Container Gardening

Gardening runs in my family. I never cared much about until I got my own apartment then I wanted plants, lots of plants. Who did I call for advice about them, my mom, of course.  My mother has always planted flowers and most of the time a vegetable garden. I always tell people that she has two green hands.  She could grow things and cook things that made you pay attention.  What that? How’d you do this or that? She usually had answer if was about plants or food.

When I finally had my own house and full two acre lot, I really became interested in gardening, flowers that is, still wasn’t real turned on about the vegetable garden thing but now I am what with the cost of food amongst other life changes.  I know I still can’t commit to a the “old-fashion” style vegetable garden my parents and grandparents kept for many reasons.

Container gardening, urban gardening, small space gardening is my solution.



I have a new obsession, now, looking for alternative ways and methods of growing vegetables.  One of my favorite sources of information is the internet, so I thought I'd share my results here as well.



So far I’ve learned to grow lettuce, potatoes, onions, and  all from kitchen scraps.  I've been growing herbs fairly successfully for a quite a while from seed



It’s so easy and the results will astound you.  I felt like I had planted magic beans when my plants began growing. Any type of lettuce can be use, just cut the “root-end” off; you know the part you never use and usually toss in the trash or compost, yep that part.  You’ll want to leave about 2-3 inches of “fleshy” part. Then place this in a shallow bowl and fill with just a little water. I’d try to stay about 1/4-1/2”.  Keep it water and watch for signs of rot from the “fleshy” part you left on and if you see the leaves getting a little mushy take it off.  You don’t want your water getting all moldy and yucky.  You will see growth in about 3-4 days, no kidding, that quick. That’s it.

Easy Peezy….

Look for future post on growing celery, onions, potatoes and ginger.

Veggie Burger Recipe

I love a good veggie burger but not all are created equally. I've had some really good ones and some really bad ones.  Then I learned how easy they are to make and now I can’t stop tweaking and experimenting with the recipe(s).

I base my burger on lentils. Sometimes I will use a  combination of lentils and garbanzo or black beans with my preferred binder, oatmeal.  I season the mixture like I would regular burgers and If I want to add some texture, I will sometimes coat them in a mixture of panko and a little flour. I do a quick pan fry in olive oil to brown the burgers and then finish cooking them in the oven at 375 degrees.

Well here is my latest recipe and I must admit I was pretty genius in the balance of ingredients (really protein packed):

1/3 c. Quinoa (measure dry – then cook per package instructions)
1/3.c. Lentils (measure dry – then cook per package instructions)
1cn   Black Beans
1c.    Oatmeal

• Cook beans and quinoa  

• Drain all liquid from beans and grains after they’ve cooked  (keep some liquid in reserve in case your mixture is a little dry)

• Mix lentils, beans, quinoa and 1/2c. of the Oatmeal, continue adding until the consistency of the mixture is sort what you get  in making “meatloaf.” 

• Add seasoning(s) to taste. I usually use: Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper, fresh or minced garlic or little garlic powder

• Pat into burger & coat with Panko/flour mix (optional)

• Brown patties in skillet using Olive Oil or Canola (or completely pan fry if desired)

• Place on a baking sheet and finish cooking in the oven for 20-30 minutes.  Actually everything, except the oatmeal has already cooked.

Burgers can be dressed and paired with most anything, use your imagination. I like using tortilla wraps. I hope you try them. They are super easy, cheap, tasty and healthy. Let me know how you like them and if you make any "personal" tweaks, I'd love to hear about it. 


 


 
 



 

 

Lemon Leaves

I love lemons and use them all the time. Lemons provide some healthful benefits and although I don’t live in a climate suitable for lemon trees; I thought growing lemon leaves would be the next best thing.  Turns out growing them is super easy and cheap. All you need is a lemon (a regular store bought will do) and a little soil.

Stay tuned for more pictures and post to come on my lemon leaves adventure.

This was so easy thanks to a great blog post I found on pinterest, that was very detailed with all the research he’d found and his own successful results.  I followed his advise, which was simple to put the “fresh” seeds (meaning right from the lemon—no drying or soaking) in some dirt (he used an old ice cream cup); water and wait.  No magically positioning of seeds, etc.  It sounded easy enough and turns out it was.

I planted my seeds and waited, five days nothing and I began to wonder if it would work.  I remained patient and on the 8th day saw the first leaf unfurling.  By 14th day little green sprouts were popping up everywhere….

 

Resource/Inspiration: 

Tally's Treasury 

which i discovered through his pin displayed below

Extend the life of multiple Bouquets

 

three (3) medium size bouquets,  vases and  container

no floral foam, frogs or other nifty floral arrangement supplies I improvised using the mesh from a bag of onions and an old unused bowl to create what I believe is referred to as a frog.  It's this thing you can put in the bottom of vases of flowers that's usually round with lots of holes to place the stems more securely and strategically.

 but even with the DIY floral frog the stems seem to have a mind of their own and fell over to the edge of the container. 

 I started placing the flowers in the chosen container, an old unused ice bucket....

 I removed and discarded the dead, limp and lifeless blooms....

 I realized the container (ice bucket) was a little too big for the arrangement so I add filler in the way of an old egg carton, I suppose newspaper, bubble wrap, paper towel or old plastic grocery bags could be used as well, depending on your container and it's ability to camouflage it.

 I cut the egg carton into four (4) lengthwise strip....

 ....and just shove them down the sides and it instantly makes the arrangement more compact

 ...and tah dah!.... It's one huge beautiful bouquet.

 Now, mom get's to enjoy her Mother's Day Flowers a bit longer and in a slightly different way

 ...and I like that I recycled things that weren't being used or going to be discarded otherwise.

still had a few left over for another vase, a very pretty one that one of the original bouquets came in

It's very pretty too. I used a minimalist approach sort of a Japanese-style.\

Spring brings new beginnings

flower child

floral notes - phlox

red

Happy Valentine's Day

 

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

mind the weeds

February 2013

February 2013: Red Tulip

2013 Calendar: a year in flowers

beautiful

color purple

2013 Year in Flowers

 

flowers bloom hope

garden inspired

inspiration from mom's garden...

  “The greatest gift of the garden is the restoration of the five senses.”  Hanna Rion

 



life lessons from nature

daring adventure

Vintage Memories

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing
~ Helen Keller.

Make your bucket list. Go out now. Make some memories.  Take a chance. Enjoy the ride.  Don't wait too long to start crossing things off.  Memories are much sweeter than Regrets.

 

Orange salad

My Orange Salad

i tried this super easy orange salad. inspired by ( Rachel Ray's) 

Salad Bowl On Ice with Dome (Google Affiliate Ad) 

 

Hot and Sweet Orange Salad

my take using what was on hand in my kitchen...

ingredients:

1-2 medium size oranges
1 medium red onion
fresh mint
lime zest (optional)

i sliced the onion. i realized afterwards i should have sliced them julianne so i did dice them smaller after the picture was taken.
then peeled oranges and sliced like pinwheels not long segments
combined them in a large salad bowl
drizzled with a little olive oil and sprinkled with parmesan cheese
topped with mint and olives
(this recipe courtesy of Rachel Ray)

my variation  (added):
fresh mint (from my garden)
black olives
lime zest
and served with a few pepperoncini over mixed iceberg and butter lettuce
it was very good. different. be aware the onions can a bit overpowering especially after the salad sits (marinates awhile) you may want to use more sparingly they are very strong, a little goes a long way.
i want to make this again and use feta cheese

so for a quick easy dish on the fly this is a definite winner.  next time i'll get all the ingredients for Rachel's recipe and make with fewer deviations. however, i like that i can put my own spin on most of her dishes.  in fact she encourages and often gives suggestions to do just that.

what a fantastic way to enjoy oranges anytime really.

"Orange Peeler with Clamp" (Google Affiliate Ad)