WOW! has it really been over a year since my last post!

It's been quite a while since I have posted anything here. I have not done much gardening lately, as I have been giving the soil some much needed rest.

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!

Eggplant two ways, scoby jerky, and fall gardens

Fried two ways ( oven baked and wok fried).  Stir fry with onions, bell pepper, cashews, and a homemade sauce.  

Oven baked was tossed with cilantro, tomatoes, mayo, and Greek yogurt and dill.   Otherwise known as Mother-in-law's Tongue. ( in a deconstructed kind of way).  

Stir fry eggplant is similar to tofu,  which I always fail at making.  The MiL's Tongue tastes like a potato salad. 

In the garden news,   I got a few sweet peppers and some kale from the two keyhole front yard gardens.  No extra water, just compost added every other week.  It helped that we had lots of rain from the hurricanes in the gulf.   

Fall garden seeds planted about two weeks ago.  Three different squashes, Brussels sprouts, lettuce varieties, radishes, and some broccoli.  Squash seedlings have already appeared and a few other seedlings from the rest of the 

plant seeds I through out in the dirt.  

I also tried my hand at some kombucha scoby jerky.....  It's tough, but doesn't really break down.  I think I dehydrated it to high and to long.  Oh well, you got to fail a few times to learn something new.  

Signs and sushi

Summer is almost over and thus the projects are slowly coming to an end.  The past couple of weeks I've been working on finishing up some old projects inside the house.   Added the final trim to the kitchen backsplash, organized some closets, organized the garden shed, and spent some time figuring out costs to replace the old semi-existing fence.  

I did however make a couple of signs out of scrap wood.  Not sure of the placement of the letters yet.

Jennie has been watching old seasons of Top Chef, so of course I've watched a few with her.  It's help continue to motivate me and my love of cooking and creating in the kitchen.   I've been working on eating less meat after watching the documentary What the Health.   Made a tofu peanut butter pie (my baking skills are the worst) but it was still delicious.  Baking requires one to be precise with the ingredients and cooking, and that is quite difficult for me since I am a creative person who tends to think outside of the box. Other great vegetarian meals I've made were Tikal Gomen (Ethiopian), General Tso's cauliflower, Thai mango salad, zucchini Pad Thai, chickpea falafel, and mushroom and avocado/cucumber sushi.   

It's been years since I've hand rolled sushi, but I think they came out looking alright.  

Repurposing and edibles

This past week was a short one as I went up to Longview to visit my parents for an early Father's Day. We then spent Sunday and Monday with Jennie's family with some good bbq and a nice kayak on Townlake.   

Spent yesterday at Barton Springs because it was just to hot to work outside.  I think everyone else had the same idea. It was the most crowded I have ever seen.  

So this week I only had a few days to work on my woodworking skills.  One easy project I did was this giant star for the outside of the house.   

I also finished a project that I had started last week, my tree stump side table.   I plained it level, sanded, stained, sealed, and added some castor wheels on the bottom.  I think it turned out pretty well. I'm working on another one that I will remove the bark on.   

I was able to pick up four more stumps in Longview before heading back.  They are pine, so it will give me a chance to work with some soft wood.   

On our way to Longview, we stopped at a brewery in Athens, TX.   They had some local artwork on the walls and one caught our eyes, so I thought I would do my best to replicate it.  So here it is using just scrap pieces I had from other projects.  

Just fence picket pieces and a little spray paint.   

After the rain settled down this morning, I helped out my neighbor with a project of his. He wanted to build an enclosure for his garden to keep out the birds and squirrels.  I came across a similar idea online where a guy used the metal poles from a trampoline to frame a greenhouse. My neighbor had one and with some fence pickets, we got a lot of it built so far.   

 We just need to secure the poles to the wood and ziptie the netting over the top. 

Oh yeah, I also built an outdoor table for my neighbors out of pickets and some table legs I found by the curb in the neighborhood a few months ago.  Now we can take turns for our Saturday morning coffee and fellowship.  

A few weeks ago, the local HEB grocery store had fruit trees on sale for $10 each.  I picked up two peach trees and an apple.   I have planted them in a 4x3 grid pattern in the backyard.  This fall, my plan is to remove my vegetable beds to the front yard and create a small fruit tree orchard in the backyard.  

Yes, the fence is now about 50% still standing.   That will be a project in the near future.  Not as fun to do, but necessary, especially when we get our chickens.   

I finally got to eat my first fig from my fig tree.  

The rest of the garden has been mediocre this year, a handful of cherry tomatoes and some basil.  The basil has been good in my kombucha.   A little basil and slices of cucumber makes a nice refreshing summer kombucha.   I experimented and made a batch with ginger, turmeric, jalapeño, lemon, and just a drip of some local Round Rock honey.   Mighty tasty and healthy to boot.  

That's it for now, so until next time...

Go outside and get dirty!

Summer fence picket projects

My neighbor had a lot of pickets that she wanted to get rid of that were still in good shape.   After I built my storage shed using fence pickets a few years ago, I decided to do some research into other projects/ideas using fence pickets.   My goal is to maintain each project to be at least 90% fence pickets and/or materials I already have around the house.  

My first of many is a couple of cornhole boards.   (100% pickets) Jennie wanted to contribute, so she sewed the cornhole bags, filled with dried corn.  It took about a day to complete the boards.   Added a score board on the back using golf tees and my wood burning tool.   

My next project was a small one, two frames for some west Texas prints my sister-in-law gave us, and a frame for a long mirror (cheap find at thrift store).  

My third project was my attempt to build an adirondack chair.  This one was the hardest thus far.   Trying to get the angles and the slant of the back was tedious and frustrating at times.    Not a winner in design, but it's functional.  

My current project is a 4x4x4 chicken coop.  I did use a 4x4 post for the legs that I salvaged from my neighbors trash.  So far the only costs has been two boxes of screws.   So far I have worked on the coop for two days and I would say I'm more than half way done with it.  I looked at many coops online, but this one is my own design, hence why it's taking a little longer to build.  I am designing as I go. 

Go outside and get dirty!