2012 Garden – The Creative Salad

Blackberry Sweet Treats

We’ve been loving blackberry season. This year we’ve had more blackberries than ever, thanks in part to warmer weather and how our landlords pruned the blackberry bushes this past year. Oh, it’s been such fun.

Oh, it’s so sad the season it almost over!

We’re been pureeing up berry sauce (and LOVING our new OXO Food Mill):

And making crumbles:

We simmer blackberries with strawberries or raspberries and maple syrup on the stove until the fruit begins to fall apart. For the topping, we like to mix almond flour, coconut flour, and rolled oats with coconut oil. We add nutmeg and vanilla extract, then stir in a touch of maple syrup for sweetness. Then bake it in the oven until the top is browned. Delicious!

And eating a pint (or two!) of blackberries each day:

We even ate blackberries for dinner the other day, just because we could!

It’s been delicious.

Grow It, Cook It

Our daughter has been pouring over a fantastic gardening cookbook for kids: Grow It, Cook It: Simple Gardening Projects and Delicious Recipes. Yes, a book about gardening and cooking — two of our family’s most favorite things! This cookbook aims to get children involved in growing and preparing their own food. What better way to get kids excited about the food they eat than to grow and prepare it themselves!

Let’s head out to the garden and harvest some strawberries!

Grow It, Cook It presents how to grow a particular plant, and then incorporate it into a delicious recipe (with stunning photographs!). Here are some examples from the book:

The book also includes a section on seed saving:

Now to make something with our harvest of strawberries!

I think a batch of strawberry fruit spread is in order. That is if I can convince our daughter to stop gorging herself on the delicious berries. Who can blame her?! Homegrown produce tastes the best.

My (Lack of a) Summer Garden Plan

Our spring perennials are beginning to burst into bloom:

While we’re certainly enjoying the flowers in our front yard, I’ve made a radical decision regarding our vegetable garden this summer: we’re not going to plant one. I feel as though I only have so much time right now and I’d rather use that to dehydrate and can crops from friends’ trees and the farmer’s market than grow a meager supply of vegetables in our tiny front garden.

(I found making this decision–even typing it here!–to be so liberating, such a weight off my shoulders. Clearly this is what I need to do this year.)

I imagine that this is a temporary move and that we’ll plant a vegetable garden again next year, but this year we have other stuff going on. I can only do so much right now. My plate is full.

Not that I’m complaining! On the contrary, life is good!

The Ladybug Release

Our tree kale unfortunately appears to have developed an aphid problem.

I secretly felt a little giddy over this scenario though because suddenly we had a great reason to buy 1,500 ladybugs to release in the garden!

We’re all about educational, non-toxic pest management in our house.

Unfortuantely the ladybugs weren’t the cure-all we were hoping for. We placed numerous ladybugs right on top of delicious aphids and, much to our horror, the ladybugs walked right by and completely ignored them:

Not the scenario I was anticipating. HOW DARE THOSE LADYBUGS IGNORE OUR APHIDS?! We bought them for a purpose, darn it. How could they not be hungry?!

I couldn’t help but vent my frustrations on twitter:

First the ladybugs skipped out on a tasty snack and then they flew the coop. Two days later, they were nowhere to be seen.

Yet here we are, a few weeks later, and our aphids seem to be disappearing. Perhaps a few ladybugs have lingered in our garden or I’ve simply been more diligent at removing infected leaves.

Regardless, the whole ladybug release experience was so much fun that we want to do the whole thing over again. I may have to take a trip down to our neighborhood hardware store and pick up a few more ladybugs.

Who can resist a practical, fascinating, eco-groovy, AND super fun home-school activity?!

DIY Plant Marker Tutorial Round-Up

Even though I know the names of most (okay, many!) of the plants in our garden, I try to label all of our plants and vegetables. I find plant labels are important in refreshing my memory each season, as well as being an invaluable learning tool for our daughter as she grows and learns the plant names herself.

I tend to reusue the labels from our local garden center, strictly out of laziness and economy. I love the idea of making more durable and attractive plant markers that we can reuse year after year.

Here are some inspired handmade plant marker tutorials that I’m eager to try:

Featured above:
1. Antique Spoon Plant Marker Tutorial (pin/source)
2. Wine Cork Herb Labels (pin/source)
3. DIY Stamped Plant Marker (pin/source)
4. Make your own garden markers with jar lids and dowels (pin/source)
5. DIY Twig Plant Markers (pin/source)
6. Simple herb marker — permanent pen on pots! (pin/source)

(In writing this post, I noticed a multitude of chalkboard garden marker tutorials out there. Who wants a label that washes off when you water the garden?! Talk about impractical. I just don’t get it.)

Which plant marker is your favorite?

View these and many garden related projects, including several other garden marker tutorials, on my Garden Inspiration Pinterest board.

(images obtained via Pinterest)