Our First Harvest!

The bird bath herb garden has been being put to good use since about the third day it was planted.  Everything I cook or prepare over at Michael’s gets itself a handful of fresh parsley, dill, chives, rosemary, or oregano.  I’ve pinched a few bunches to bring home for my weekday meals as well.

Yesterday I decided it was time to start enjoying the lettuces and kale that have quintupled in size in what seems like overnight.  During a lovely burst of warm sunshine I grabbed the clippers and made my way down to the garden and collected a massive armload of fresh leaves.

Even with the onslaught of caterpillars that seem to be cocooning every inch of fence, tree and blueberry bush, all of the green leafy veggies seem to have escaped unscathed.  I gave everything a lovely icy cold water bath just to be sure, then divided everything into batches wrapped in paper towel.  We both have more than enough lettuce to make bigass salads all week!

The rest of the yard is looking lovely too!

We are excited that the strawberries are all flowering and filling out, and at least half (of the zillion) plants are starting to produce berries!  Can’t wait to be picking batches of fresh berries for breakfasts every weekend like we did last year.

The new blueberry bushes seem to be gaining ground now too.  I swatted about a hundred caterpillars from the branches but the new growth looks like it’s winning the battle.

Maybe we’ll be making blueberry pancakes to go with our strawberry topping this Summer!

Patio Paradise

I have spent so much time helping make Michael’s yards of gardens look nice that my poor little patio has been all but abandoned so far this year.  I’m never here on the weekends so I tend to forget all about filling up my own planters!

All that has been going on so far is my pre-fab basil plant, which I’ve already been eating from almost every day for two weeks. 

So this week as I was running errands I made a point of stopping by a few garden centers to see what was left for me to pretty up my patio.  I have to admit, I was surprised at just how picked over everything was!  It was tough to find a few good impatiens…my favourite for a pretty pop of colour.

I opted to try out begonias as well this year since they were in good shape.

I went to three different stores to get a selection of four herbs.  All that seemed to be left everywhere were sage and thyme…neither of which I use enough of to warrant growing it!  I was on a mission for cilantro!

It’s a little limp, but I’ll have this little beauty ready to trim for eating in no time!

The chives are starting out pretty straggly too, but I have high hopes.  And this might be the tiniest little rosemary tree ever, but he’s cute.  I think we’ll call him Charlie Brown. :)

Since my planters kept blowing over and dumping last year I needed to replace my spearmint.  This year everything is sitting directly on the deck, instead of my raised shelf, so hopefully no more herb disasters.

I hadn’t planned on growing tomatoes this year since Michael is growing a few plants and I’ll get to partake in his fruit, but I came across this lowly little cherry tomato for only $2 and just had to bring it home.  I have the perfect pot for him, so I guess next week’s errand is to get some extra dirt and build a little home for this guy.

Once planted, this plant will apparently start to produce fruit in around 48 days.  I wonder if that means I’ll have edible tomatoes before September this year!?  Last year I missed out on the major crop because it finally produced in late September as I embarked on my two week trip to Greece.  Bugger.

Now if the sun would just come out and stay for a while I could spend a few afternoons watching my little plants grow and flourish.  Wouldn’t that be swell?!

Bird Bath Herb Garden

Oh hello apple blossoms!  How pretty you make the back yard!

As much as I love my little condo with it’s even littler deck it’s sure nice that the boyfriend has a big house with a big yard.  Of course, a big yard means maintenance but as long as he doesn’t ask me to mow the lawn I’m pretty in love with helping him keep it all pretty.

Chibi likes to help by eating the grass.

Michael loves the idea of having an edible garden, as opposed to just pretty flowers that die off each year.  The majority of his property has either relatively mature fruit trees, or perennial berries and flowering shrubs and such.  So as he adds to the landscape he’s looking for tasty ideas to do it.

They aren’t perennial but herbs are always my first choice when someone says edible garden.  As we browsed around the garden center he came up with the idea of putting this defunct bird bath to use so we grabbed a few potted herbs and I put this together for him. 

Italian parsley, onion chives, dill, rosemary and oregano.

It came together easily, held just the perfect amount of dirt and even has a drain in the bottom.  The best part?  He has automatic sprinklers and one of them hits the herb bath just perfectly.

He doesn’t really have garden space for many veggies (yet!) but was eager to get something edible into this long garden along his fence.  We somewhat randomly decided on a variety of greens which should fill in very nicely over the next couple of months.

Kale, romaine lettuce, and mixed green, red, and purple leaf lettuces.

After we planted everything we covered it all with deer netting to keep this bugger out.  He’s a hungry boy!  Sometimes we think Burl is a vegetarian.

The yard also boasts blueberry plants and a ton of ever-bearing strawberries. along with a couple of apple trees, a cherry tree, and oddly enough two varieties of currants.  Next up we are hoping to find hanging tomatoes and cucumbers.

Does anyone know if there are special varieties to put in hanging baskets?  Or can we just chose some yummy looking cherry tomatoes and hope for the best?  (He has regular hanging pots, not those upside-down things).

Meet Timmy!  The newest member of our doggie brigade and Michael’s homestead.  Nothing says manly like a pug-chihuahua-x!  :)

This little dude is super fun, friendly and soooooo freaking cute.  He’s taken to his new home very quickly and keeps the other dogs on their toes. 

Here’s hoping he’s not a vegetarian!

B.L.T. Quinoa Salad

Even stale coffee tastes deeeelish in a cute mug. Yellow makes me smile.

I don’t know how it happened but my fruit bowl is entirely empty.  And I’m unwilling to bust into the frozen blueberries just yet so my waffle found itself paired with a flattened banana today.

And since I was apparently having fun taking pictures of things I was holding this morning, here’s the boiled egg I ate before heading to the gym.

I heard a dirty rumour that today (or possibly Sept-6th…apparently it’s up in the air) is the last day of $1 drinks from McD’s so clearly I had to stop for an iced coffee to mark the occasion.

And paired it with a granola bar because I waited way too late to go the gym and my stomach was screaming for lunch…which I just COULD NOT wait the 5 minutes for.

Awwww yeah.  Fresh veggies!  And another hard boiled egg.  It’s a good thing I live alone.  ;)

My little patio herb planters are chock full of fresh green herby goodness now so I decided to pick a bunch last night and turned it into an easy peasy dip.  Fresh basil for the win!

Fresh Herby Dip:  mix together…

• 3/4 cup light sour cream
• 2 tbsp mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh herbs (I used parsley, basil and chives)
• 1 small garlic clove, minced
• juice of half a lemon
• salt & pepper, sprinkle of paprika

I was a bit too heavy handed on the garlic in my batch but overnight the flavours came together quite well.  The lemon really works with the fresh herbs.

Check this dinner out. Genius I tell you. What do you do with a random pack of bacon, a recently unearthed bag of quinoa, and a bounty of cherry tomatoes from your very own patio planter?

Well B.L.T. Quinoa Salad of course!  And just like I’d put on the sandwich, the dressing involves mayo and Dijon.

Ingredients (two servings):

• 1/2 cup quinoa, cooked in 3/4 water, room temperature
• 4 slices bacon, cooked crispy, crumbled
• 12-14 cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1 cup shredded lettuce
• optional:  fresh herbs (chives and parsley)

For dressing:

• 1.5 tbsp mayonnaise
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tsp honey
• 1 tsp olive oil
• salt & pepper

Directions:

1. Whisk together the dressing ingredients in a large bowl.  Taste and adjust seasoning if desired.
2. Simply add the quinoa, bacon, tomatoes, and herbs to the dressing bowl.  Toss, add the lettuce, toss again.  Serve.

I enjoyed the first bowl so much that I actually went back and hoovered down the second serving I was planning to save for tomorrow’s lunch. Oooops.

This evening I met up with the other Jamie for our traditional coffee date.  I heard a rumour that the new Starbucks finally opened at Uptown and they were giving away free food and drinks in exchange for donations to our local food bank.

Nothing wrong with a Decaf Americano Misto in exchange for a few bucks to The Mustard Seed!

Of course, we also took this opportunity to pop into Cupcakes since it is conveniently located right next door to the new Starbucks.  I hadn’t been there yet and even though I was up to my eyeballs in quinoa salad I couldn’t resist the cupcakey goodness.

Red Velvet.  Sorry local cupcakeries, this mainland chain still wins in the cream cheese frosting department.  So deeeelicious. 

I kind of want to go back for a six pack of day-olds to bring camping this weekend.  What?  It’s RV camping.  There’s internet access.  Cupcakes would be perfectly acceptable.  Honest.