The two large keyhole beds in the front yard have not been as successful as I hoped. After the first few rains, most of my soil found its way through the cracks between the sticks and logs. Two kale plants did grow and survived the dry hot summer though. Still today, I am able to cut off leaves to use in may dishes. The go to dish for the large tougher leaves is kale chips baked in the oven with a little salt and sriracha sauce. With the smaller leaves, I have made salads with them and tonight, I used them in a stir fry with some rice noodles, radishes, mushrooms, garlic with a soy sauce, fish sauce, lime, sriracha, sesame oil, and a dash of sugar dressing. I turned out quite delicious.
My neighbor had purchased a few tomato plants this past summer and didn't get much produce off of them. I took a few cuttings from his plants and planted them into some of my spare 5 gallon buckets. They grew to a nice size but only produced a couple of tomatoes.
As always, at the beginning of winter, I am blessed with a decent size crop of wild cilantro in the backyard. I have made some cilantro pesto with it, garnished several dishes every week. Lately, we have had a lot of rain and mild/cool temperatures, that it has grown faster than I can use it. So my coworkers are going to be blessed with some free bunches of cilantro tomorrow.
I will be attending a National Junior Gardener conference at the end of February in College Station. I am excited to be able to go and learn some things, not only for myself, but to bring back and hopefully use at my school. One of the portables was removed at the beginning of the year, leaving a nice leveled open patch of land that would be great for a school learning garden. The only drawback is that another portable does block the morning sun, but you do the best you can with what you have. I spent about an hour sketching out a blueprint of the layout that I would love to do. It's going to be a big undertaking, but hopefully after the conference, I will have more confidence to move forward and persuade others to help me out.
I have started thinking about getting my hands dirty again here at the house, but I am still figuring out what and where my new beds need to go.
I can say though that my time out of the garden has not gone to waste. I have been getting pretty good at my kombucha brewing. I have experimented with many different flavors and brewing combinations. I attempted to do a coffee/tea brew, but the outcome was not that great as I had used a coconut flavored coffee, which isn't that great made the normal way. I still make a batch that is my normal.. a ginger, lemon balm flavor and a raspberry, ginger, almond flavor. If I have anything left over, I will do a small batch with a new flavor. I tried using a can of peaches with the juice and some fresh ginger... it turned out just ok. I still like to mix an exotic fruit like mango or papaya with a spicy pepper. They always seem to turn out delicious.
My love for kombucha has become evident as I have been able to share my love and experiences of brewing it to others that I have convinced them to start brewing at home as well. I'm glad to know that I can do something useful with all my extra Scobys. The scoby candy and jerky have always been a failure. So now it’s one more thing that I can grow and share with others. That's the joy of gardening and kombucha brewing.
Until next time....
Get outside and get dirty!
