby, me and Marvin at the start.



Flamingos

And this past weekend we had our 11th annual St Patrick's day party. We decided that we like hosting parties because we like to be around people, but we hate going places.  It's a sad truth!  On the menu was corned beef (of course), mashed potatoes, cabbage, potato leek soup, Irish whiskey cake (not made by me) and Irish coffee brownies (a new addition). As I was slicing the leeks for cleaning it occurred to me that leeks are basically big old spring onions in a way... so if replanting onion butts works to regrow onions.... will replanting leek butts work the same way?  Well into the soil they went. I'll let you know if it was a success or dismal failure in a few weeks.

And that's all that we have been doing lately. We had some last minute cancellations and now have a lot of leftover corned beef... so if you have any good recipes for leftover corned beef, send them my way?

Happy gardening all!

I'm grumpy

There's really no reason for it, I'm just grumpy. It's absolutely wonderful outside, my kids are mostly behaving and I just want to scream. Argg..... I am hoping that some down time with a good book and some gardening will help the grumps. 

So far we have gone as far as the planning stage of the side garden, now to actually acquire wood and soil for the bed before planting season passes me by. 

Enough griping already! Signs of spring are all around me.

 My potted peas are doing wonderful and we have lots of flowers that will soon be yummy peas. (and now of course I am contemplating purple podded peas.....)

 Kiddo's radishes are growing and being devoured. I need to do a second pot for them before he gets too far ahead of me.

 My tomato plant is huge for March.

And I can almost taste the fennel.

My first asparagus tip of the year has made it's appearance. 

And for my birthday, my boys bought me dwarf citrus trees!  (1 Eureka lemon and 1 Lime)

And now to get pots for my new trees and get some gardening done. Happy gardening friends!

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Yesterday I took the boys to one of my favorite stores, 99 Ranch Market. After spending 10 minutes looking for a parking spot and another 10 minutes trying to escape the parking lot to leave I stumbled upon a parking space and snatched it up! Which brings me back to to title of today's post. Happy Chinese New Year!  I'm 1/2 fake Chinese, which means I like the food and have the genes, but know nothing of the culture and do not speak the language. Hopefully the family and I can take a trip to China in the future and rectify at least part of my Chinese knowledge deficit.

I spend a strange afternoon today.  I've been in a  gardening funk (that's denial speak for LAZY) and haven't done much, so we started a garden clean-up yesterday.  Out went some plants that had bolted, in went fresh compost and onions. Today I attempted to continue the garden clean-up, and I found some good good stuff during my "work". 



The turnip greens I had planted we just supposed to be the leafy portion. But I am so happy that they bulked up and we now have turnips. I guess neglect is OK in plants?

 I pulled the sweet potato that I had decided wasn't doing much.  This plant started from a sweet potato I found budding under my kitchen counter. I stuck in the ground thinking "hey, let's see what happens." It was next to the Thai basil and coriander. The coriander had self seeded, so it was very very aromatic as I dug today.  I probably killed off 5 coriander plants in my attempt to find my sweet potatoes. When I had  checked the progress of the sweet potato plant in August, there was 1 measly small spud. And after months of neglect I found a great surprise!  I may even try to grow sweet potatoes again the right way this summer.

And sweet potatoes - a couple of
these are even "store" sized.


  

And in my "regular" harvest we had just two things:



My two little Sugar snap peas from my 1 pea plant and some habeneros

Did I mention how TINY they are?



All in all it was a fun and interesting day out there! I can't wait for spring (proper!).



Winning back space!

How do you organize?  I have two little ones under the age of 4 and we are slowly losing our house to toys! Well, we just bought the house so the kids would have more space, and we have managed to consolidate toys, but yowza!

We are managing to win back this room, and may even have it toyless by summertime.

We started out with the above room being the main kid/play area and we have slowly been moving everything to the wood room aka - our future dining room. (It is closer to the kitchen and I can keep an eye on the kids while puttering around in there).  As you can see, the toys have exploded.  No matter how many times I pick up, the kids just follow behind me and undo all my hard work.

I am thinking we need more of these little cubbies.

  

My SIL has a ton in her small living room to corral the kids toys, she has triplets that are all 1. All the toys are the same age group and she's not balancing two different sets of age appropriate toy ranges. I saw how organized everything was over the holidays and I am lusting after space and organization. But she's so much more OCD than I am.

How do you keep all of the kid's stuff organized?

Compost

For Christmas I was gifted with an opportunity to choose a composter for my home garden!  Now I have to buckle down and select one, so I need your help! 

I don't have a very large garden, and while I am hoping to expand this spring, I will never have a huge garden (yard limitations and all).  So what kind of composter do you have and why do you like it (or why don't you like it)?

I am leaning towards selecting this composter: http://www.stoneharborgarden.com/compost2.html

Recent Happenings

How is it that when family comes to visit, you always think "Man, I am going to have so much free time to garden, blog, exercise, etc." and it NEVER happens?  I was sure that I would have more time since there would be an extra pair (or two) of hands around. But with the family, holidays and Christmas shopping and baking I have had NO TIME!  Every Monday rolled around and I thought "I have to post about the harvest this week!" and next thing I know it's Tuesday (or in some casesWednesday).

Well...... Let's catch up then.


The rabbit ate all of my kale... all of it... down to the stumps. I had been putting off harvesting because I was feeling lazy. And I really wanted to try kale chips with home grown kale! Arg!!!!  I bought repellent that same day.

But thankfully I didn't pull the kale out and let it try to regrow. And boy has it!  This is what it looks like today.  Hopefully the rabbit repellent will work it's magic and we can eat this batch. YUM!

 And the kiddo's bok choy has been growing fabulously. We harvested 1 pound 5 oz from a single plant I am treating as a cut and come again plant.  And it's getting fuller every day, so I see more bok choy in my future.

I also harvested some tatsoi, but we ate it before getting a photo.

What else.... all the Christmas goodies have been shipped to the family and we finally have down time!  This year the tins included Black Forest Crinkles, Chai Shortbread, Snickerdoodles, Hazelnut Crunch, Peppermint bark, Peanut butter kisses cookies, and fudge. Oh My!  I did manage to not eat everything and gain an obscene amount of weight by telling myself for every cookie I ate I would have to run a mile to burn it off (except the chai shortbread, they are only 57 calories a cookie). So I only ate 5 cookies... so far! The big tins were shipped off, but here are some pictures of the little tins for close friends =)



Top layer - Fudge, Hazelnut Crunch and Peppermint bark




Bottom layer - Chai Shortbread, Snickerdoodles, Crinkles and Peanut Butter Kiss cookies



I love the holidays!

Mom's visit....Day 1

To start off the food fest (which I am going to need to seriously start running to combat or diet heavily between Dec. 1 until Christmas....) I picked up my Mom at the airport and we immediately went to Ranch 99. My Mom lives in a small-ish town in Florida and LOVES, LOVES, LOVES going to the Asian market here in San Diego. I spent the last week clearing out the fridge because I knew she would go absolutely crazy and buy out the produce section. Last Thanksgiving when my Mom came to visit, we were days away from moving, and had worked so hard to clear out the pantry and fridge only to have my Mom stock up again! ARGGGGG! This time I let her go nuts. 

We gave my Mom a quick tour of our little garden and Ryle showed her his favorite part... His yummy Bok Choy. Yes, he likes to nibble on it while it's still in the garden. What a NUT!

One of my Mom's favorite things to get is the Peking Duck from Sam Wong's at Ranch 99. She has even been known to buy some and bring it home frozen in a cooler. (Ryle inherited his nuttiness from her!) We had a late lunch of the Peking duck, and despite initial hesitation, Ryle loved the duck.  Gray had no hesitation at all. The boy can eat!

I didn't say he was a neat eater... Yes, he managed to get rice up his nose. And not to be out-done, Ryle demanded a photo. And he actually wasn't goofy about getting his picture taken!!!

Mom made a great stir-fry using an ingredient that I have often seen and have never know what to do with, Chinese Okra. It was delish!!! I can see making it more in the future and maybe even growing some Chinese Okra in the garden next summer. Tomorrow is a trip to the zoo, should be lots of fun. Happy gardening all!