French intensive planting

While planning my garden this year I did a lot of reading (thank you for all the wonderful books, Doug!) and thought I might try my hand at French intensive planting. Now planting a bunch of plants in a narrow plot of ground seemed to go against everything I had learned thus far, but it not only gave the gardens I've read about a certain beauty but boosted their overall production as well!
French intensive gardening means planting your vegetables closer together than normally recommended on seeds packets. As a result, the dense foliage helps shade out weeds and you get more harvest from your space.
Instead of hoeing out rows this year, I raked up raised beds/plots. Now I REALLY hate weeding so I put down landscaping fabric. In theory, you don't have to do this due to the close plantings but I'm not taking any chances!

In these plots are green beans and cowpeas. These are bush type plants and they are planted fairly close together. In this small space I would normally only get two rows with five plants in each row (so 10 green bean plants all together). With this new method, I will have 16 plants in just HALF the space! As you can see, I just planted eight seeds of each plant for now. In two weeks I'll plant eight more and that will give me a longer harvesting season.

I did the same thing with my cucumbers. I'm training them up these homemade trellises and planted three seeds on each side of the trellis. In two weeks I'll plant along the other trellis for a longer harvest season. Normally where there would only be one row with six cucumber plants, I will now have eighteen plants!

Next to the cucumber trellis is okra. Normally that space would be one row and carry about six okra stalks. By broadening the row into a raised bed and making the plantings closer, I will now have 14 stalks!
French intensive gardening takes a bit more planning and work than a traditional garden. I really thought about companion plantings (planting things close together that were beneficial to one another, like the cucumbers and beans, or tomatoes and peppers). I also had to really make sure the soil was nutrient rich with organic matter so that the plants didn't have to compete for nutrients being so close together. I also think the look is more interesting than traditional rows.
I'm really excited about this new method and look forward to sharing my findings. I'm also really excited about the additional harvests this means for our family....not to mention our pocketbook!

Living the Liturgical Year

Sunday we celebrated
Divine Mercy Sunday
I gave our home altar a little makeover to reflect devotion:

We celebrated Sunday Mass at our normal time and then went back to our little parish at 2:30 for Confessions, the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, and Holy Hour.

The little ones and I also made a cake to celebrate the occasion:

To learn more about this wonderful devotion, CLICK HERE

Meatless Fridays

Sorry to disappoint today, but we are still in the season of Easter in the Catholic Church and are not bound to abstaining from meat on Fridays. No one could be more thrilled than my carnivorous husband, Doug!
So today there is no Meatless Friday meal, but we'll resume it next Friday (even though there are 50 days in the Easter season) until then I'll leave you with a picture of my little grill master at work:

Garden guard dog

Keeping the garden safe from birds, squirrels, and surly five year olds with shovels!

It already feels like summer...

Garden ~ better late than never...

To say that I'm a little late with getting the garden in this year is an understatement! I'm usually planting the day after the last frost date but this year my 'get up and go has got up and went!'
Since my surgery at the beginning of the month I have been plagued by ill health. I think the stress of the whole ordeal and the anesthesia are the key factors in all of it. To date, since the beginning of March I have had:
Bronchitis - TWICE!, a double ear infection that is just now responding to antibiotics, a sinus infection, and double pink eye! Not to mention that I took all of my sick time from work during our recent loss and my surgery so I've been working overtime every.single.week. while sick, too. I just cannot get better since I cannot rest. Despite all the whole foods supplements, probiotics, even breaking down and going to the doctor for massive amounts of antibiotics, steroids, etc...I am just now (a month later) starting to feel like I might be making the turn to getting well.

Most of my weekends off were spent lying in bed watching the 'Victory Garden' or HGTV and fretting over my plans for this year's garden. I've planned everything out and got all my seeds, but just can't find the strength to do it all.
Doug was an angel this weekend and tilled up my garden plot:

He even ran errands to town to get me things for it that he couldn't even pronounce, like diotamaceous earth!
Last weekend I was able to get to my garden boxes and plant onions, bok choi, leeks, and carrots...by the end of all that I felt like I climbed Everest! It was a big effort for me between the coughing fits and extreme fatigue.

I bought some hydrangea bushes (my most favorite flower EVER!) on sale and Doug planted them outside the living room window. I can't wait to see what colors they'll bloom into and I look forward to having fresh cut flowers in the house this summer!

For a brief moment I asked myself why was I putting myself through all of this? We have lots of local farmers and organic produce around these parts, why not just skip a year and take it easy for now? The truth is is that I cannot, for the life of me, imagine NOT having a garden....this from a life long city girl! In the four years we've lived here it has gotten in my blood! Gardening is a part of me and gives me such joy, contentment, and peace. I love summer mornings when little Danny and I go out and pick our produce for the day, or when JP catches earthworms, lizards, and frogs for our vegetable patch. Kyle loves cooking our bounty (he makes a pretty mean salsa!)...even Ryan likes the garden, but won't admit it!
It binds us, it feeds us, and I just love my little space on this earth. So yeah, better late than never. And thank goodness Texas has a long growing season~'cause I won't get to planting anything until next weekend at the earliest!

My little egg-heads!

Dyeing eggs, lots of chocolate, lovely Mass, and dinner at Mr. & Mrs. C's. We had a nice quiet Easter here at the
Casa de Creamer!

Meatless Fridays

This week's meal is very simple due to the solemnity of the day, Good Friday. This will be our only meal and I will serve it with homemade rosemary artisan bread.
I can't wait until the garden comes in! I'll be able to make this soup entirely from our homegrown vegetables, well, with the exceptions of the canned beans!
This week's Meatless Meal is:

Minestrone Soup



3 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 leek, sliced
2 carrots, chopped
1 zucchini, thinly sliced
4 ounces green beans, cut into 1 inch pieces
2 stalks celery, thinly sliced
1 1/2 quarts vegetable stock
1 pound chopped tomatoes
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
1 (15 ounce) can cannellini beans, with liquid
1/4 cup elbow macaroni
salt and ground black pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in a large saucepan, over medium heat. Add garlic, leek, carrots, zucchini, green beans and celery. Cover, and reduce heat to low. Cook for 15 minutes, shaking the pan occasionally. Stir in the stock, tomatoes and thyme. Bring to a boil, then replace the lid, and reduce heat to low; simmer gently for 30 minutes.
Stir in the cannellini beans with liquid and pasta. Simmer for an additional 10 minutes, or until pasta is al dente. Season with salt and pepper to taste before serving.

Just a little spring cleaning!

John Paul just LOVES swiss chard!

DISCLAIMER:

Contrary to John Paul's insistence, no children were permanently harmed, sickened, or maimed during the making of this post.

No baking powder? No problem!

It was a beautiful Saturday morning and the punks were still asleep so I thought I'd whip up some blueberry muffins with some gorgeous organic blueberries I had recently bought. I started to mix the dry ingredients and realized I was out of baking powder. I was NOT going to the store and figured there must be some way to substitute for it. After a quick look online, I found this great little tip: just use baking soda and vinegar!


Note the amount of baking powder called for in your recipe, and measure *half* that amount of baking soda. Add the baking soda to your dry ingredients, and sift as usual.

How much liquid does the recipe call for? Add one (1) teaspoon of vinegar per cup of liquid in the recipe. If the liquid is milk, I like to add the vinegar directly to the milk and let it make "buttermilk" before mixing it all together.

Mix the dry and wet ingredients together thoroughly, and let the batter stand for a minute before baking or cooking.


Look at that oven spring! Who says you need baking powder?
I don't need no stinking baking powder!


C'mon punks, time for breakfast!

For more great tips in the kitchen, visit Kitchen Tip Tuesdays at Tammy's blog!

Meatless Fridays

I have had cravings for Chinese food lately. My oldest son and I love to have dinner at Kim Son in Houston...but that is a rare treat! We always get the spring rolls with spicy peanut dipping sauce. I think we'll head into Chinatown this weekend and pick up supplies for this week's meatless meal:

Vegetarian Spring Rolls with Spicy Peanut Dipping Sauce

Spring Rolls

1/3 cup Napa cabbage VERY thinly sliced
2 large carrot julenned
2 tablespoons scallion slivered
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh cilantro chopped
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
3 ounces dried bean thread OR rice noodles
16 each rice paper rounds 8" size

Spicy Peanut Dipping Sauce

2 tablespoon garlic finely chopped
1/2 cup peanut butter smooth
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon hot chili oil OR 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 cup fresh cilantro finely chopped

Soak the bean threads or rice noodles according to package directions and then toss with the other ingredients listed. Soak the rice paper rounds in warm water until softened then assemble your rolls with the mixture. Fold the sides of the wrapper in towards the center and then roll up. Combine all the ingredients of your dipping sauce and allow to sit for 30 minutes or more to get those spices to combine.

NOW it's Spring!

We went to the feed store last week for onion sets and seeds,
it REALLY feels like spring now!

I was determined to go all heirloom with my seeds this year but I'm too impatient to wait for shipping. So this year, just peppers and tomatoes will be heirloom and I'll be experimenting with saving their seeds for next year. Once I have that mastered I'll go on to have a complete heirloom garden and never buy seeds again!

For now, I'm really enjoying all this seed porn...

Can't wait to plant!
Fire up the tiller, Doug!

This is what "bolt" looks like!

Lettuce HATES warm weather and we've been having more and more of it here in south Texas. When cold weather plants get warm, they bolt.

Here's what romaine lettuce looks like in bolt:

I think it's beautiful with all the delicate yellow flowers!

I let it stay in the garden box longer than I should have. It drew LOTS of bees to the garden, and I'll be planting soon so busy bees in the garden will be a good thing. Plus, I'm sure a lot of it went to seed and I will have a free lettuce bed next fall (and free lettuce in the walkway, in between the pavers, in other garden boxes...you get the idea!)

The "orchard" is growing!

The Easter Bunny made an early appearance here and brought me two citrus trees! I have been coveting my neighbor's orange tree and was even gifted some gorgeous Meyer lemons from a friend.

I've been wanting those trees ever since!

These beauties will go out back along with the apple, peach, pear, and pecan trees we already have growing...
I call it "The Orchard".
;-p

The Meyer lemon tree already has dozens of blooms on it and I'm bound and determined to get at least one freakin' lemon this season ~ even if I have to hand pollinate every.single.bloom.myself!

I can almost taste that fresh lemonade right now,
or maybe even a little limoncello!