Salads are my fav

I absolutely love salads. They're my favorite lunch and dinners ever. All I really want is a homemade version of Olive Garden's salad OR a spicy crispy chicken caesar salad.

Above is my Olive Garden salad. Lettuce, garden tomatoes, kalamata olives, banana peppers, Italian seasoned croutons, parmesan cheese, and then the store bought Olive Garden Italian dressing.

 

I Finished A Book!

These days books seem to be hard to finish for me. This one I finished in a week, which seemed to be an absolute feat to do with school starting, soccer, mountain biking, and a shit load of garden to-dos.

This reminded me of another book that I read last year - a family goes to an Italian island getaway and instant chaos happens. So basically it's a mystery beach read so it's supposed to be fast. There are twists and turns, the whole plot and whodunit is not given away in the first 50 pages so you actually can read and wonder what will happen unlike a ton of mystery novels out there right now.

I enjoyed the family's personalities described and each person was different, with names that weren't too close to each other so keeping track of all the people was fairly easy too, once all the relationships had been explained. I was pleasantly surprised with the variety of rich-people character traits that also show up on show like Real Housewives and guests on Below Deck. Narcissism usually provides good entertainment as long as you're not involved. 

Do I recommend buying this? Ehhh, if you're one that doesn't keep a to-read list, then yes, stop off at your local independent bookstore or Barnes & Noble; but I'd put it on your library reserve list first. It's such a quick read that hopefully, even if it's a long list, you should get it soon.

I think I probably did a 4/5 on Goodreads. I rarely give a 5/5. If I actually finish a book these days, it definitely deserves more than 3 stars. LOL.

 

The Feed Zone

We're living at mountain bike races these days. Q and I set up our chairs in the "Feed Zone." Watching the high schoolers grab dump bottles or drink bottles is extremely entertaining - and extremely stressful for the coaches. In the pic - on the left are the coaches waiting with the "dump" or "drink" bottles. The Dump bottles are just open bike water bottles meant to take one big sip of water and then the riders "DUMP" the bottle of water over their heads and backs. It's meant to use as a short drink hydration and a major cooling down if the riders are hot. Riders also toss empty drink bottles and grab new drink bottles for their bikes. It's amazing to watch the handoffs. These teams are coordinated!

 

September Blooming Flowers

Zinnias, cosmos, dahlias, and rudbeckia are still in bloom at my Zone 5a.

 

Monarch Migration

It's already mid-September and the Monarchs are migrating to Mexico. This is one of my favorite times of year for seeing butterflies. I've had an odd butterfly season though.

This year I've noticed only a few of my milkweeds actually being chomped on and having eggs, otherwise, all the butterflies and pollinators have been on my native plants. I only found one caterpillar earlier this year - and many eggs - hiding in the milkweed closest to my house. 

Here's a Painted Lady

I have a feeling that somehow, I've also attracted many birds, and birds eat the caterpillars. The cabbage moth population was down this year in my backyard but the singing bird population was quite high. I also have been feeding crows. The crows decided they liked the lady who was giving them straight up peanuts a block away though - but they come back a few times per week because I give them either lamb or fish based dog food. I KNOW. I KNOW. I feel like a hedgewitch. I have crows.

The monarchs absolutely LOVE native liatris and will roost for DAYS. Basically, for the last 3 days, my liatris has been collecting butterflies. I would like to get 3-5 more plants for next year. I'm going to have to keep an eye on the native plant nursery websites to make sure I can get a few more.

They are just so pretty. I'm hoping the weather holds out so these remarkably light things can get as far as they can while it's still rather warm. Our nights are starting to get really cool (great for sleeping and for tomato ripening!). 

AS you can see, there are some really pretty native flowers that are fairly attractive instead of what people might think are boring or just green or just too white and not fancy enough for gardens. I would absolutely try planting some liatris, rudbeckia, and butterfly weed. The colors, even on the native plants, are bright enough that the perennials are fun to watch grow and you get to support the pollinators. 

 

Recipe: Crispy Chickpeas

This is the EASIEST damn side dish or salad topping or bowl topping or whatever.

You mix 2 cans of chickpeas (rinsed and drained) with 1 tablespoon of soy sauce, plus 2 tablespoons of maple syrup or honey (literally whichever you have) plus the following spices: 1 teaspoon of each: garlic powder, paprika, oregano, onion powder, dried parsley, salt and pepper to taste

Bake on a large sheet pan at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. Then swirl it all around and bake another 7-10 or until nice and crispy. It will smell AMAZE AMAZE.

Then put in a bowl and try not to eat the whole thing.

I happened to use it as a salad bowl topping. DELISH.

 

And They're Off!

Once again, the end of August brought us back to the start of a new school year. This is the last elementary year that we'll ever be in. I'm actually really excited about that because oh man, we've seen a lot of changes over the last 10 years in the elementary school and I'm ready to go to the middle school! Q... not so much! He's realized that each year is more academically challenging and is like "UM NO THANK YOU" but he still does well. He choose the lion for his picture this year.

And off to high school for S. I'm so excited for her! I know she'll do well and I hope she has a great time meeting new people and hanging out with her friends. Plus.. her first race on the mountain bike team brought her second place so she's off to a great start!

 

August Veggie Harvests

I usually grow varieties that the kids will eat for sure - sometimes the fun different varieties can be difficult to convince the kids to eat. These purple carrots were a hit. I cut them into carrot sticks for snacks. Will definitely be planting again next year. 

Carrot growing review: Easy to germinate; definitely give each carrot space to grow, otherwise they don't get as long; plant in looser soil or more sandy soil; I felt like these needed heavier watering but they were fairly easy to grow; would be good for a beginner gardener

Mini tomatoes for my neighbor: absolutely delicious; these are all good varieties to make a fresh pasta sauce too (basically add a little onion or shallot to a pan with fresh garlic, wait until all transluscent, add the tomatoes until they burst, then add in fresh basil - serve over or mixed with your favorite pasta)

Tri-color tomatoes for sandwiches

Mini sweet peppers - I actually do not recomment these. They were not as sweet as expected and took quite awhile to grow. The plants only produced one crop, they do not keep flowering like others. Unfortunately I received the starts from a friend and they were only labeled "sweet peppers" so I will have to do some digging. I'm thinking they might be a "Lunchbox" variety. 

 

It's a Paddleboarding Summer

Check out this beautiful Minnesota August day! This was the Cuyuna Crusher; after Q's race - he can't say no to playing in the water.

After both kids were done, we went to the Yawkey unit swimming lake. There's no other boats allowed so no waves, and extremely calm. It was such a gorgeous day.

Even Q could paddle in the calm waters and get the two of them about halfway across the lake and back. Paddle North is having their State Fair sale so I'm tempted to buy a second paddle board or a Loon's Nest instead. So much fun!

 

Winner Winner Bread for Dinner!

My daughter loves mountain biking. She's joined her schools mountain bike team and has biked for several years. She adores racing and looks forward to the Wirth on Wednesday races at The Trailhead at Theodore Wirth Park in Minneapolis.

This past year, Mill Valley didn't renew their lease (at least that's what I'm assuming) and another local restaurant took over the space. It's Aki's Bread. And so the first place winner gets a load of bread for their prize! She picked out an oatmeal loaf which was absolutely delicious. I'm selfishly hoping she wins again so she can bring home a loaf of sourdough!

 

Homegrown Onions

Onions are fairly easy to grow at home. You need a full day of sun, lots of water, and well draining soil (the sandier, the better). I do not have the right soil conditions for onions but I keep growing them anyway. Insanity gardening happens here because there's some years that I just forget what I've done the few years before. Because I don't have the right sandy soil - my soil is really organic and a lot more compost-y - my onions tend to stay on the smaller side. These yellow onions are from starts from Menards. I bought them last minute after being unable to decide if I should grow them again.

There's a bunch of tips and tricks for onion growing out there. I have seen people say that trimming the small starts a few times before they make a bulb makes them grow bigger and have more layers. If that works for you... do it... I do not see a difference in the onions that I grow - walla walla OR sweet onions. I haven't grown red onions yet, so I may add those to my list for next year. We don't eat as many red onions but I'm always happy to try something new.

And when you cook with homegrown onions, I seem to have to use twice as many in recipes - I made black beans the other night with 3 home grown onions instead of one store bought onion (along with roasted garlic and 2 chipotle chilis, I highly recommend! DELISH!). Even when I grow over 100 onions, they never seem to last more than a few weeks because I use them so often in recipes. We just have a small city lot, so I don't think I'll ever grow more than 100 in a year. I have too many veggies that I want to grow! BUT next year I will take a whole raised bed in the front for just onions (the other raised bed will be just zinnias and cut flowers again until the wood tree logs decompose a little but more). So next year I'll have room for 2-3 varieties of onion instead of just a single variety that I've planted in spurts all over the garden. I will keep them all together to try to get them fertilized and watered on the same schedule so hopefully have larger onions next year.

 

Summer Sunflowers

I have two volunteer sunflowers this year. They're so cute! The top would be a mammoth sunflower - the variety is called Pike's Peak. The seeds are edible. I found them pretty delish after a light roasting and salting. If you've never pulled sunflower seeds off the heads in the fall, it's truly satisfying!

The bottom sunflower is a Van Gogh variety. The petals are large and soft, the seeds aren't necessarily developed for eating so you probably won't find them delish or satisfying. Because this is a hybrid, I was actually surprised to find this in my garden again this year growing so similar to last year! I thought when I saw it that it might revert to one of the parent seed traits instead of another year of Van Gogh. I will let this go to seed and drop the seeds in my front garden beds where either the squirrels can get them, or I wouldn't mind if they grew tall for people passing by on the sidewalk.

I have one other variety that is a maroon and gold (GO GOPHERS!); I purposely am growing those for my husband - he mentioned his favorite flower is a sunflower so I'm happy to accomodate that preference! Sunflowers are fun to grow and I love watching the birds try to land on the tall stalks.

Happy August!

 

Recipe - Roasted Garlic

Roasted Garlic:

Just toss all the garlic cloves, peel and all into a small oven proof saucier with salt, pepper, 2 bay leaves, and 2-3 thyme springs. Put in enough olive oil to cover everything. Put into a 325 degree oven for 35 minutes. Let cool. Separate cloves from oil - save oil in a glass jar. Smash the garlic and save that in another jar.

 Awhile ago I mentioned in my Instagram stories that Phil wrecked my garlic.

Phil, my lovely, rambunctious Labrador decided that his favorite spot to lay in the garden was right on top of my German Red Garlic. He handily destroyed it in under 2 days rolling and sunbathing. DOGS. I pulled what I could to cook with it immediately and then I left what was there to maybe give it time to mature. German Red Garlic is delicious. When it has time to mature, the cloves are large and easy to peel - and the garlic taste is fabulous. I always add 3-5 cloves of garlic into whatever I cook (because anything less is... not garlic. LOL).

First you have to pull the garlic and peel it. Because it had already fallen over from the dog, the bulbs were easy to pull from the ground and I left them outside in the sun for a good 3 days. I wanted the first few layers of the peel to dry to make it easier to work with. All the discards will go back into my compost pile.

I used a Le Creuset saucier. Separate and smash the cloves from the bulbs, don't worry about the paper peel - just toss all the cloves into the pot. Cover with a hefty layer of olive oil until everything is covered. Add salt, pepper, 2 bay leaves, and a couple sprigs of thyme. Put into a 325 degree oven for 35 - 40 minutes. Your house should smell amazing.

It's still bubbling here when I took it out of the oven. Wait for the pot to cool. You wil have to handle each clove with your hands, so give it a good amount of time to cool.

Then, I used a strainer to separate the majority of the infused garlic oil into a separate jar.

The garlic is soft enough that if you prefer, you can just smash it with a spatula. 

I will cook with the infused garlic oil, make salad dressings with it, drizzle over salmon or chicken or beef or vegetables. The infused oil is DELICIOUS, it ups your cooking to the next level. With the roasted garlic, I will add it to anything that I normally make with regular garlic - this just adds a different and more delicious flavor. I especially like to make soups and stews with it, I feel like it adds depth and a better garlic flavor.

Enjoy!

July Flowers in My Garden

I am embarrassed to admit that I don't know what these fun annuals are. But they're fun, bright, and they keep blooming through these super hot July days.

Yellow Snapdragons 

Strawflowers. This is my second year growing them and I absolutely LOVE them! They're easy to start from seed, easy to plant, and easy to grow. I do water deeply every few days though because they are annuals I feel as if they need a little extra attention in the garden.

Big bumble on my milkweed

Coleus. I started it all from seed this year, like last year and ended up with too much. That's ok though because I have enough shade that I was able to fit it all into my yard. I truly love coleus because it gives my shady areas pops of color - usually shady areas are very green and this helps to give it a variety of color.

Daylily

Daylily

 

Starting Cool Weather Crops in the Heat of Summer

 It's really difficult to start cool weather crops when it's 90+ degrees outside. Right now we're in the middle of a cyclosporis outbreak - it's in lettuce and other greens sold by a large corporation. This particular poop lettuce is contaminated by feces, specifically HUMAN FECES. So lately in garden groups and on sites like Threads I have seen many, many people commenting to "grow your own" and "it doesn't take long." Well, let me tell you... these are cool weather crops and they don't like to grow in 90 degrees.

I started this lettuce outside in the shade about 3 weeks ago. The temperature, including overnight lows has not been any lower than 75 degrees. Cool weather crops like the lower end of spring temps which means lows at night can be in the 40's and these babies THRIVE. I should probably bring this in and put it in my basement for the cool basement air but I did this as an experiment to show people that you can't just plant seeds expecting them to do what you want them to do. Each variety you plant has needs, and they don't necessarily align with your particular microclimate.

So during this outbreak, don't worry, it's not just YOUR lettuce that's not growing - the cool weather crops don't like the heat of summer!

I started Spinach, Arugula, and a heat tolerant lettuce where I pulled out garlic today. I also sprinkled in some radishes - my family doesn't like radishes but I do. I will happily snack and munch on radishes along with adding them to tacos and any salad bowls I make. The spot where these are planted is shaded until about 11 am; then it gets shady again around 5:30-6pm-ish. If these do well, I'll have to make a note to succession these in this spot again.

I also did another succession of cilantro. These seeds were planted two weeks ago. I keep this pot in part shade ALL DAY. Even in the shade, the cilantro struggles because it is a cool weather loving herb - the heat tends to send it to seed extremely quickly. I haven't found a good heat tolerant variety yet.

And I do have to water it twice daily. For being an herb easily found in grocery stores, it sure can be a picky one to grow!

For those wondering, I'm a Zone 5B grower, in St Louis Park, Minnesota. This summer has been rainy to start, and the heat at 90+ degrees has now been on every day for the last two weeks. It has only rained once in the last week and a half. I have now had to deeply water a few times over the last few days because it has been so dry!

If you're starting a succession of cool weather crops, just remember that in their ideal conditions (think early spring) the weather is VERY different - cooler and wetter - you can imitate those conditions by starting under grow lights in a basement, but if you want less work, just start outside in a more shady area. You can start in pots in shade, then move to a sunnier spot as fall moves in. But don't be hard on yourself if they don't grow - succession gardening is pushing the boundaries of the varieties that you're growing and not always growing in ideal conditions. I see every year as an experiement to grow more of what we eat and more of what I love to look at and what brings me joy. 

If you're planting lettuce, radishes, arugula, and other greens - good luck!