I made a beautiful pie

Strawberry Rhubarb - probably the most beautiful pie I've ever made. Not to brag but, well isn't that kind of what blogs are for? Thanks Mom, for making me a baker.

I got the recipe from my favorite food blog:


Except, I used my mom's crust recipe which never fails. You too, can make a pie crust!
1 1/2 C Flour
1/2 C shortening - I use organic vegetable shortening
1/3 C ice cold water
1 t salt
(double the recipe if making a top)



That's it! You need a pastry cutter, cloth and covered rolling pin. Cut together the flour, salt and shortening, then add the water a little at a time until it holds together when pinched (sometimes you need more, sometimes less). You want to touch it as little as possible, so once you think it's ready transfer to a lightly floured pastry cloth and roll out from the center with your rolling pin.


Flip your pie dish over on top of what you've rolled out and make sure you have about 2" overlap all the way around. If you have excess on one side, you can cut it off and patch the spots that need it by "gluing" it on with a little water.


Transfer to your pie dish, cut around the edge so you only have about 1/2"-3/4" of overhang, then pinch around the outside for a decorative edge.

You can do it!

Springtime Garden Adventures

This ones for the people that care about what's happening in my garden - my favorite thing to talk about. I know that's not everyone :)
I've been really enthusiastic about adding more to the garden this year and since it was such a mild winter I thought I'd get off to an early start. But then, I got nervous about starting TOO early, and I put off starting some seeds that then I never got around to. Dangit.

I did get a head start on tomatoes because they are always the prize of the garden and I feel like I never have enough; so this year I tried 8 tomato starts and 3 eggplants in what I thought was going to be a totally genius idea. I took TP rolls (this part I got from Pinterest) and filled them with soil, then set them into a lettuce container and put another container on top to create a mini-greenhouse. However, I'm just not diligent enough to make sure that the lid is on when it's pouring rain and off when it's really hot and on at night when it gets chilly and making sure the soil stays wet-but-not-too-wet. ugh. Sooo, they germinated... then they did nothing. Some of them are still holding on pretending to be alive and stringing out my hopes, but mostly, I've accepted that I'm going to have to make a trip to the farmer's market and bite the bullet. Notice there is one nice tomato start in a yogurt container from my sweet next door neighbor that doesn't speak English, but somehow we manage to communicate and share quite a bit throughout the year.

Curb alert! Chris and I carried this from down the street - a perfect garden table, plus storage FA-FREE!

I really thought this lavender wasn't coming back and was about to toss it when I thought I'd trim it back and noticed there was still some green to be seen. I gave it some time and lo and behold there is new growth! Hooray!

Stupid slugs.

I have had some garden enemies in past seasons. Mostly, my fights have been with cats that think my planters are nice places to sleep and poop. Gross. I've fashioned some good barriers to keep them out while the plants are still little. I've fought with squash bugs a lot - mostly they end up winning. Squirrels haven't been too much of a problem except for the time we grew sunflowers - they liked those. But this is the first time I've had to pick a fight with birds! They keep chomping on various leaves - especially the peas. I bought some netting to keep them away, but now I'm thinking there is a good chance they are not after the leaves, but the slugs on the leaves. I've basically waged all out war on the slugs, so if the birds want to be my allies, I will let them chomp my leaves a little bit. Actually, my chinese neighbor and I had a moment together as we were outside at 11pm killing slugs and sharing our various methods. She was using chopsticks to pick them up and dunk them in salt water - I was using scissors and salt water. Really gross but I probably eliminated about 50 slugs. 

I don't remember how I came across this video but I was pretty impressed with this guys garden, so I thought I'd try a couple of upside down planters myself. I'm growing a tomato (not sure what kind since it sprouted up out of my compost) and a jalepeno - I've got basil on top of both of them. I've heard that this approach is supposed to be better for keeping away pests, but I've already seen a couple of aphids on the tomato so we'll see about that!

My salad bowl! I have another one in the works. So nice to have fresh greens on your plate every night!

Beans and beets and some kind of squash (I planted pattypan and crookneck -
not sure which one came up) and a screen to keep the cats out!

These hops are out of control! We gave them higher poles to climb this year and they have already topped those out at about 16 feet! (Also note our neighbor's pretty roses) Chris and Micah just used all the hops from last year in yesterday's pale ale brewing!

 

Unfortunately this beautiful planter that Chris made isn't holding up. He's working on fixing it, we didn't know we'd still be using them after 5 years. not really built to last - now we know better!

Strawberries in my old bike basket

And finally - my prized possession! My birthday gifts this year, a pear tree from Chris, and a big barrel planter from Emily  (yes they coordinated)!
My fist venture into growing fruit and I'm so excited (look! it already has a pear!). Also, it is the only tree in my backyard so it gets special love and attention. Also, I learned how to prune properly at Edible Schoolyard this year so I'm already looking forward to next Spring!

This is the latest experiment - Chris set up a soaker hose attached to our huge stock pot that I got on Craigslist several years ago. We have to dump buckets of rain water into the top for now but it's better than hauling watering can after watering can to keep everything happy.