I'm stuffed

As part of my goals this year I wanted to learn some new recipes.  Especially ones I could easily memorize and adjust based on what was in my fridge at the time. So this week I decided to stuff a few things. I made these simple stuffed bell peppers for dinner Sunday (FYI the sauce is the best part) and then sort of made these stuffed jalapenos for a BBQ today. I say sort of because as I started making the filling I realized I was only using 2 of the same ingredients and was adding a few of my own. So I can't vouch for this recipe as much as I can for the one I made up, but it was a yummy experiment.

I forgot to take a photo so here is theirs.

Oh and these jalapenos are from my garden.
Didn't get an after photo, but they looked awesome. 

How does your garden grow?

The garden is coming along very nicely. Well, at least for my garden. I was biking pass a house this weekend and looked at their garden then came home and looked at my garden...well let's just say her plants would eat mine. But my garden is producing, even if it ends up being really little I am happy with my first gardening attempt. Maybe I don't have a black thumb.

First jalapeno growing slowly but surely

I love bell peppers. I planted 3 variety, this is looking the best.

Oh Yeah! That is a bean.

I'm starting to see a few tomatoes on each of my plants.
But my cherry tomato plant is going crazy. Can't wait to eat them right of the vine.

This garden thing is great, lunch time

I am really enjoying this garden thing. The sprinklers have been doing great keeping all my plants alive. I give of few areas some extra water every few days, but really sprinklers are great. I have been coming home everyday and pulling any pesky weeds I find. Those vine weeds are the worst.
It was my brother's 30th bday on Monday (Happy Birthday Matt!) so at family dinner I got a few plant tips from my mom and sister.

• Cut off the flowers on my cilantro...check. 
• Dish soap and water in a spray bottle will get rid of my bugs...check. 
• And I can plant carrots every 2 weeks and keep harvesting all summer...check.

Today, was particularly fun. I came home for lunch and made a salad. But not just any salad, a delicious salad with delicious lettuce. Delicious lettuce that I grew in my little garden. Yes, that is right I am already harvesting some food. When my lettuce gets to a reasonable size I cut off the leaves for my dinner. It then grows back for me to cut again and again. I like this lettuce thing.

So lunch today was a steak salad with garden fresh lettuce, slivered almonds, crumbled feta cheese (my favorite), tomatoes (from the store, but soon to be replaced by garden fresh) and a little cube steak all topped with my favorite spicy chipotle dressing. I do say it was a great lunch. Don't you think?

#8 Plant a garden...check

The plants are in the ground. And they only look half dead. Last weekend while I was in Moab I left the plants on the balcony to get the sun and showers. Most of the plants were looking a little worn when I got home Sunday evening. They are very happy to be the soil.
My friend Analiesa, who is a super smart botanist, came over to help me plant Wednesday. She is so nice to me. I am pretty sure she thought I was a plant killer when she saw how desperate my plants looked. She helped me determine where each should be planted based on sunlight, water drainage from our roof (I noticed some pretty intense waterfalls from our rain gutters during the last few storms) and how each plant grows. She taught me how to harvest each plant. She even taught me which plants are good bug repellent (who know jalapenos were a good repellent). I planted most from starts I purchase at J&L Nursery and two from seed.

Hopefully, this won't be a common occurrence this summer, but there was already one plant casualty.  One of my lettuce plants tore right off the root when I went to pull it out of the container to plant. Luckily, I had lots of backup.
So let's take an inventory of my garden. After weeding, re-terracing (check out my handy-work), more weeding, adding "good" soil, planting and watering I have a garden. Hopefully, throughout the summer and fall I will be harvesting:

• Carrots
• Beans
• Zucchini
• Cucumbers
• Cabbage
• Lettuce
• Jalapenos
• Tomatoes (3 varieties)
• Bell peppers (Red, green and orange)
• Cilantro
• Chives

Is it too much to ask for no spiders?

I can handle a lot of crawling things, worms, babies, potato bugs, ants, but not spiders. I hate spiders. Is it really too much to ask that there be no spiders in my garden?
Today, when I got home from work I decided to spend the beautiful sun-shinny day pulling weeds. Let's call it weed relocation. I relocated the weeds from my flower boxes (soon to be garden specular) to first the stairs, then to the compost trash bin. And while doing this I encountered what I deem too many spiders (at least 5 creepy critters). They just scamper across the dirt and rocks so quickly I freak out every time. I left most of them alone, but there was one really big one that I just couldn't let live in my garden. Thank goodness for gardening gloves.

Here is the transplanting/relocation action.

Transplanted my weeds from here

To here

Til finally it looks like this

Now to re-terrace, add good soil, build drip watering system (all those years at Orbit Irrigation are going to come in handy) and plant. This is a great start for my list.