well, hello there.

it's been a few months since the last update, i know.. but it's been a rough few months for us at the little forest house.. i assure you plants are still growing. we have carrots, herbs, and broccoli planted for the winter. i've started taking pictures of the growth process.. so one of these days when i get the patience i shall start uploaded! promise!

we're great with cucumbers.

not too much to report. the pepper garden is not so much.. and i think we finally figured out why. well, us geniuses thought it would be a great idea to plant a thing of catnip in the middle of the pepper garden.. not so much? i caught my cat tinkling on it the other day - i'm sure every other puss in the neighborhood has been getting some action, too.

so apparently, we're good at growing cucumbers! the roma tomato plant produced about 15 tomatoes.. now, as well as the celebrity and better bush plants, bloom over and over and over and i guess they just don't pollinate. i've started rubbing the little flowers together so we'll see if that helps..

this a nice close up of my sage, it has great texture.





tons of cucumbers! i'm going to get two or three different kinds of cucumbers next year.




i wuv their fingers.













this is my first okra! yay!





aaand josh loving his kids.




a nice sunrise for you night folk.

what's that on the fence?

so we're walking through the yard.. checking out the veggies and i go .. "ew? is that a condom on the fence?" josh gave it a little kick and it bounce back..

and it was this moth!@#

i looked it up, it's a luna moth. they only live 7 days in their adult form.. in those seven days they lay 500-700 eggs!

sooo i'm super lucky i got to see it. i took a ton of pictures.. these don't even scratch the surface. i'm going to try to load them in chronological order so you can see it's wings unfurl. =D

is that a pickle in your pocket?

so we ate her!

RECIPE!
brine:
1 3/4 cups water
3/4 vinegar
3 tablespoon kosher salt

1 awesome cucumber .. from my garden.
a ton a dill .. from my garden.
a little bit of basil .. from my garden.
and some garlic i bought. =)







first off I mixed the brine ingredients and set them to boil.

after that we chopped of the dill, basil, and two cloves of garlic for the seasoning.





we put a layer of the herb mixture in the bottom.





next.. we took turn chopping up the cucumber!@








stuffed a few in, added a layer of spices.





stuffed some more cucumbers in. more spices.





by then the brine mixture was boiling. we slowly poured then brine into the jar covering the cucumbers and the pickle seasonings! from my garden!










we heated up the jar lid in some warm water then placed it on the jar. screwed on the ring and ..





tada! now time to seal the jar!





we dropped the jar into a hot boiling tub of water and let it cook for about 15 minutes (next batch will probably cook less time, so they'll be crunchier).





cook cook cook!





after 15 mins we pulled it out and stuck it in the cabinet for about three days.. then into the refrigerator! i had my first yummy home made home grown pickle a day later and it was great!

yaaay babies babies!

first buds from our guatemalan peppers!




the first tomatillo. =D




that's a tomatillo flower.. it's super pretty!




since the first roma tomato ripened.. the plant has exploded! it's grown four huge tomatoes in no time! it took the first one a month or two.. not these babies.. it took weeks!









my cucumber vine is out of control! we harvested our first cucumber (yay!) that i will be pickling. so i'm going to save the final pictures of that for the pickling adventure that i will embark on tonight!




close up of the head of the cucumber vine. so furry.








this is my cilantro.. it seems to be creating seed pods.. so no one has to buy cilantro next year! i'll have a shit ton of seeds!




blooming catnip.



another guatemalan pepper plant going to town.



jalapeno!



dill overload!




my fiiiiirst eggplant flower! IT'S PURPLE! EHEHE.




she's a cute little plant but she's going nuts!

josh's succulents..

we had a little bit of a succulent fetish, too .. so here's a little diddy about them.


this is a blue agave from our neighbor.




my cute little cactus.. if you go back in the blog you'll see when i first plucked her. she's got babies now!





a close of up the new growth on two of the paddle plants. (trysiflora kalanchoe)








i don't know what this one is.. generically i call it a desert rose.. but look at that bloom! there will be updates of it!



this is a succulent that josh nipped from a house he worked at.. no clue what it is.. but look at that giiinormous bloom!!

little critter!

i dunno what he is!

cucumber update!

an update!

i know it's been awhile. we've had some family health issues that have taken up a lot of time. also, fallout 3 didn't help much.

over the rainy season we had quite a fungus problem. we've gotten that taken care of. now we're starting to get veggies! we've harvested our first two tomatoes.. it's funny, these are the fruit that were on the plants when we purchased them.. now that we've removed them the plants have gone into overtime on production. in the next few days i'll take a good set of pictures and video.

we've added a few things to the garden. we got another tomato plant, celebrity tomatoes. a little tomatillo plant. we've moved the strawberries out of the raised bed into their own pots.. i'm afraid i have a sneaky little squirrel stealing them, so we're going to put them nearer to the house. i also added peanuts and a new habanero plant.. our peppers didn't enjoy the partial shade.

oh! and we whacked down a ton of trees laaast weekend. so now we have a lot more light. i think we're going to go another round closer it gets to bulk trash week.

so until a better photo update i would like to tickle your eyebuds with the progression of my first cucumber! as of now it's still on the vine and hasn't reached maturity.

new residents in the garden..

we found four today.. big ones and little ones! hopefully they're eating the bad bugs, and not my lady bugs!

baby elepant ears!

these are our babies from last year.. they just poked their heads out this week.. i can't wait for the rain!

also my fuschia is about to explode!

mobile test!

this is a house in plano that i care for the plants..





this is my favoritest atrium.




and my front porch. =)