Thankful

I really try to be grateful for this beautiful life every day.  A life filled with love, health, family, shelter. It's a good life.   In fact a pretty great life. Hardship and loss earlier in life always seem to remind me that the little things don't really matter.  All the petty things that can really absorb you, fill you with hate and negativity; most of it isn't worth the energy.  And, although I try to stay focused on the big picture today I thought I'd give thanks for a few of the smaller things (in no particular order)....

*Fresh garden ingredients even at the end of November.  The past few days we made juice with garden beets..greens and all (with apples, carrots, and ginger); stir fry with carrots, radishes, bok choy and cilantro; delicious lunch salads with kale, arugula, spinach, lettuce and tomatoes all from the garden! We also have a pantry stock of butternut squash and sweet potatoes.

*My amazingly husband, who brings us heaping bowls of garden goodies in late November.  The man is seriously dedicated.  He spends late nights and early mornings planning, researching,planting, harvesting, pulling weeds, and squashing bugs by hand so we can enjoy fresh organic fruits and vegetables. 

Kale harvest day back in early September

*A 2 year old that asks for more chia sprinkles, kale in her smoothie, and "totu."  Not only is it so darn cute to hear this little words it also gives me comfort knowing that she is fueling her little body with goodness and nutrients. 

*Coos and babble turning into Mama, Dada, and dog; crawls and cruising soon to be steps all on her own.  My sweet laid back lil babe is growing up and changing so fast. 

 

*Six years of wedded bliss. Our anniversary was just last weekend.  It is truly a honor to spend everyday with your best friend.

Spring gardening

Farmer Jim has been hard at working preparing for Spring planting.  He upgraded to a larger grow light hung from the ceiling in our laundry room (last year he used a small old fish tank light and some rigged up set up on buckets or something) and from what I can gather, is trying some different fertilizing methods.  He's also giving a try at starting some larger plants from seed, like tomatoes and squash instead of buying them from our local garden center.  After Riesling is is in bed he heads down to his little work bench, puts on some soft tunes, and gets his garden on. Seriously sh*t is start to get crazy over here...

 That big guy in the back is a fig tree.  We bought it last year at our local orchard.  It was looking mighty sad at the end of last year, pretty much it looked dead.  Jim and I both thought it might not make it through the winter but it made a killer comeback and is thriving now. 

Honestly, i lost track of everything but i know there is plenty of kale, swiss chard, spinach and few varieties of squash? not to mention the tons of lettuce. I think we're almost ready for salad?

Its my daytime job to transport certain trays outside to the mini greenhouse when the temperature is warm enough. I have found this to be easiest during Riesling's nap. Once everything is in the ground i think it will be easier to incorporate her in the gardening tasks. I know she is going to be all about it. Even last summer she was trying to pick her own peas.

I can't wait for garden fresh dinners all week long. For now I will jut have to enjoy he process and these adorable little baby bok choy. They are my favorite right now.

Tonight's Dinner

Brought to you by the Robinson Family Garden*....

Eggplant* parmigiana (recipe here) topped with kale* (add after the cheese has melted for about 5-7 minutes until crispy), spaghetti squash* with marinara sauce (follow prep instructions here), and steamed green beans*.

Man o Man do I LOVE garden season!

Curry

It's green bean season at the Robinson garden...

We get loads and loads of these things every day or two.  We share with neighbors, family, and our sitter but we still always have a hefty amount for ourselves.  Most nights we just steam them as a side dish but last night I decided to get creative and tried this curry recipe.  I had everything on hand except the coconut milk, so it was just a super quick trip into the store on the way home from the gym.  I used basmati rice instead of brown rice but otherwise I followed the recipe exactly.

It was a little time consuming but mostly because my vegetable prep was interrupted several times by my fussing, teething Miss Riesling.  I ended up strapping her in the ergo and went to town.  In the end well worth the extra effort!  The curry had a nice flavor and I loved the crunch of the fresh green beans.  It made a large enough amount that it's on the menu for lunch today.  YUM!

Sunday's harvest

 Riesling admiring our harvest yesterday....

 

Catching Up

A little catch up is in order, don't you think?  Mostly I've been busy rolling around, playing,  and tickling my little monkey.

She's just so interactive and fun right now.  I can hardly pull myself away to get anything productive done, so forget the ole blog.  She has taken to longer daytime naps and will sleep independently in her crib, so I use that time to race around like crazy and get some household chores under control.  But don't go snooping around in the corners or  under my couch because there are definitely big, disgusting dust balls and lord knows what else hanging out there.

The garden is heading into heavy production season.  Thanks to Jim's hard work and a mild winter, we've had a pretty steady supply of fresh produce. But things are really starting to pick up now to the point where we will have to be diligent about including the fresh stuff in our meal planning so nothing goes to waste....fresh salsa, bruschetta, zucchini fritters and eggplant pizza are on our weekend menu....maybe even some fresh pesto if I get really ambitious.  I've also been experimenting with ice tea varieties and refrigerated oatmeal. Hopefully I'll get some food/recipe related posts up soon.

The pool filter pump is broken.  Stupid pool.  It's so freaking high maintenance.  It's lucky that Riesling LOVES the pool now because I think Jim might be tempted to fill it full of dirt otherwise.

He'll be spending the afternoon replacing the motor on the pump while Riesling and I attend a bridal shower at The Melting Pot.   I'm not sure what sounds like more torture....mechanical repairs when you don't really know what the hell you're doing or taking your grabbing, exploring infant to a place filled with hot fondue pots.

 

Kale Salad

Thanks to Jim's planning and ambition we have been enjoying fresh lettuce from our garden for several weeks now.  We have a pretty good variety including red leaf lettuce, romaine, four seasons lettuce, arugula, spinach, and two types of kale.  It's pretty amazing, actually.

Typically we roast kale or use it in a soup but while in Charleston we had a really amazing kale caesar salad and decided to recreated it at home. 

The key really is to use dinosaur kale and a good quality caesar dressing (or better yet make your own!) 

Happy Vernal Equinox

Although today is the first official day of spring, the weather has been absolutely fantastic for the past week or so. I'm particularly fond of spring this year, which feels a little strange to me since we had such a mild winter. Must be the babe. Regardless, we have been doing our best to take advantage of the pleasant temperatures and sun filled afternoons.....

Friday Jim and I spent the afternoon gambling with our baby in a bar. So it was actually scratch off lotto tickets and lunch at the South Philly Tap Room with about 5 other people in the whole place, but there was still a moment when we both looked at each other and thought, "this is Ok, right?" Judge us if you must but we decided indeed it was Ok and we will do it again soon (probably without the lotto tickets, they were from the mother-in-law. We're not really gamblers).

A good portion of the rest of the weekend was spent working on the garden. Riesling loves hanging in the Ergo or Moby while I putz around the yard or just sit in the sun, chattng with Jim while he performs all the labor intensive work.



Every year we get a little better at gardening but this year looks to blow our past efforts out of the water. Jim is following Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew and has dedicated a lot of time and effort to feeding our family in the upcoming months. Last weekend he made this little hut to keep pest and varmints out of our lettuce and salad greens....


Pretty serious, right? I think I'm going to ask Jim to start doing a weekly/biweeklky guest post on the garden since he's really the expert. He use to have his own blog but abandoned it due to lack of time, which is understandable. But I think he can manage a few post a week....whatcha think Jim?

Orchids 101

Jim got me an orchid for our 2nd wedding anniversary. It was our second attempt to have this beautiful, majestic flower in our home. Even with all our love and devotion for nature the first one didn't fair very well and ended up in orchid heaven. When this one dropped all its flowers last year, we feared it was heading to its death bed. But the leaves stayed green at the bottom, so we knew there was hope.

We did a little research and came up with a better plan of care in hopes of helping it live long enough to bloom again. It really seemed doubtful for quite a long while. Until the morning of February 22 when the first new bud suddenly opened up and flowered. The same bright sunny day our beautiful little Riesling made her way until the world. Happy Birth Day Riese!


So what did we learn about caring for orchids?

Soil. Orchids need to be potting in a 'soil' mixture that allows for proper drainage but helps the roots retains moisture. In other words, not just potting soil that you would use with other house plants. We used a special orchid mixture that we purchased at Home Depot. You can also make your own mixture.

Watering. Watering too much or too often will kill the roots. And obviously underwatering is not the way to go either. We put a ice cube in the pot whenever it feels dry. Probably every 5-10 depending on the season (more often in the summer, less in the winter).

Sunlight. We had trouble with this one. You don't really want the plant in intense direct sunlight but it's not going to flourish hiding in the back corner of your living room either. The leaves should be a bright green color, a good indicator for whether or not your orchid is getting proper sunlight. Dark green leaves mean too little light while a reddish coloring indicates too much light. We had to move ours around a dozen times and before we found the right spot in our bay window.

Fertilizer. We realized that we were probably starving our orchid to death and it had no extra energy for producing flowers. So, we starting fertilizing it with special orchid food once per month. Over feeding will burn the roots so follow the instructions of the fertilizer you purchase.

So those are the basics. There are of course other things like disease, pests, etc that can affect orchids but thankfully none we've had to deal with and hopefully won't in the future. I just really love the simplicity and beauty of the orchid and think everyone should have an one to brighten up the home. A perfect gift for any of the upcoming spring holidays (Easter, Mother's Day, etc) I would highly recommend a lovely orchid. Just be sure to include a list of care instructions.

Run Rabbit Run

About the time that I was in the worst of my pregnancy related nausea, vomiting, constipation, and severe fatigue Jim decided to become a vegetarian (actually he's eating seafood, so he's technically a pescetarian but I have a hard time remembering that word). Prior to this change of events, we were both already huge veggie eaters and probably ate a vegetarian meal 2-3 nights a week. And there have definitely been moments, while enjoying a particularly delicious vegetarian meal, that we have commented to one another that we should just take the leap and become vegetarians. It was never really anything more than conversation though. Until one day the bunnies pushed Jim over the edge...

Sometime in early August Jim was working in the garden. It was time to remove our lettuces and the early summer crops that were done for the year, till the soil, & prepare for it for the seed planting of a few fall crops. As he was he working away suddenly the soil let out a squealing yelp at which point Jim comes racing in the house screaming, ranting, and inquiring about my whereabouts. During this period I was a tad occupied with some long overdue bathroom "business" (sorry if this is TMI but Jim thinks it makes the story funnier).

"What's wrong?! Are you Ok?!"

"I tilled over a baby bunny! I need your help"

"What?! A bunny?! Where?! Did you kill it?!"

"I don't know!!! I don't know. In the garden. What are you doing?! I need your help!"

It turned out that Jim did not kill or even injure the cute, little baby bunny. Luckily he was only using a small hand tiller (that we actually scored trash picking) and apparently just grazed the little guy. It also turned out that there was a nest of 3 baby bunnies nestled up in the littlest hole and covered with straw. After much debate it was decided that the bunnies would be moved outside of the garden fence and nestled into a cozy little spot next to the fence, hoping that mommy bunny would find them. My vote was actually for leaving them where we found them but understandably Jim didn't want 3 hungry baby bunnies beginning to feast in our garden in the next few days or weeks.

The bunnies hung around the yard for about a week. Jim attempted to give them water with little success. Until one day he found them curled up together, dead.

Now you might be asking, "How does this equate to Jim declaring his daily diet free of meats and animal flesh?" And I guess the answer comes down to logic really.

Jim knew that the bunnies were too little to survive on their own without the mother. In his head the right thing would have been to put them out of their misery, more specifically drown them in a bucket. But alas, his kind hearted animal loving soul just couldn't do it. Instead the poor babes died a long miserable death by starvation. About a week after their demise, his epiphany struck. He could never have killed those bunnies. Given a gun or weapon of choice he would also be unable to kill a cow, a pig, or a chicken. He just wouldn't be able to go through with it under any set of circumstances. Why then should he expect another to do the killing for him?

Logic I tell you. Pure logic.

At the particular moment that Jim experienced this enlightenment I was surviving on peanut butter crackers and tea, leaving not one ounce of strength to extend any proper amount of attention to it. The house was stocked with plenty of fresh vegetables from our garden & our local CSA share and he was pretty much eating solo every night for almost 2 straight months. I could have cared less what the man was consuming. I had my own set of problems to deal with.

Slowly but surely my first trimester ended, I started eating real food again, regaining energy, and reclaiming my old identity. Which among many things, means lots of new recipes and culinary experimentation. Although I've decided not to exactly follow in Jim's footstep I am fully supporting his new dietary restrictions and only preparing vegetarian meals (with an occasional seafood addition) for the two of us.

You may have even taken note that the recent recipes I've posted are vegetarian friendly. I've also gone through all my existing recipe posts and added a vegetarian tag when applicable. Some posts do contain more than one recipe, but I included the tag even if it only applied to one. I figured that this really should be self explanatory. Actually I'm pretty sure that this doesn't matter at all because of the ten people that actually read this read none of them are vegetarians. And don't ask me how to accurately use these tags to search for things on my blog because I haven't the slightest clue. I'm guessing the search box might be helpful.

Salad anyone?

I took garden pictures less than 2 weeks ago but never got around to posting them....

Everything was really starting the fill in nicely, with lots of flowers showing up on the tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, and cucumbers.

We water it once a day, in the morning, and have applied organic plant food twice since we planted everything. After a little research, we decided on straw to hold in moisture instead of mulch which we have used in the past. Jim put lattice that we had from last year for the beans to climb. We also applied an organic garden dust twice after seeing noticing a lot of leaves had holes in them from little critters chewing on them. It seems to have taken care of the problem and keeping our fingers crossed....we seemed to have had no real issues with pests, deer, or disease.

This is what the garden looks like as of this morning. It's out of control how much things have shot up in the last ten days! We have tons & tons of baby tomatoes and cucumbers....

The cucumber vines were starting to take over the whole end of the bed and invade the tomatoes, so we constructed this pseudo lattice for the cucumbers out of a wood futon frame that we found in our neighbors trash (yes, we are trash pickers and proud of it!)

Lettuce, arugula, spinach, kale....I can't even eat enough salad these days!

And to think it started out looking like this only a month ago...

Building a Raised Garden Bed

Before landing on the decision to largely expand our garden with the help of raised beds, there was a lot of debating, waxing & waning, and muling it over...and over. We did a lot of research about the benefits, cost of building our own, and even looked into several premade, synthetic versions. There was really no doubt that we wanted a larger and more awesome garden (Jim is already plotting out where to put more beds next year!), I think it really came down fear. Fear that building the beds would be more difficult than we thought, which happens A LOT with projects; fear that we would invest the time and money and not accomplish what we had envisioned; and fear that we'd end up with some kind of unexplained garden catastrophe.

As for a garden disaster, we just try and do our best to pay special attention to the plants for signs of distress, pests, etc; watch the weather and make necessary changes to watering patterns or perhaps building a little garden tent at 9 o'clock at night to shade our lettuces during a major heat wave; and just in general obsess and fret over it all. What else can you do? Other than that we're really pleased with the results. The beds turned out amazing (you rock Jim!), building our own ended up being cheaper than any of the synthetic ones, and construction ended up being relatively simple and was completed in one afternoon.

We basically followed along with the instructions found here. We debated about construction materials, but decided to go with cedar planks which we found at our local Lowe's. We purchased 8 planks and one 4 x 4 along with decking screws. I forgot to take pictures during the construction phase. oops.

But within a few hours Jim accomplished this....

Then we positioned them in the desired areas, cleared any weeds or grass, dug holes for the posts, and leveled the beds. This was a little bit of work for us because one bed is on a hilly area but certainly easier than clearing and tilling the soil to create a new garden area.

After the beds were in place and any loose soil was leveled, we layered the bottom with newspaper to act as a weed barrier. The newspaper helps block out the sunlight but will eventually decompose.

...then we added hardware cloth to prevent moles and other critters from coming through the bottom and getting to the plant's roots. Jim used fencing shears (I don't know the technical word) to trim the metal mesh for the corners. We searched around the yard and found sticks with little hooks on them to use as pins to keep the cloth down until we added the soil.

The website recommends an additional step using PVC pipe to create an arc for bird netting. We skipped this step but did add a bracket on each long side to keep the planks from separating from the pressure of the soil.

Then fill 'er up!!!

Our neighbor is a landscaper, so we ordered 2 yards of sifted top soil from him. We actually ended up with 5 yards because the guy thought we could use some extra dirt, but that's another story. We mixed the top soil with our compost as well as bagged organic humus from Lowes.

And there you have it! Raised garden beds. You'll have more control over weeds and pest; better soil quality and drainage; easier accessibility to the crops which allows for closer planting and higher yields; a longer growing season because the enclosed soil will warm up sooner than the ground; and you can plop one down pretty much anywhere and turn the area into a beautiful vegetable or flower garden.

The Robinson Garden Club

We've been working so, so hard on our garden this year and really hoping...like praying to the garden fairies, the sun gods, the center for agriculture, and considering a sacrificial lamb hoping...that it will be our best garden yet. We've had nothing short of an obsession for years now. Many moons ago, Jim and I started our first garden in the edge of the parking area at our first apartment.

Young, shirtless Jim proudly watching over his garden (2006)

Serious gardening mistakes going on here....

I mean how many peppers and tomatoes did we try to shove in those little pots?!

We eventually advanced to a small, in ground garden on the side of our next apartment. We took over some available flower beds for the larger plants, as well as continue with some pots for herbs and smaller crops. It was a small area to work with and not optimal as far as lighting goes, but we made the best of it. We started experimenting with different vegetables, established an herb garden, and had our first encounters with pest, diseases, and other cause of death. I think I was using a 35mm camera at this point and don't feeling like digging up and scanning photos, so I have no available documentations of those stepping stones, but about three years later we ended up with this....

Fancy fence to keep out our Watership Down crew + hand made lattice fence for cucumbers, zucchini, and squash (2009)

Various lettuces, oregano, spinach, and cilantro various lettuces.

Last year we regressed a bit, but to no fault of our own. We moved into our house, so we had to start over in terms of preparing a plot for the garden, the soil was crap, we didn't know the land well enough, we had a bazillion grubs and other pests (which ended up killing our cucumbers and zucchini), and in general were just short on time due to other house projects. We still ended up with some tomatoes and peppers and a good supply of herbs.

Tomatoes (2010)

This is a terrible picture taken through a screen in an upstairs window but it gives an idea of the size and placement of the garden last year

This year has brought on a lot of experimenting and a lot of garden 'firsts' for the Robinsons. We've triple the size, added raised beds, and our using a mix of grown plants from a nursery, seedlings started inside a few months ago, and seeds directly in the garden beds. Our crop lists is insane, we added a killer net type fence to keep, and I'm pretty sure our neighbors think we've lost our minds.

The area with no raised bed is the site of our garden last year. After mixing in manure and compost, the soil quality was so much better so we decided not to cover it with the raised bed. One of the nice things about raised beds is they can go pretty much anywhere, so we moved it over a bit and basically have two garden beds in this area. We realized last year that it didn't get quite enough sun, so we've dedicated this area to mostly shade/partial sun crops, as well as experimental crops.

In ground: sweet potatoes, carrots, asparagus, and onions

Raised bed: string beans, brussel sprouts, kale, lettuce, spinach, and argula

Little pot: zucchini

Come to think of it this whole area is pretty much experimental. The only thing we've grown before are the lettuces and spinach (we have some inside our pool fence that we've been eating for weeks now) but never from seeds; everything else on the list is new to our crop list; for the carrots and asparagus we but seed/root directly in the ground; sweet potatoes were a last minute addition after talking to some lady at Home depot and I think they're not going to get enough soon in this spot; and the brussel sprouts are seedlings started indoors.

Our second raised bed (this is why people think we're crazy) is up on little hill near our pool fence. This area gets a a full day of sun and should be a better spot for all our sunlovin' plants. This bed is a little less experimental than the lower garden....

Robinson garden (spring 2011)

The plants were purchased from a nursery and almost all veggies we have experience growing in the past: tomatoes (4 varieties), peppers (3 varieties), cucumbers, and eggplant (1st time growing). You can also see a potted little plant which is clementine tree that was sent to me in the mail as a gift. So far, so good for the little guy.

We've still got a little work to do, like adding mulch and cages for the vine plants, but it's pretty much grow time now! So, either we'll be feeding our entire neighborhood this summer or....that's not talk about the alternative.

Thoughts on a Wednesday.

I received a clementine tree in the mail at work this week. Strange but exciting. We also have a plum and peach tree in our basement from a clearance shopping spree in the Home Depot garden department last year.

I think I'm handling winter really well this year.

But I won't be terribly upset if Spring decides to make an early arrival.

We've had the little flurries, the big foot or more, and now a night of freezing rain.

We can be done now.

Although I'm not a Valentine's Day kind of girl, I think these crayon hearts are really cute and would look nice in my dining room window.

Jim downloaded the new Decemberists albumn, "The King is Dead." I really liked it. But, for some reason I am surprised that 'everyone' else does too. I base this on nothing.

In other music news. I enjoyed listening to the Fresh Air interview with the Black Keys.

And I think they rock.

You should listen to the interview with Jay-Z also.

Just listen to Fresh Air. And make sure you picture Terry Gross in your head. It makes it better.

If you are turning left onto a one way street can you turn left on red?

Summer Night

I'm loving this weather!! Cool and crisp with a splash of sunshine. A perfect way to start the weekend...

After successfully installing the recessed lighting fixture, we decided to take advantage of the
beautiful weather and spend some time relaxing and just hanging out.

We took SoFee dog to the park then fired up the grill for a Friday night feast.


On the menu: grilled salmon, yukon gold potatoes, asparagus, red pepper and onion, and fresh sliced tomatoes. Using as many herbs and veggies from our little garden as possible....Yes, it was just Jim and I, but in our defense, we rarely eat lunch on Fridays so we were both ready for a hearty meal.

The lovely 'patio' tomatoes picked from the garden were fan-freakin-tastic. Sliced and served with a just a drizzle of olive oil and salt and pepper. Fresh tomatoes. It's reason alone to love summer...


We rolled the potatoes in olive oil, fresh rosemary, salt and pepper; putting them right straight on the grill whole. I whipped up a little 'sauce' with sour cream, fresh rosemary, butter, salt and pepper in the food processor.

We splashed the salmon with a simple squeeze of lemon, lime, and olive oil and grilled 4-5 minutes per side. The asparagus, a summer favorite around here, also rolled in olive oil with a dash of salt and squeezed with lemon after grilled.

Delicious. Every single bite!

It was especially nice to just spend a quiet evening together, enjoying good food, a glass of wine, a good conversation. It's been such a busy summer...it's hard to believe it's almost mid-August.