11:20 AM My poor legumes

I think my beans and peas are on their way to little legume heaven. The vines are turning sickly colors and not much is happening with their growth. Honestly, I think it's rot. They're container planted and they're in the only container with a tray to hold water in. Add in the weeks and weeks of pouring rain we've been getting and they've been well over watered. Not to mention that a couple of those hard storms broke many of the vines.

So I guess we'll try again next year or in the fall. I think I'm going to try the bush variety of many of those guys instead of the fragile vines. That or I'll try the vines in an upside down hanging container.

Unfortunately, my Sage is also not doing so hot. But my African Basil from last year has bounced back rather well. And so has my oregano. In fact, all of the plants I bought last year in seedling form are still doing well. The two trees I bought this year as well. I think this may be a lesson for me. I just may not be cut out to raise my own seeds.

10:15 AM Join the Urban Garden Project

Among many of the blogs I follow, I try to keep up with other folks who are gardening in the Urban Jungle. It makes me feel like I'm less of a crazy person to see others living in situations similar to mine refusing to adhere to the hard and fast apartment living rules.

Today Urban Garden Casual posted an article about joining the Urban Garden Project. I signed on as quickly as I could fire off the e-mail, haha! So maybe my little modest garden will garner new friends and we'll receive some good advice from this network of Urban Gardeners.

Speaking of my garden, I meant to take photos of my crazy plants today. I'm going to have to get that vertical climber set up soon as those little beans/peas are growing like Crazy!!! And it looks like my sage and basil are also starting to pop up as well.

12:18 PM Continuing with the Spring lovliness

After yesterday's wonderful First Day of Spring surprises, this weekend has continued on with establishing a lovely and fruitful season.

Today I brought my little dormant dwarf fig tree out of the veggie crisper of the fridge and I gave her a home. I couldn't quite afford to give her a really pretty large home yet, but the helpful folks at Redenta's Garden advised me on a suitable temporary pot that can last her while she's growing. She'll get a prettier upgrade when she needs one.

So without further ado, here she is!

See how pretty her little buds are?

Yesterday I showed you pics of my first bean/pea sprouts. Here's an update on those. It just amazes me how Fast these things grow! Yesterday they were barely out of the soil and today, I can almost see leaves. Maybe tomorrow they'll unfold.

The section of the box that was just teasing me with the one teensy tinsy sprout has exploded like the original section. Those sprouts are about a day behind in development, so they look exactly like what I showed you yesterday.

Oh, remember my lavender that I planted last year that never bloomed?? This one:

Let's take another look at our little lavender.

Did you see it??? One more time.

It's a bloom!!!!! I'm shocked. Seriously, I'm shocked. The Only thing I did different is that I threw some of the dead branches of my basil plant in the pot hoping that the decomposition of those branches would help out a little. It seems I Could have been right about that. But now I also have some food/fertilizer for flowering plants and vegetables that I was told to get for the fig tree and I think I'm gonna put some of that in the pot tomorrow and see what happens.

Here's the whole garden collection all together.

I was planning on doing some square foot gardening this year, but now I'm thinking that I should stick with what I have now as I also still have my pomegranate tree coming. This is my first year to container garden any veggies, much less fruit trees and this many herbs, so I'm a little afraid that I will get overwhelmed and drop the ball. I'm thinking it may be a better idea to get this system established before I expand more.

Yesterday I also showed you a patch of crazy dandelions. Now here's the pretty pre-wish version. There are still a few of these left around the yard.

Miss Maizy Loo loves Spring too.

Nabisco wishes she could be outside gardening with Maizy and I.

But this is about as far as she's gonna get unless she can prove to me that she can behave outside, as in come back in when she's told to.

9:45 AM More than one sign of Spring

Today is the first day of Spring. Spring is a favorite season for many. For me it is because you can see so many wonderful miracles of Nature happening right before your eyes. Well, that and all the bright green colors everywhere. But mostly I am a huge fan of Nature's rebirth after the hibernation of Winter.

At my home today, I got to witness not one but Two signs of the beauty of Spring happening right outside my front door.

The first thing that I noticed was that the pair of birds who nest in my front Catalpa tree are back. And they're busy making their nest again in one of the holes in the trunk. I haven't identified the birds yet, but I want to try to figure out what kind they are. I'm pretty sure it is the same pair as last year.

This is the little male guarding the nest. Their nest hole is just to the right of the new leaf growth in the center there.

He's a bitty little guy. He's mostly black with a few brown flecks and his neck feathers can fluff out quite a bit. He's very talkative when I'm out there. Protecting his nest, I imagine.
And here he is with his mate. I had Just Missed them both waltzing down the sidewalk picking up paper for the nest. I wouldn't have noticed it if the piece of paper hadn't been so Big, haha! I need a zoom lens. You can sort of see that his mate on the left is brown.

The other sign of Spring that happened at my home this morning was that as I was goggling at the sheer numbers and height of the dandelions in the yard, I looked down and noticed that I have Sprouts!!! I can't remember which ones these are. I planted 4 different kinds of climbing beans/peas in this long planter. There's one other one which is starting to sprout as well, but it's so tiny, you can barely tell it from the soil, so I didn't include that picture. I'm so excited, aren't they beautiful! Dang, I need a macro lens too!

Here's the envelopes for what I planted in that long box. I still can't remember what order they're in, but I guess we'll find out when they all mature.

Here's that Dandelion patch I mentioned. Crazy huh? Yes, my apartment's management really needs to get back on the stick with the mowing. Eventhough it's really just the Dandelions which are growing like crazy.

Hey remember that Oregano I worried about killing???? Here it is today!

My neighbor finally came out to do something with it. He gave it a "haircut" as he calls it and it seems like that was exactly what it needed to start really filling out. I think I may give my oregano and my basil a haircut now and see what happens!

8:40 PM Stuffed Squash

Tonight I decided to finally make that quiche I was planning on making for Christmas and just didn't have time to make. I'll blog on the quiche later, but in the process of making the quiche, I had more squash than I needed as well as more leeks and I also needed to use up the baby bella mushrooms sitting in my fridge. So I experimented with a Stuffed Squash.

The part of the Butternut Squash I had leftover from the quiche was the perfect little bell part. The part that is hollowed out and gives us those Glorious little squash seeds which I like to roast. So I hollowed out the bell just like I normally do, and I placed the bell in a little dish and drizzled it with olive oil. I then placed it in a pre-heated oven of 400 degrees until the squash was a little soft.

While the squash was roasting, I boiled some water and made some Taboule as directed on the package, except for the "put in the refridgerator for 30 minutes part, I just let the grain steam on the counter.


After I had the Taboule started, I then sauteed my leeks, baby bella mushrooms, and some frozen peas.


Once the Squash was a little soft, I then removed the squash from the oven and began to stuff the bell in layers. 1st layer was the saute mix, then the 2nd layer was Taboule. I layered in this fashion until a final layer of Taboule was level with the top and then I garnished with the saute layer.




I then placed the Squash back in the oven to finish roasting. I served the squash right in its little baking dish.


So what's the verdict on the taste??

Well, it was ok. It wasn't Great, but it has promise. Firstly, my squash was a bit dry. Next time I will add more olive oil and I will cover the squash with foil to keep the moisture in. Also, it was missing something. I think it needed a small element of sweet. It may be that the butternut squash will be better once it's able to retain its moisture. But actually I think the recipe would benefit from the addition of some golden raisins at the time of layering just before the final roast. I think I will do that next time as this is a rather healthy dish and I feel I ought to work on it until I get it right. Plus it is relatively easy and has a nice presentation for dinner parties.

9:40 PM Inspiration while the weather is wonky

Yesterday Dallas was covered in ice. The surrounding areas lost power. I'm a Central dweller, so I didn't get the brunt of the icy conditions due to the cocoon of the concrete jungle, however, I came home to a Beautiful scene of ice covered tree limbs everywhere. Unfortunately my tripod is MIA, so I couldn't do the scene proper justice.






Anyhow, yesterday it was icy, today the high was in the mid 50s, but by Friday the high temp will reach just over 70 degrees. Up, down, up down. This is Texas winter weather. It won't Really freeze until the end of Jan. I'm not much of a snow bunny, so I'm already waiting anxiously for full on Spring to get here and stay.

And in the spirit of my waitin' and wishin' and hopin' and prayin' I've been looking at some cool urban garden ideas. I do have a small area where I think I may be able to cultivate some vegetables at my apartment complex, however the small space is REALLY small and I'm going to have to get pretty creative about what and how I plant. Not to mention, since my space is viewable to the street, it's going to have to be aesthetically pleasing as well. This presents a bit of a challenge. But you know what? I Love a challenge!

Here are the two coolest ideas I came across today:

Wading pool gardens. This idea certainly won't pass muster in the aesthetically pleasing department, but it reminds me of a very similar method by a different name - Square Foot Gardening - which can be contained as prettily as your building skills allow. I've been mulling this method around for a while. I believe I can make two or three square feet work in my little space.

Then there's also Veritcal Gardening. When I first started searching that method, I kept finding flower and shrub gardens build on building exteriors. But eventually I started seeing vegetable gardening. There's two ways to vertical garden for veggies. One way is to build a wire or wood trellis for vines. The other way is to build a wall of shelves for containers. I think I have begun to hatch a plan for two trellises. One for black berries and blueberries with strawberries spilling out on the bottom. The other will be for peae and cucumbers and greebeans.

These plans may take some more reconfiguring to get right. But I'll eventually have produce of my own to be giddy about. And I do have several more months to mull this over after all.