Basket Case...

So I have this little basket of unfinished projects in my sewing room. Mostly it is full of little dresses and doll clothing items that I cut out long time ago. You know, when you kind of get ahead of yourself. You think you can save time if you create more than one of the same item at a time. But handmade business just does not work that way. It is still handmade and really all this leads to is little baskets filled with stuff you didn't finish.

My goal for this year is to finish everything in that basket. Maybe if I finish about 3 pieces of clothing a day I will get through my basket by the end of July or so?

I put together this sweet little garden girl dress this morning. I thought I was completely out of that fabric. Turns out one last little dress was hidden in my basket. I was glad to find it. Voila! Here it is. I love that fabric! Takes me back to the time when my kids where little and helped us in the garden. They still help but are probably less enthusiastic about it than when they were toddlers. Back then digging was a great adventure. Now it's more like: "Do we really have to go weed the garden, Mum?"

Oh well. I do look forward to the gardening season. Can't wait for this long cold winter to end, get out the rake and shovels... Will my teenage garden helpers be there to help?

Working the Land

It's good to get back to gardening. Over last few weeks we have been working hard on getting our community garden patch ready for the season. Turning the garden and removing all the rocks that appeared over the winter was hard work. But lots of helping hands made the job easier. Nobody likes the weeding part...

The potatoes are in the ground and we planted some fava beans for the first time. This weekend we will add carrots and beets. Do you have a garden?

Let me tell you there is nothing as yummy as a freshly picked garden salad. The leaves in the salad you see in the photo were just from thinning out the lettuce we had planted a few weeks ago. It was the best thing I ate since the last garden tomatoes in the fall...

Inspecting the Garden

Like I said: Baby Cinnamon loves veggies and green stuff.

We had to go outside this morning and check on the garden beds. Looks like everything is in good order. The lettuce we planted a few weeks ago has germinated nicely and is growing bigger every day.

There was only one complaint: The garden beds we built last year are too tall, and Cinnamon had to stand on a bucket to be able to see the plants. She actually managed to lean over too far and fell into the bed. Poor thing! But no worries! She didn't get hurt or anything.

Time for GoodByes...

It's done! The last tomatoes in the garden have been picked. I get so sad each and every year when it's time to say "Good Bye" to our garden. It's so bad, I dread the weather forecast every night that will tell us frost is on the way.

Well, the inevitable has come to pass. Last night we were supposed to hit the freezing point. It's still dark outside, so I can't tell what our garden looks like. Do I want to look?

Anyways, here are some photos of what our garden looked like yesterday. It was a perfect day: Warm and sunny and hard to believe that our lovely jungle of tomatoes, basil, peppers, zucchinis, and more had come to the end of it's existence. Thank you so much, dear Garden! We shall mourn you all winter. You have given us an abundance of tasty delicious veggies and hours of fun in the sun.

As if this wasn't bad enough,  there is another sad Good Bye. My favorite Italian cookbook author, Marcella Hazan, passed away this week. In the newspaper they compared her to Julia Child, saying she did for Italian cooking what Julia did for the French cuisine. I am not sure that's true. Seems that everyone one talks to knows about Julia because of that popular movie about a certain blog. People draw a blank when I mention Marcella. Maybe somebody will pick up on that topic now?

If you don't know about Marcella you must go get her book The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking! I promise it won't take you oodles of time and expensive ingredients to cook a perfectly yummy dinner for your family. Marcella has a tomato sauce recipe that has all but 3 ingredients: fresh ripe tomatoes, butter, onions. Now you tell me why people buy those nasty sauces on supermarket shelves when you can cook up a perfectly fine sauce very easily? Time I suppose is a factor. Who has 45 minutes to spare? Well, if you do have a bit of time get the book and try some recipes from it.

Fresh Veggies for Chicken Cacciatora

I cooked up Marcella's Cacciatora Chicken yesterday afternoon. It took me about 30 - 45 minutes to brown the chicken and layer the chopped vegetables in a crock pot. Then I let it slowly simmer on the lowest the setting all afternoon. Come dinner time the kitchen was filled with the most wonderful smell. All I had to do is cook some pasta or rice to serve it on. It was a feast! Thank you, Marcella! You will be sorely missed!

Now I got the sad sniffles. It's October 4th. My mother would have been 77 years old today...My dad managed to pass away on her birthday in 2005. Now I think I have accumulated plenty of reasons to have myself a good cry. But the kids need breakfast and a ride to school...

Eat your Peek-a- Boo Beets!

Our community garden patch has been amazing this year. We have enjoyed many fresh vegetables this year. Some of them the kids are not too happy with. Cauliflower was a bust. But the kids love beets. As you can see in these playful pictures...

The best way to eat beets - in my opinion - is baked. Just cut the tops and roots off and scrub the beets clean with a brush. Take a fork and pierce them a couple of times. Then wrap your beets in a layer of aluminum foil. Bake in the oven at 400 degrees until soft. Depending on the size...If they are big it can take 90 minutes.

Then break the foil open and enjoy your beets with sourcream and some chives sprinkled on. Heavenly!

But don't throw out those tops! They are quite delicious. You can cut the stems off and sautee them in olive oil and garlic. Then add the cut up cleaned wet leaves. Once the leaves are all wilted this makes a lovely side! I love to splash a bit of lime juice on top of mine...

Last Harvest

Our community garden patch looks a bit sad now that Winter is approaching fast. Time for the final clean-up!

The dads went and harvested the last of our squashes this past weekend. We are happy to report a total of about 20 Zucca Baruccas. We have yet to make the famous ravioli recipe from Marcella's Cookbook.

Why? Because we cannot find Amaretto cookies in this town nor anywhere near here. Stan must have visited every grocery store, natural and unnatural, in a 100 mile radius. No luck! DH says we are silly. Why be such slaves to following a recipe to the t.

So for now all that is being served is Pumpkin muffins, pumpkin pie, pumpkin gnocchi. They must put those cookies on the shelf for Christmas soon? Or will we break down and cheat on the recipe?

The Harvest: Part Two

Can somebody here please tell me the difference between a pumpkin and a squash? I'd like to know.

Remember our gardening project? The wait is finally over! No worries about frost. It's been so warm in Colorado, we lost fear of imminent frost destroying our crop. 110 days to mature? No problem!

We went and harvested 8 giant ugly squashes on our community patch. How can something as ugly as a Zucca Barruca taste so yummy? It looks like the skin of a witch covered in warts really...But oh, the things you can make with this squash.

Last week we cut a single squash in half. It weighed 20 pounds and provided food for our two families for several days. We roasted it and ate it on the side with dinner. We baked it in the oven, and from the pulp I made: pumpkin gnocchi, pumpkin soup, and 3 panfuls of muffins. Delicious. I will share my recipes soon! For now just enjoy the pictures of the harvest!

The Bounty of Summer

We have had an unusually long growing season in Colorado this year. It's middle of September, mind you, and I still go out every day and pick fresh tomatoes off the vine. No rain or moisture in sight anywhere. Colorado usually has an early snowfall around this time of year. We get at least one brutal beating in the form of a big snow or frost that kills our tender garden plants. But not this year!

I suppose there are certain advantages to the global warming process, at least when you live in Colorado and love tomatoes. Of course, when you grow tomatoes you must grow basil, since the two go together like bread and butter. There is no easier way of cooking dinner than rubbing a bowl with garlic cloves, chopping up a handful of fresh ripe tomatoes and tossing them with cooked pasta and some olive oil. It's so easy a child can do it. Voila! You got dinner in about 20 minutes.

But while the fresh tomato taste shall be missed sorely, for it must snow or get cold sooner or later, the basil flavor can be preserved. During the hot summer months I often make pesto - this most magic Italian sauce.

To make pesto all you need is:

1. fresh basil leaves


2. fresh parsley


3. extra virgin olive oil


4. garlic


5. Parmesan cheese


6. pine nuts


7. salt and pepper

I really don't use measurements any more. I am a firm believer in intuitive cooking. I just toss the lots of fresh green leaves (mostly basil and a few leaves of parsley) and olive oil in the food processor and blend them until I get a smooth paste. You don't want it too runny or too stiff. I just keep adding olive oil to the leaves until it is a nice consistency that can be tossed with my pasta. Once you have the pesto sauce you add 1-2 cloves of garlic and the other items on the list. Let your taste buds decide what combination they like best. Often I leave out the pine nuts completely because they are expensive, or I can only find the questionable kind imported from China (stay away from them!).

It is very easy to preserve the pesto for the winter! Just do the first step of my recipe! Make a pure paste from olive oil and fresh herbs and freeze this mixture in ice cube trays. Once they are frozen solid I put the pesto cubes in Ziploc bags.

Don't add any of the other ingredients for they will make your pesto funky when you thaw it out!

Now when winter rolls around, and you get a hankering for fresh basil, you just take out a couple of your pesto cubes, thaw them out, add some olive oil, and the usual ingredients. The kids can make dinner again! Voila! You have the bounty of summer at your fingertips from October through April...

The Harvest

If you have been wondering what happened to our garden patch, you must wait no more. Here are pictures of our giant plants and the fruits of our labors. The corn is huge! We harvested the first ears of corn about a week ago. I could not believe that we really grew it. Everybody was amazed at the size of the ears which had nicely filled in with the most delicious tasting sweet corn kernels. Who says you need fertilizer to grow giant corn? You really don't!

Now the squash and green beans are another story. Was it a success? Well, the final verdict is not in yet. Stan, the gentleman farmer you see in the picture below, insisted on ordering a pumpkin variety from Italy called Zucca Barucca. According to Stan's favorite Italian cookbook, Zucca Barucca makes a great filling for pumpkin raviolis made from scratch. I see more big projects in our future...

Zucca Barrucca. Zucca Barrucca. Just say it a couple of times. Sounds good, no? Like a magic spell almost. The only problem is that this pumpkin takes 101 days until it matures. Our squash is only halfway there. We may need some magic here. Will it make it before the first frost hits? It would be very sad, since we have tons of beautiful squashes on the plants.

I don't even want to think about the beans. The beans were probably the least successful of our trio of plants. We definitely planted them too late. They had trouble growing since they were crowded out by the huge squash leaves that hogged all the sunlight. Hmm, did anyone notice that it said on the package to plant the squash 18 inches apart? Nope, we missed that, trying to follow the Three Sister Garden instructions, which called for planting the squash plants closer. I suppose the Indians didn't grow fancy schmancy varieties from Italy. After all it's a New World food, and what do Italians know about squash? Maybe next year we will figure it out.

Garden Patch Status Report

Remember our Three Sisters Garden project? Before we went on our trip to New Mexico the dads put down some straw in the "trenches" between the planted hills. They did so to retain moisture from watering and keep the weeds down. Did it work?

The good part is: The plants on the mounts have grown immensely and look big and healthy. Wow! Check out the corn and squash plants!

The bad part: The weeds continued growing. They sprouted up through the layers of straw which makes weeding a bit of a challenge.

The children still don't like weeding. Neither do I, in the heat of the day mosquitos swarming about us...We had to bribe the kids with slushies to get the job done yesterday. After weeding for an hour, in the blazing heat, we all got a well deserved reward: Lemon Berry Slushies. We drank them so fast it gave us brain freeze. Quite painful, but oh so good. LOL

Also the beans have been planted about a week ago. My husband snuck out to plant them all by himself...Not fair! There is no documentation of the planting, and you can't really see the bean plants in the pictures because they are still quite small compared to the "older" sisters, named corn and squash.

Now the sisters are happily growing together. The family is complete!

Garden Report: Weeding and Watering

Here are some new pictures of the garden patch. We planted the corn and squash first. Unfortunately about half the squash did not come up. So we had to replant some. The weeds, as usual, sprouted in large multitudes. The race "weeds against gardener" is at full speed. I can tell it's the kids least favorite part. Everybody loves to water and be in charge of the hose. But weeding is definitely the least popular activity. When I took my daughter weeding on Saturday she kept saying:" This is so boring. Can we go home now?" Patience, Dear! Weeding is an important aspect of being a gardener. As much as we detest it, it is necessary or you don't get any crop!

Planting a Three Sisters Garden

So maybe you have been wondering what we are growing in our garden patch. The Dads had the idea to try out what is called a Three Sisters Garden.
You can find great instructions on how to grow one on this site: http://www.reneesgarden.com/articles/3sisters.html

What is a Three Sisters Garden?
Native peoples from different parts of North America have used a wide range of agricultural techniques. Perhaps the best known is the interplanting of corn, beans, and squash. This trio has often been referred to as the "three sisters."

The corn plant represents the oldest sister. She stands tall in the center.

A Squash plant stands in as the second sister. She grows over the mound, protecting her sisters from weeds and shades the soil from the sun with her leaves, keeping it cool and moist.

Beans are the third sister. The beans climb through squash and then up the corn plants to bind all together as they reach for the sun. Beans help keep the soil fertile by converting the sun's energy into nitrogen filled nodules that grow on its roots. As beans grow they use the stored nitrogen as food.

A pretty cool concept. We planted our garden 2 weeks ago. You can see some pictures of the kids playing happily amongst the garden patches. They pretended to be Indians defending the land against crop thieves with their bows and arrows...It was too cute.

Community Gardening/ Schrebergarten und Laubenpieper

A few months ago our family and a family of friends became proud renters of a community garden patch. It is a 15x15 feet piece of land that is owned and managed by the City of Greeley. Patches like ours are rented out to gardeners at an annual rate of $25. Originally the land was owned by the University of Northern Colorado, but since they had no use for it, the University donated the land to the Community Gardens project.

"In 2007, the city of Greeley, along with Steps to a Healthier Weld County, recruited a group of interested residents and formed the Community Gardening Advisory Committee. The goal of this group was to encourage families and individuals to enhance their health by growing their own food and getting outside to get exercise in the process." You can read more about this project here: http://www.greeleytribune.com/article/20080309/FEATURES/8554907

There used to be two sites with garden lots. Our patch is located on a site that is in very close proximity to the university and in walking distance from our home. There are 22 patches on the site. The program has become so popular that a third site was added this year. The new site has even bigger patches with drip irrigation, but we'd have to drive to get there.
I don't know if you have ever visited Germany. The idea of small community gardens is not new to me. In Germany they are called Schrebergarten or Lauben and have been around since the late 19th Century. When traveling Germany by train, you may notice large green parcels of land surrounding most towns and cities. On closer inspection, you'll see that the land is divided into many little lots, separated by fences. Many of the lots may even have a small cabin or structure on them.

The original concept was invented by school principal Ernst Hausschild in 1864. Together with his friend doctor Moritz Schreber, Hauschild promoted the idea that children, especially poor city kids, should grow up closer to nature and get more exercise. During the economic crisis of the 1930s the community garden idea really took off in Germany, and many lots were given to poor families, so they could grow their own food and be saved from starvation. During WWI and WWII the little garden patches became important food sources for starving Germans. As many big cities lay in ruins after WWII garden plots with shelters gained in popularity as housing units.

If you ever visit Berlin make sure to visit the large garden communities, Laubenpieper colonies, in various neighborhoods of the city. Laubenpieper is the name for the people who rent the lots. http://http//www.morgenpost.de/printarchiv/familie/article1164166/Schrebergaerten_als_Ackerland.html Am I going totally off topic here? Maybe not. The idea behind the new community gardens project in Greeley is not so different really. With so many obese kids these days, kids who spend countless hours playing Nintendo or watching TV, having a green garden patch seems like a really good idea.

Also considering the current economic crises, interest in vegetable gardening is booming. Have you been to your local gardening center lately? They seem packed these days. More and more people are thinking about growing their own food to save on grocery bills.

Luckily our two families are not in financial distress, and we are thankful that we don't have slave away on our small lot with empty stomachs. The main reason our families decided to rent a garden patch is to grow healthy organic food and teach the children about gardening in the process. We have had a small vegetable garden by the side of our house for years. We grow tomatoes, basil, herbs, squash, and salad greens in the spring and fall. But it's not very big and this year the dads had the great idea of growing a Three Sisters Garden. Since this post is already quite lengthy I will safe that topic for another day...

Nutcracker Music in Midmay?

You know there is something terribly wrong when they play music from The Nutcracker on the radio in the middle of May. Even when you live in Colorado...
I am so depressed. We had just planted our tomatoes. Will they survive under their plastic bucket covers?

The heavy wet snow also destroyed the kids favorite climbing tree/ tree house. I assessed the damage with camera but I am too depressed to post those pictures here...