Tag: around the garden

Herbs: Cilantro, the experiment

Lori Tisdale2 Comments

If you’ve ever attempted to grow cilantro you might understand when I say that it’s TRICKY! But I so badly want to grow it… because I’m tired of buying a new bundle every week. I use it so often… why can’t I just figure out how to grow it?!

I had given up at one point due to failing on more than one occasion. This time I set my mind to researching the known issues further, asking other herb lovers (and by “herb lovers” I mean, they like to GROW and UTILIZE herbs… not smoke them) and doing an experiment of my own.

I had learned a lot in the meantime … how difficult can this be?! So, I purchased two cilantro plants and found similar size containers to put them in.

What I learned…
Cilantro does not like heat but it likes a lot of the cool morning sun.
The soil must stay moist and have good drainage.
The plant should be trimmed regularly to promote new growth.
Snails/slugs LOVE cilantro and can eat through a plant within about 24 hours.
Each plant will potentially harvest two or three bundles of clippings before bolting.
Depending on how much cilantro being use, plant more seed every 2-3 weeks to ensure continual availability.
Cilantro grows very fast!
When the plant bolts, you can use the coriander seeds to replant or save them and use them as a spice.

Sample #1
Grow INDOORS next to window that gets that most morning sun but in a room that does not get hot. Keep soil moist and trim regularly. (And since I don’t have snails in my home I think this is the example that will work the best.)

Sample #2
Grow OUTDOORS, where it gets morning sun, but is in the shade during the hottest part of the day. Keep soil moist and trim regularly. (Watch daily for snails/slugs.)

Can you guess which sample is which?!

As you can see the sample on the right is not well at all. I had noticed quite a bit of dead sprigs on it and trimmed it back (it’s first trimming). And gave it more water. It has not bounced back.

The plant on the left is Sample 2, which is the winner… the OUTDOOR sample is thriving!

Would you like to know more about it’s current growing conditions?
The plant gets streaming morning light, but partly shaded direct sun for about an hour in the morning. It sits on a tall ledge, under the over-hang, by my front door. I keep the soil moist, by adding about a cup of water to the soil every other day. A good portion of that water drains out the bottom, but it holds on to what it needs.

I will be trimming a good portion of this back today. Stay tuned for future pictures of how long this planting lasts and what it looks like…

enjoy your time in the kitchen (and the garden)…

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Welcome Fall!!!

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How I love this time of year… orange tones and yellow hues… ahhh!!!

In this picture you’ll see an herb bowl (thyme, oregano and italian flat-leaf parsley), a yellow gerber daisy, my new gardenia bush and my angelonia. I love that little plant… with little white blossoms…

It was time to spruce up around the house because with Mom and Dad coming in for a visit … well, I just had to welcome them with some good ol’ downhome hospitality.

I even placed a bouquet of some of her favorite flowers in the guest room, aka “The Beach House”, so she could wake up to some pretty stuff.

Too bad they weren’t here long enough to actually relax and enjoy their time. Maybe next time… this trip was simply too brief.

nevertheless, Life Is Good…

Making headway…

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Quite often in the afternoons I get to enjoy this: spending time at the patio table, putting the feet up for a rest, reading a book and sipping on a glass of wine.

And it is exactly what I’ve hoped it would be…

I’ve been waiting for this yard project to be completed for a very long time! Unfortunately I cannot say I’ve been very patient through this process. However, I CAN say, we’re so pleased with the headway we’re finally making!

If you’ve been following along over the past year you’ll know that we’ve put extra efforts into finishing our back yard… once and for all.

We planted an herb box, with a single rose bush right in the middle of the box.

The aromatic medallion tea rose provided a new blossom this week. I think it’s going to survive. While it’s been a mellower-than-usual summer, the two weeks of extreme heat we had was tough on this rose… it still has loads of scorched leaves. But there’s also over a dozen new areas of growth all over the plant. I’d say it’s thriving!

So, it’s now time to go out and do some clean up back there (before the sun creeps over the hedges) so I can continue to enjoy the bounty of our hard work.

How are YOU enjoying the work of your hands and the blessings of our heavenly Father?

Life is good…

Bounty of tomatoes…

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Today I decided I needed to roast up some of these tomatoes… we simply weren’t going to be able to consume all of these before they burst open. It’s not my Fresh Bounty … but I’m still blessed by it! (Thank you, again, Neighbor Bob!)

So, here’s what my kitchen activity looked like this afternoon…

First, let’s get the introductions out of the way. I’m pleased to introduce you to Tiny the Tomato! She’s my new friend. Isn’t she adorable?!

I secretly wish I could keep her around forever.

Isn’t that how it goes?!

Instead, let’s roast her and some of her friends… (I blame my dark sense of humor on being raised in the ’80s…)

With a paring knife, I cored each tomato…

Then I cut them into rather large slices…

And diced them into rather large dices…

I layered them, single layer, on a large cookie sheet…

I gently sprinkled some dried italian seasoning and kosher salt… followed by a gentle drizzle of olive oil. I sent them into their glorious future with a smashed clove of garlic.

(Garlic makes everything better, right?!)

And while I’m at it, let’s do two batches…

With the oven set at 225F degrees…

About an hour later…

I removed the tomatoes from the cookie sheets and divided them into two freezer bags, 2 cups per bag. Before placing them in the freezer I let them cool down a bit… then found a nice cozy corner of the freezer to securely hold them.

Next week sometime I’ll use 2 cups of the best-roasted-tomatoes-my-kitchen-has-ever-seen in a pot of homemade spaghetti sauce… good times!

So, in memorium… let’s have one last look at Tiny the Tomato.

enjoy your time in the kitchen…

Fresh, fresh, fresh…

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Today I found a gift at our front door … we had once again been blessed with some fresh, fresh produce!

I am deeply convinced that Neighbor Bob is the most dedicated vegetable gardener in all of Old Escondido! And lucky us! Several times during the summer he blesses us with some of the fruits of his labor.

I am also deeply convinced these came right up out of the soil. They were still gritty with the brown of the earth…

Freshly rinsed and drained…

And prepared for the next stage of their lives…

After a quick boil… and a sprinkle of kosher salt. They were then sprinkled with a little lemon juice and served up with my killer meatball sandwiches!

Would you like the recipe for the meatballs? I’m glad you asked! Check out a previous blog entry: Baked Meatballs

enjoy your time in the kitchen…

In our backyard recently…

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To start with, I will say that when I first peaked out my back window and saw this creature sitting on my fence… I was bewildered. What kind of bird is this? It has a different looking head and beak than I’ve ever seen before.

At first I thought it was a hawk…

But several friends tell me it’s a Peregrine Falcon. I guess I’ll have to take their word for it. I know nothing of hawks or falcons or most birds in general… but I’m learning now I’ve been graced with the Falcon’s presence. I understand they are not all that common in this area.

Then I think I spooked it … it quickly flew away through the branches of the neighbor’s jacaranda tree.

Everyday since I’ve been wanting Beautiful Falcon to come back for another visit…

In the meantime, I’ve been busy. Ahem, rather… Gardener Johnny has been busy! (tee hee!) OK I helped a little… but only a little. Over the past few months I’ve been collecting some flora to be planted in the new garden bed.

Last week “we” got the herb/rose box done. Rosemary, basil, rose-scented geranium, euphorbia and my new medallion tea rose.

This week I helped Gardener Johnny work on placement of the mexican sage, 3 canna varieties, african iris (re-purposed from another friends’ yard) and agapanthus.

I couldn’t stop grinning from ear-ro-ear to finally see greenery in the large flower bed! I turned on the sprinklers and sat down with my book to enjoy the cool Southern California weather…

Life is good…

Our UNpet, the one-eyed wonder…

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Yesterday you were introduced to the “one-eyed wonder” (aka the possum missing the right eye) in the last post. Tonight we heard some strange clicking noises outside… and this is what I found when I looked outside the front door.

I think we’ve determined this is “mother possum”. And did I mention yesterday I think she’s rather old? Well, she’s back…

And what was the clicking noise? I’m glad you asked! It was the mother making a clicking noise with her mouth. And then we heard a clicking noise on the other side of the chain link fence. Then more clicking from mom, carrying 3 babies on her back. Again she would click her mouth then we’d hear more clicking from the other side of the fence. Interesting…

Kinda gross… but still interesting.

I didn’t stick around to see her figure out how to go over or under or through the chain link fence… but I did snap a few pictures.

Did you know possums only have a 13 day gestation period? Check out more info here: Possums (That is, only if you’re interested.)

Some time in the yard yesterday… and a few surprises…

Lori Tisdale2 Comments

I’m going to start this post with a pretty picture… you’ll thank me for it later!

Today I got to spend some time in my yard… which is unusual. I got out of work several hours early. Got home and did the “lovely chores”, took a nice nap and then moved to the back yard with a book and my camera.

Our yard is currently under construction (and it’s been that way for about 6 months). The grass is in (although it already has some brown spots – so we’re working on that). Some herbs and a Medallion Tea Rose are in the ground. The inherited calla lilies from my Gramma’s back yard are finally thriving. However the larger flower bed still isn’t completed – we need to fix the sprinklers first. Then we’ll put in 3 types of cannas, salvia leucantha, african iris, euphorbia, agapanthus, and some other pretty things whose names I’ve currently blanked on. These items are all currently in a safe spot of the yard awaiting their “new home”.

If you’ve ever seen our yard in any one of it’s renditions (there have been many over the past 10 years) or even in it’s most REPEATED and COMMON rendition (4-foot high weeds) then you’ll be as happy as I am when I say it’s FINALLY getting done right!

Oh how happy it makes me to go outside and spend time in our little piece of GREEN (instead of brown, dying weeds) … except when I round the corner and see this!

And yes, it scared the liver out of me!

Then I remembered I brought my camera outside with me (but I didn’t want to turn my back on this thing). Man, it was ugly! He was moving slowly, hadn’t bared his teeth at me yet and wasn’t playing dead from fear of me scaring him. So we were ok, for now…

I snapped off a few pics and he started moving out of the yard… he crawled behind the shed, up a 3 foot wall (HOW do that do that?!) and sat down under my car.

And I got a few more shots… and while I was looking through the lens I noticed… is that ? Really? This thing only has one eye?!

Then I was literally grossed out… and happy he/she was leaving the yard.

If you were wondering, NOW is when you thank me for that beautiful rose picture! Here, let’s look at it again!

OK – so back to the beauty of my half-done yard! (Oh, by the way – you’re welcome!)

Once I was convinced he/she was long gone, I was finally able to relax. I kicked up my feet and read for awhile. This IS the life…

I loved looking at my freshly planted pot of herbs: flat-leaf italian parsley, greek oregano, lemon thyme and cilantro. Mmm… makes me think of dinner cooking in the crockpot!

While we’re at it, let’s get another good look at that beautiful rose bud! Like I said earlier this is a Medallion Tea Rose. I fell in love with the variegated apricot colors and the mellow scent. And to my surprise, this hybrid rose was officially registered in the year I was born! It was meant to be…

Then I heard a familiar sound… the wild parrots that come back to the Old Escondido area every summer! I hadn’t yet caught a picture of these guys… but not for lack of trying! Every summer since I moved here (in 1999) they come for a visit. Almost every night (during the warm months) I hear them squaking as they fly over. I’m not sure where they go for the day (or night) – but it is rumored they take up residence in a tree just a few blocks away.

Ahh…. I caught them… well, on film at least. They were quick though – I almost didn’t get them!

And now for their close-up…

It was a nice day… started off with 12 miles on the bike, followed by a short day at work, I enjoyed the best breakfast burrito in town (thank you, Nicos!), soaked up a much-needed nap, and enjoyed God’s beauty in the yard-that-may-never-be-finished!

I’m one lucky girl!

Psalm 27:4
One thing I ask of the LORD,
this is what I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD
and to seek him in his temple.

A yard in the making…

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After 10 years being at this piece of property we’re ONCE AGAIN re-doing the lawn. This time we’re having someone else do it. Here’s this week’s progress…

The flower beds will come next…

…followed by a few more re-dos, I’m sure. Stay tuned… there will be more pictures to follow!

more blossoms in my yard…

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If you’ve seen my back yard in the last 2-3 years you’d be surprised that anything is even alive back there. And yet I find these blossoms randoming dispersed in various corners of my parched yard.

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And the calla lily that I tended to week after week, and hasn’t blossomed in nearly years?! Look at it now… all it needed was a few years of neglect (oh yeah, and the wettest winter we’ve had in years!)… 😉

This plant started as a bulb from my Grandparents’ yard. They moved out of the area in 2003 and left me with a few bulbs. Gramma will be happy to hear and see that there is finally a blossom on her plant (no thanks to my efforts)!!!

What does the rest of the yard look like?! Glad you asked… ok, maybe not so glad…

(Ahem) This is the yard shortly after we had the 3-4 foot high weeds cleared out. Yes, we neglect our yard. Shame on us… but starting on Sunday we have a “gardener”!!!

Woo hoo! My prayers have been answered! More pictures to come soon… which will include sod, flowers, plants and working sprinklers!