Gardening & Learning From Trial And Error

These are my garden boxes. They have been very productive. Though getting to this point can be a long and uncertain path. I am not an expert gardener. Every thing I do is pretty much trial and much error.

As I collect on all my hard work. It can easily be forgotten the labor that was involved to make such great produce.

The weather has been so warm and beautiful. That I began sprouting seeds indoors.

Everything sprouted great. I even bought my Tomatoes seeds online this year at www.PennysTomatoes.com and every seed planted has sprouted. My downfall was planting to early before my plants were stronger. Yesterday we had 20-25 mph winds. and wiped out many new sprouts in my garden including many tomato plants.

But, a few survived.

I have placed some fresh veggie pulp from juicing around them.

This one is not happy, but time will tell. I am sprouting more Penny tomatoes and will try to be more pro-active about letting them grow more before I plant them.

I have many sprouts and will continue to re-fill spots that are now empty in my garden. I was even thinking of growing a Cayenne plant.  Penny's husband Joe at www.pepperjoe.com sells  pepper seeds. I may check that out.

This year, I bought onions to grow in my garden. These are what I have not planted yet. I read that if you plant onion it helps with garden pests. In particular the worms that like my squash. We will see.  I eat onion in many recipes. So nothing will go to waste.

I had many new lemon cucumber and cantaloupe sprouts kill over to. It seems like a struggle to keep plants alive in the beginning and in the heat of the summer. It is worth the hard work when you get real food from your back yard and many times more food than you can eat. I write this to keep inspiring myself and others. Do not give up. Keep trying. Success or fail, try, try again.

Update:

Garden up and running with lots of Tomato plants. All the little ones lived and I planted more.

Tomatoes growing.

Very happy with Penny's Tomato seeds.

Awesome Cherokee Tomato.

Love the the Onions I grew.

Swiss Chard Chips

I have a lot of Swiss Chard. I was making some Kale chips and thought about trying to make Swiss Chard ones.

I took just a few big leaves of chard and ripped them into chip size pieces. I did not use the stem. I put them into a bowl. Poured a little olive oil in the bowl and mixed the leaf pieces around with my clean hand. Then I sprinkled on a little salt and some garlic powder. Mixed everything with my hand until all the greens looked covered in spices and oil. The I placed them onto my dehydrator racks and dehydrated at 135F until dry. It took only a few hours.

They have a Swiss chard flavor to them and the garlic and salt together is key to enhancing the flavor. I like them. Will be making more of these. You can dehydrate at a lower temp. (to keep it raw and have more nutrients) but it will take much longer.

You can make these in the oven if you do not have a dehydrator. Just set your oven to the lowest setting. Mine goes to 170F and just put your prepared chips on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or a baking liner of choice. Bake with door slightly ajar until completely dry. It should take only an hour or two.

Orange Jewel Drink Recipe

I remember many years ago drinking these orange drinks. My mother, brother and I would go to the Brea Mall in Brea CA. and window shop. We loved going to the ice skating rink at the food court and watch the skaters. My mother would sometimes buy us an Orange Julius drink. When we were home and craved one of those drinks we tried to make our own variation based on the flavor we had at the mall store. This is the recipe that I remember. The exact measurements were vague, but I will walk you through with options.

What you need:

One big orange or two small ones. They must be juicy.

Honey or sugar. 1-2 T.

2 T. Nonfat powder milk (this is what we would use when I was a kid) I used 1 scoop Nido milk powder. Purchased from the Mexican food isle. There are two kinds and they both come with a scoop and either will do. Or you can add 1/4-1/3 cup of milk. You can also make this drink without any milk.

1 cup of ice (crushed is best, but we only had cubes growing up and either way you may have one or two small ice balls in your drink. No big deal. Just go with it.) Use can use less ice if using liquid milk. You can also add about 1/4-1/3 cup of water if using powder milk.

I egg (yes, a raw egg is very nutritious and gives the drink a frothy texture)

5 ingredients. That's it. Peel your orange and put it into the blender. Add the ice, egg, milk,  and your sweet of choice. Blend until mixed and frothy looking.

Ready to blend.

Looks good.

Looks frothy.

Time to drink. Very cool and refreshing for a hot summer day. No, it is still cold here in TX. Just craving some oranges and vitamin C. This drink is filled with fiber and vitamin C. Enjoy a memory from my past in the form of a drink.