grow garden grow

My mom came over and helped me plant the garden when we returned from Hawaii in May.

We planted zucchini, cherry tomatoes, sugar snap peas, pole beans, san marzano tomatoes, cucumber, beets, broccoli, dill, and brussel sprouts. Mom set up the fence and we were good to go... or so we thought.

The neighborhood groundhog got in anyway (we think under the fence?) ate a bunch of the beet greens, almost all the leaves off the beans, a zucchini plant, all the broccoli, the dill, and 3 out of 4 of the Brussel sprouts. I went back to Lowes and got some replacement plants, but they weren't selling pole beans anymore, and I didn't bother with broccoli again. We thought we reinforced the fence, but the very next day he ate it almost all again. RRRRRRRR.

So we borrowed mom and dad's live trap.

Gotcha!

I will spare you the other 4 groundhog photos, because they pretty much all look alike. Yup, we caught 5 groundhogs. One day we even got 2 in one day. So after debating what to do with them, we decided to let them go in this fieldy area about 5 miles away. And we took them all one by one to the same spot so hopefully they can reunite.

It's been a couple days with no more in the trap, and no more garden decimation. So that's good.

So far I have some green tomatoes, a little cuke growing, but everything else is still pretty small. Here's hoping for a better turnout than last year!

Speaking of fresh veggies, I hosted book club last night and made this awesome salad. The dressing was the star of the show, everyone loved it and it was all gone. Can't wait to make it again.

around the house

spring!!!!

I tried my hand at fermenting. It's supposed to be good for the gut, all the friendly bacteria.

This bacteria didn't end up looking too friendly.

It was supposed to be a Beet Kvass. I don't know what I did wrong, followed the recipe. But I'm not about to drink visible mold. I did try a beet from the bottom of the barrel, but it was a strange texture and didn't taste pickled or anything, so spit it out.

Bummer. Waste of time and money.

Maybe I'll just stick with probiotic pills if I want to do that again. I do like those premade drinks, not Kombucha, but Kevita is tasty, just at $2-3 a bottle it's pretty expensive.

I made our favorite veggie burgers with a side of roasted potatoes and fresh asparagus from mom's garden.

We bought another garage freezer for the storage of the breast milk. We had a 5 cubic feet one, but with regular food and the breast milk it was too full. So we got another one, 7 cubic feet, just for the milk.

I've lost track how much is in there. Doug took over the storage and rotating of the milk. I was getting too overwhelmed everytime I'd open the freezer and a pile of milks would come cascading down and falling out. It looks like a lot, but it would really only last about a month and a half if that was all he had. Hopefully we can keep going another 6 months.

This past weekend we went to Water Hill music festival in Ann Arbor. It's pretty much a day when talented people in the neighborhood go out on their front porches and play music and everyone walks around listening to the different groups. It has really grown. The events are staged around the neighborhood so you can walk around and hear different ones at different times in the afternoon. We went last year and this year. A bonus is hanging out with my aunt and uncle who live there, and we also saw 2 out of their 3 kids. They are vegetarians and make the best food!! We stayed for dinner and had a delicious salad (with radish sprouts), veggie lasagna, and brownies with raspberry gelato. Mmmmm.

Aunt Mary enjoyed meeting August. She was dancing with him and keeping him warm as it was getting chilly. Great times!