{spontaneous}

Last weekend we decided very last minute to go up to a ranch in Oklahoma to meet up with some friends from JBU.

Thomas and I went to the same ranch back in March for a weekend getaway.

It's a beautiful place.

Caleb is living and working at the ranch (renovating the entire ranch house). Matt and Haley were living across the border in Arkansas, but they moved up to Missouri this week so we wanted to see them before they moved further north.

We did fun stuff like driving around in a Jeep and on a four-wheeler to see the ranch.
Thomas & Matt on the four-wheeler 

Matt & Haley on the four-wheeler through the dirty back window of the Jeep.

Me & Thomas on the four-wheeler.
Thomas wore my sunglasses so he wouldn't get bugs in his eyes.

Exploring.

And we went swimming in the salt water pool.

We ate good food.

Caleb and his steaks.

S'mores for dessert.

Haley and her tiny little baby bump roasting marshmallows.

Hobo burgers for lunch the next day.
If you've never had a hobo burger, you're missing out.

Basically, a hobo burger is ground beef, potatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, peppers (whatever veggies you want), and cream of mushroom soup wrapped up in aluminium foil and thrown in the fire for an hour or so.
SO good.

The boys

A few goodbye pictures before we parted ways...

The boys and the obligatory Squatting Felix picture.

Matt & Haley & Baby Boyd!

 The group of us :)

What a fun weekend!

{see how my garden grows}

It's been just over six weeks since I planted my little patio garden.

It's been busy growing.
.
The seedlings when I first planted them.

Four weeks later, with the bell pepper plant moved to the front, a new spaghetti squash plant in the middle, and stakes added to support the tomato plant.

This past weekend (six weeks after planting everything), I had to build a trellis for the cucumber plants to climb up, because they had grown so much they were hanging off the edge of the city pickers patio planter. I used bamboo stakes.

[First two sides built]

[Finished]

What it looks like today, six weeks after planting.

My jalapeno plants are flowering.

As are my cucumber plants.

The chives, onions, cilantro, and green beans that I started from seeds in these little containers...

... grew fast...

... and are now flourishing in bigger pots.

[spring onions, cilantro, chives]

[green beans]

The herb seedlings that I planted are growing and producing nicely.

[thyme, thai basil, sweet basil]

[rosemary, tarragon, oregano]

This is the whole patio garden after three weeks, having just transplanted the little seedlings into bigger pots.

And here everything is today, after six weeks.

After just over a month, I watered everything with some plant food. The potting mix that I bought claims to feed plants for up to three months, but I thought I'd get a head start. I plan to feed them about once a week.

I also bought some organic pesticide/fungicide, because I've had some trouble with aphids and brown leaf spot. It seems to be taking care of everything.

I should have my first harvest of green beans soon, and there are little tiny jalapeno peppers and cucumbers growing. I'm hoping to see some tomatoes soon.

Keep growing, little plants!

{And yes, my life really is that boring that I write entire posts about my patio garden}

:)

Strawberries. Lots of strawberries.

I've always wanted to go strawberry picking... for as long as I can remember.

For some reason, I've never had the chance to do so....

... until Saturday, when I dragged Thomas on an hour and a half drive out of Dallas, because I found this awesome farm online that lets you pick your own strawberries.

[Apparently I suck at looking for things online, because today Thomas found a strawberry picking farm that is a mere 15 minutes away from us. Ah well.]

Anyhoo... when we finally got there, it was lots of fun.
We picked lots of strawberries. 17 pounds of strawberries, to be exact.

When we got them home... we had some washing to do, one box at a time.

Drying them on paper towels on the kitchen counter...

... and in the living room.

The is what our fridge looked like after Operation Strawberry. And that's not all of them. More are in the freezer.

I set the slightly mushier ones aside to make strawberry pies, which are super easy to make.
I bought some frozen pie crusts, and baked them empty. Using about a quart of strawberries per pie, I fit as many as I could into each pie crust, and mashed up the remaining strawberries.
[And when I say "I", I really mean "we" because Thomas did a lot of the work too, since I came down with a lovely little cold on Saturday night.]

I mixed the mashed strawberries with about one and a third cups of light agave nectar and heated it on the stove until it began to boil.
I mixed one and a half cups of water with 6 tablespoons of cornstarch separately, and added it slowly to the strawberry mixture after reducing the heat. Once the cornstarch and water mixture was added, I stirred it until it thickened.

And finally, I poured the mixture over the strawberries in the pie crusts.

They take several hours to set in the fridge, but Thomas and I were a little impatient and tried to eat a slice after two hours or so... it was still quite runny... but delicious. We let it set for a few more hours, and since then, we've almost demolished a whole pie between us. With fresh whipped cream, of course, because you can't eat strawberries without whipped cream.

I froze a lot of the strawberries, so I'll have plenty to make smoothies with/bake with/make jam with in the future.
And we've been munching on some that I left in the fridge.
The frozen ones have actually been great for me to eat... the coldness feels wonderful on my raging sore throat. Stupid cold.

So if you're ever in need of strawberries, you know where to come. And if you want to try the strawberry pies, you'd better get here quickly. They're disappearing fast.

{a little patio garden}

It's basically summer here in Dallas already. Or rather, the current temperatures (80's F) are what summer feels like in normal places. Spring in Texas = summer everywhere else. Summer in Texas = hell on earth.

So while the temperatures are still below 100 F, I decided to plant a little patio garden this weekend.

It all started when Thomas's mom sent me these cute little containers and some flower seeds...

[ Thanks! :) ]

And that just got me started... I went to Lowe's and picked up some more containers, potting mix, garden lime, and some plants.

I was going to just buy seeds and grow them from scratch... but apparently that's hard to do unless you have a green thumb. [Which I don't know if I have. I guess I'll find out.]. Also, it's a little late in the year to start from seeds. So mostly, I bought little seedlings of the plants I wanted to grow.

The large brown container in the back of the above picture is a "city pickers" vegetable growing kit. 

It has a water reservoir in the bottom, then an aeration screen, on top of which the soil goes.

And it has wheels so you can roll it around to wherever the sun is. Genius.

So we filled it up halfway with soil...

Added some garden lime to neutralize the soil pH...

It was getting dark as we did this, hence the flash in the next picture.

After filling it to the top with soil, we put the mulch cover on... it prevents the soil from going dry from evaporation.

The next day, I planted some of the seedlings in the city picker... [you cut holes in the mulch cover and sink the seedlings into the soil.]

The little spout in the corner is how you fill the water reservoir... the water then wicks up into the soil.

I think it's quite clever.

Left to right, in a semicircle: two jalapeno pepper plants, two tomato plants, two cucumber plants, and one yellow bell pepper plant.

I'm going to put a couple more vegetable plants around the outside and maybe some herbs in the center. I also need to leave space to put in wooden stakes for the plants to climb up on as they get bigger.

Some extra jalapeno pepper and cucumber seedlings that I'm trying to decide where to put...

I planted herbs in these window boxes

Thyme, thai basil, and sweet basil. [I left a space for more sweet basil].

Greek oregano, tarragon, and rosemary.

I also planted some herb & vegetable seeds in these little containers to start off. When the seedlings are big enough I'll transplant them to window boxes or the city picker. Then I'll plant pretty flowers in the containers :)

Left to right: cilantro, spring onions, green beans, chives.

I really have no clue about gardening. I did some research on the plants that I got, but we'll see how it all turns out. I'm kind of afraid that the hellish heat during the summer will just kill them all off!

I just wanted to try growing some of my own vegetables and herbs...

Workin' in my [little tiny] garden :)

Grow, little plants, grow!