Flapjacks

I've got some flapjacks growing at my house and I have to say that they are the easiest plant to care for in the area that I live in. One of the flapjacks I have in my yard started to flower and this usually means that it's reached the end of its life. I guess a lot of people tend to discard their plants at this stage, but some don't (like me) and just wait for the plant to start producing smaller plants. Check out Eden Maker's blog. She's got some really helpful information on how to propagate your flapjacks.

Pumpkins

A few months ago I found a small seedling growing in the back of my house. It didn't look like a weed and a snail was chomping on it at night. I decided to protect it by turning a basket over on top of it. It totally worked. Don't know what it is with baskets, but snails are unable to figure them out.

I don't have any pictures right now, but the small seedling plant turned into a big pumpkin vine. I've been pollinating them and there are about a dozen or more mini pumpkins. They are super cute.

I don't know how the pumpkin seed got there, but I do know we've had this house for at least a year and it did have a pumpkin vine on one side of the back of my house. This new pumpkin just started growing, and I'm not complaining. It's the best gift a bird could have pooped out for me, that is if it was a bird that pooped it out. My other theory is that it was a seed that way lying in the dirt dormant. I don't even know if that's the correct way to describe that, but . . . there ya go.

One of my problems is that I can't wait. I seriously cannot wait. I want to start picking these pumpkins NOW, but they are still really light in color (hardly orange), so I have to be patient.

In other news, the tomatoes I planted from seed are doing pretty good. They aren't the large variety . . . I think they're something along the line of grape tomatoes or something. They are going to be very small.

The lavender is doing well. The marigolds are out of control as usual. Strawberries are doing alright, but I feel like they should have more strawberries by now--I don't even have one. The thing with the strawberries is that I planted them in a container and they were not doing well AT ALL. So, I transferred them to the ground and they are loving the soil and sun.

If I could have an avocado tree, I totally would get one. It's just that they get really big and our house is on the smallish side even though we have a back area to play in.

Alright. Enough of this and that. I have to go. It's our anniversary and we want to go to the beach. I'm not sure if I want to sing Madonna's "Holiday" . . . maybe I will once I've had a couple drinks or two.

Okay, Scratch That

Utter failure! I planted my lettuce and the weather friggin' went bad. Oh well, I've got a whole lot more seeds in the packet still and these seeds are tiny. I planted a few more the other day before the rain came. That was because I ran into another issue--snails. Snails are not my friend right now. They look cute as Hello Kitty stickers and small ceramic decorations, but not in my garden. Slugs too. I can't stand them. Both of them leave nasty trail all over the place. Okay, enough of that.

Other than the death of my lettuce patch, I'm looking forward to Spring. Really, I am. This cold and rain is fun, but it's only fun for like a day and that's about it.

Alright, I'll check back with you later.

Spring 2011

I know that Spring isn't officially here, but I feel like it is and my plants probably feel the same way. The weather has been so nice this past week and I checked the weather and it looks like it should be this way for a while. I've planted some lettuce in our backyard and am getting ready to start propogating some of my plants. In particular, I'm interested in my Dwarf Umbrella Tree that was handed down to me by my sister-in-law years ago. It's definitely rootbound and is ready to be divided and repotted.

My sister and her husband gave me a Pointsetta this Christmas and I'm going to try and grow it rather than tossing it in the garbage like most people do. There is a process in which I will need to wrap it in a black garbage bag in the Fall. I will be so happy if it turns out to work.

Many of my plants are beginning to show new growth which is usually a good sign to me that I didn't kill them. Some of my plants; however, are looking a bit on the sick side. My Prayer Plant seems to be suffering some sort of disease. It has a yellowish-green color when it should be a nice dark green. Strawberries from last season survived, so far. I might be able to squeeze another year out of my Bell Peppers. Flapjacks are looking good. Tomatoes have new growth and like the Bell Peppers, I may be able to squeeze another year out of them. I say this because I have heard of people discarding their plants as soon as their season is over, but I left things the way they were this winter and they came back and am very happy about it.

Anyway, lettuce is on the way in supposedly 45 days. Excited. Oh yeah, and I planted some corn. I'm curious to see what fresh corn tastes like.

Falafel Recipe

I recently harvested a good amount of parsley and now I need a recipe that calls for it. I have four bags of parsley (and more in the garden) and I would hate to just use it as a garnish.

One recipe that I've found that uses a lot of parsley is falafel. Conveniently, I have a book here at home titled "Great Tastes Vegetarian" published by Bay Books in 2009. I got it at Borders for $3.99. I wanted to get into more vegetarian dishes--I'm interested.

On page 33 there's a recipe called "Falafel With Tahini Yoghurt Dressing." Sound good? Yes. So I'm going to try it. It calls for five, that's right, five handfulls of parsley and to me that's fantastic. I need to use this parsley up or it'll go to waste.

Problem: there are two ingredients that don't really quite look familiar. The first is Greek-style yoghurt. By the way, I don't spell yogurt with an "h" that's how it is in the book. And the second is tahini.

Turns out that both of these ingredients I may have to make at home if I can't find it at the store. Lovely, right? So I have recipes within a recipe.

Well, I'm going to get started on my recipes within a recipe.

Fire Resistant Garden

Recently I learned that Novato Fire District 63 has done something that I think is really cool--they planted a fire resistant garden. Most gardens need to be watered almost every day, but Garden Project Manager Forest Blue explains there are plants that are drought friendly and there are ways you can put together a fire resistant garden. Of course all things will eventually burn; however, certain plants are less flamable than others. I'm really considering traveling to Novato just to see the garden.

Parsley Flowering

Earlier this year I purchased two parsley plants to grow in my garden. I read somewhere that it is great for attracting benneficial creatures. To my surprise they have grown quite a bit since the day I purchased them. Further, the parsley plant has grown what looks to be flowers at the tip of these really thick stems.

On the internet I have found several discussions in regard to these flowers. Apparently, it is best to cut the flower stems off as the continued growth will cause the parsley to taste bitter. I've already done this in the Spring, but the flowers have grown ten fold since then. I wonder when the flowering period will cease.