Tag Archives: garden

Five Items Currently Making Me Happy

Zergüt Veggie Spread

Back in 2003/2004, my friend Claire and I both worked for the same company. It was one of those massive installations that had a bunch of perks for employees, including various classes. We took a nutrition/”healthy cooking with no time or some bullshit” class together once. I only remember two things about the class: the instructor saying, “Pressure is not having a pressure cooker,” and tasting this spread (affiliate link). It immediately captivated my taste buds and my mind. And then I couldn’t find it again.

Fast forward more than a decade, and I’ve wandered into some Eastern European grocery store because it looks interesting and Total Wine can wait. And, damned if there wasn’t a shelf of innocuous jars of magic right there.… Continue reading →

14 July 2014 Garden Photos

Bill and I left town for about two weeks. When we came back, our garden had gone kind of wild. Others were watering for us, and may have harvested a few things. I don’t know. I did, however, take a bunch of photos. There’s a sample below, including a tomato I’d like diagnosed, please! If you’d like to see more, just click through any photo to get to the image within the flickr set & poke around!

After we took all these photos, we went to dinner. Then we came back and harvested a ton of green bell peppers. I’m going to demand Jen share her stuffed pepper recipe.… Continue reading →

More Garden Photos

On Sunday, I called my father and he accused me of only calling out of “an overdeveloped sense of obligation.” This was a load of crap, of course. I called him out of a perfectly tuned sense of obligation. Eventually, we both agreed we could maybe call one another more often.

Then he asked for garden photos and I said he clearly wasn’t reading my blog. To which he admitted, but then pointed out I could be more aggressive about sharing. So, I’ll do that. And I’ll put up a few more photos, because I love him and I think he’d enjoy them. Also, because I enjoy sharing them.

This isn’t my usual view walking in, as I tend to enter from the southwest, not the east.… Continue reading →

Gardening 2014

I’ve started a bit of gardening again. Previously, I’ve done kind of a lot of container gardening, but I’ve been pretty clear that it’s more for the joy I find in growing things than any sort of self-sufficiency. This is pretty good, because sometimes I only get three tiny tomatoes.

But I’ve taken to gardening on a larger scale. Sort of. I got a plot in a community garden near-ish my home. And then I promptly agreed to share it with a new friend, John. John promptly filled his half of the plot with tomatoes, peppers and basil.

My half of the plot promptly got a couple of mustard greens. And the sage cut back dramatically. But it still basically looks like this:

My friend Toni has sent me some seeds, as a gift.… Continue reading →

A little bit on gardening and self-sufficiency

Bill and I just renewed the lease on our apartment, so we’ll be staying in this house about another year. It’s already the longest I, personally, have stayed put in my adult life. By the time we leave, which we intend to do next year, it will feel as if we’ve lived in this home forever. In fact, it’ll have been a little less than three years.

The first year we lived here, we moved in the middle of the summer. Heck, we mentioned it briefly here on this little blog. Of course, August is entirely too late in the year to plant anything, so for our first summer here, we grew nothing.

Last year, I posted about our first little garden early in the year, and then basically nothing for the rest of the year.… Continue reading →