Back Deck Vegetable Garden

Ok, I am coming to terms with the limitations of my own nature.  This is what I have learned: I'm not terribly organized, I don't like to clean, (but I like a clean house), and I am not good at weeding the garden.

I also like fresh vegetables and I want to grow my own.  Since I don't do weeding well, I decided to do my vegetables in pots, on my deck.  I got flowers and herbs to grow on the deck last year, so I should be able to grow some veggies.

I went with some of the easier vegetables to grow.  I got tomatoes, basil, cucumbers, peppers, and zucchini.

When the hubby and I were looking for pots, we priced out quite a few.  Now, I would love to tell you that I got top-of-the-line porcelain, but the large pots like that were very expensive.  Instead, we went with, very simple, plastic pots that look like terracotta but were a quarter of the cost.

Just for perspective here is a shot with my toes, so you can see just how large the pots really are.  They need to be pretty big for the vegetables to grow (and I think my toes are cute).

Terracotta would be better because it holds the moisture and keeps the plants' roots cool.  If you can, go with terracotta.  Maybe next year we will get one or two and build up our collection.

I took the base off our pots and made them into little stands to keep the pots off the deck.  I did this because the pots were not draining well with them attached.  With any potted plants, you want to make sure the water drains well.

I lined the pots with rocks because just as important as drainage is, you have to be careful not to lose your dirt while the water drains.

I then added organic potting soil.  I'm not always crazy about my soil being organic, but because I'm growing food to eat, I want my plants to have good organic soil.  (FYI, for flowers I actually like Miracle Grow, they do a great job with flowers).

This soil has a nice combination of nutrients and whatever else soil needs.  I just think it looks good.

I decided to put a few plants in each pot.  I had to try out my groupings.

I gave the zucchini a pot all to it's self.  Those plants get big.  I then planted the little plants, gave them water, and let them so their thing.

Now, these plants have been pretty tortured by the time I got them in the soil.  A couple of days later, and they perked right up.

Here is a couple shots of the plants about a week or two after I planted them.

You can see that the zucchini above is doing very well.  Even with out being watered for a couple of days, this plant has lots of blossoms which means lots of zucchini too.

Above and bellow are my tomato and basil.  They are both doing well.  This is so exciting.  I'm kind of an urban farmer in the country.  You know, because I have a deck garden but I do actually live in the country. Maybe one day I will be up for a real vegetable garden in the ground (or maybe my big sister will come and do one for me.).  hehe

I'm really looking forward to picking my own home grown tomatoes and making a quick salad with the basil that goes with it.  Hubby is excited about his peppers, and I hope to get a least one large zucchini for zucchini fritters (if I can stop myself from eating all the flowers, hehe)

Baby Bump Update

Well, not much happening on the craft front.  In fact, I'm beginning to miss it, a lot.  I'm not sure what craft I will do next, but I have some ideas.

The last couple of months have been quite stressful.  We had to evict a tenant next door and she was quite difficult.  I'm happy to say that she moved out today and we changed the locks.  It is good to have her gone. Now that that pest is out of the way, I hope to focus on more fun stuff.  Tomorrow I will have a friend over for the first time since I found out I was pregnant.  I'm making Quiche and maybe some fruit.  Who knows, maybe I will go all out.  I even made some lemon sorbet so we might have that for desert.

I gathered my baby bump photos, cropped them down and now I have them to show all of you.  The first two you saw, but the last one is quite exciting.  You can actually see my little bump.

Month 2

Month 3

Month 4

That last one was taken on a very sunny day (no, that is not all pregnancy glow, hehe).  I kind of like the saturated light look.  I fiddled with the lighting of the other two.  It is not so easy to get the same lighting on a different month.  Ah Pinterest, I blame you for all the great photos of baby bumps I have seen!

In other baby news ... I'm getting the crib I have been dreaming of since before this little avocado (the baby's size this week) was conceived.  I will go to pick it up tomorrow.  What a blessing.  A woman I met at yoga gave it to me.  Maybe this crib will inspire a nursery design board.

I'll try to take photos of the quiche and the process.

Big News!!!!

Infrequent blog posts, no craft projects, and just generally, nothing much on my end of the internet.  I have been a really crummy blogger.  I'm sorry, but I have a really good excuse.

I'm pregnant!!!!!!

I took three tests just to be sure.

Yup, preggers, knocked up, bun in the oven.  And I have to say, it has been rough.  People say you get tired when your pregnant, but I had no idea until it happened.  I'm not just tired, I'm done.  I can do nothing.  All I want to do is sleep and eat.  I actually called my midwife almost in tears because I was so tired I thought there was something wrong with me.  This is my first baby so everything is new.

It does not help that I work eight hours a day and spend another two driving to and from work.  That leaves very little time for cooking, cleaning, and shopping for groceries.  With the extra sleep time I need now, I just don't have the energy or time to craft and blog.

Anyway, I'm in the last week of my first trimester and I'm beginning to feel better.  As my midwife assured me, once I have a placenta it will help me do some of the work.  I'm counting on that.

So, on to the fun stuff.

The week I found out I took this picture:

March 23, 2013

One month later I took this one.

April 20, 2013

I'm not sure if there really is a difference.  Can you tell?

In an attempt to anticipate any questions you may have, here is my info.

I'm due on November 16, (my mother's birthday!).
I'm not going to find out the sex.
I'm planning a home birth (and very excited about it).
I have had so many crazy food cravings.  Mexican is out (most of the time) and cheese is in.  Indian is really the only kind of food I want to eat, and for desert ... rhubarb pie lots and lots of rhubarb pie.  I even froze some rhubarb in case I need some later in the summer (do you know how hard it is to find rhubarb?  It's here for a week and then it's gone.)

I would love to hear your stories about pregnancy.  The more I know the better.  So lay it on me.

Quick Table Runner

I had some friends over for dinner a couple of weeks ago and right before they came over I decided to make this table runner.

I got this fabric before we moved into this house in 2010.  Jeff and I saw it in Millerton near our old house.  As soon as I found it I knew I wanted it.  But the fabric was $50 a yard!!!!  I know that is nuts, but the fabric is just so nice.

With a  yard and half in hand I asked Jeff's very talented grandmother to help me make cushions   We bonded.  It was nice.

I had a bit of fabric left and had plans to me a table runner, but never got up the nerve.  With fabric so expensive it was hard for me to cut it.

In the end, I did cut the fabric and I did make the table runner.  I learned one quick tip.  Don't forget to match up the designs on the fabric before you cut up the fabric.  I lost a couple of inches along each end because I forgot that I had to line up the design.  Instead of twelve inches in width they came out more at ten or eleven, but I really like that the two extra pieces on each end are properly lined so that the design runs correctly.  (I might be a bit nuts about that?  I'm really not sure.) If you look closely you can see the seam in the picture above.

I think the way the dining room looks with my new table runner.  I wish I could have used this fabric for the curtains (and maybe not the runner, I don't want it too matchy-matchy).  I'm still on the lookout for a good patterned fabric for the curtains.

Finally Fixed My Bottles

In the old days  of my blog writing (2011, wow that was a long time ago) I made these jars.  You really should take a look at that old post.  The process was quite complicated and long, but I really liked how they turned out.  The problem was that I could not write on the jars because the regular chalk would just scratch off the paint.

Well, with my new chalk pen, I can now write on my jars with ease.  I'm so excited and glad that I kept a few.  I had five originally  but I guess I got rid of two because I can only find three now.

{I didn't have time to write anything on the bottles before I took this shot,
but you can use your imagination}

I love them.  I may have to make more.

I made my own cup sleeves.  I made several of them, in several sizes.  I got the idea from Martha (...she has good ideas).  But Martha's cup sleeves are pink and have hearts.  I was not ready for hearts and pink.  Not first thing in the morning.  So I made mine blue with a nice grey stars.  

I'm happy.  I like them.  In some way, I feel that every time I use one I am helping the earth just a little.  Just before I made these I got a call from an environmental organization. They called me to ask for more money to stop Starbucks from using so many disposable cups.  I have to say, I didn't give them any money.  I just don't know how they are going to stop Starbucks from using disposable cups.  How would that work?

So, since I'm not helping fight the evil Starbucks (no, I don't think Starbucks is really evil at all), I figured I would help the environment in my own way.

So here's what I did.

I printed the template from Martha...

it did not help.  I like a nice big cup of coffee in the morning.  I had to make my own template.

I decided the best plan of action was to use a sleeve that I already knew would fit.

A Starbucks sleeve is a good size, but I wanted my sleeve to be wider.

I widened the sleeve with chalk on the felt.

*Here's a tip - fold the fabric in half before you cut.  That way you will have an even width around the whole sleeve.

I used pinking sheers to get a nice zig-zag design (it also prevents fraying, not a huge problem with felt but good to do anyway).

I pinned the sleeve to the cup to get a nice fit, then sewed up the sleeve, trimmed the extra fabric.  Now the basic sleeve is done.  All I need is a little "bling."

I cut out a couple of grey stars.  It kind of reminds me of a summer night with the fading light in the sky and the stars coming out.

I used fabric glue to attach the stars.

I placed the star so that if I hold the cup with my right hand the star shows on the other side.

I'm happy.  I really need to make some more.  This is a great way to use up some of my left over felt.  I'm thinking new colors and new shapes.  I wish I had wool felt, that would be really cool.  What colors and embellishments would you like?

Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake

I saw this recipe a couple of years a go in Martha Stewart Living (and yes, I know I just posted a MSL rant, but I still make her cakes and really, still like her) and kept it.  Get the recipe here.  I save all the recipes that look really good to in my recipe binder to remind myself make them.

I actually tried to make this recipe a couple of years ago, but had terrible results.  I'm not sure what I did, but the cake never rose, and came out to be a wet, soggy mess.

I read somewhere that upside-down cakes were very popular at one time, and they were made with all different fruits.  In our day, we are most familiar with the pineapple upside-down cake, but this cake only became popular in the 1950s because it was so easy to get pineapple in cans.  I made a plumb upside-down cake once and it was good too.  Wow, the possibilities are endless.

Because rhubarb is such a seasonal ingredient I can only make this cake when I see the rhubarb stalks in the grocery store.

Well, I saw them just a couple of weeks ago and decided to try the recipe again.

This cake is really special.  It has the soft, wet rhubarb and butter at the bottom, then a nice cake layer, and finally a crumble layer on top.  When it is baked you then flip the cake over (just like any upside-down cake) and you get them all in reverse.  At first, I was not convinced that the crumb layer was important.  It seemed excessive and unnecessary.  I was wrong.  The crumb layer adds a nice little bit of texture to the cake. I lost quite a bit of the crumb layer transferring the cake from the wire rack, to cool, to the cake stand, but it was still good.

Tips for Making the Cake

As far as the instructions go, I have a few tips.

First, be sure to use a stand-mixer.  I know I'm always talking about how much I love my stand-mixer, but I really want you to understand that the mixer helps me to actually enjoy making this cake.  There are a lot of different ingredients that need to be added at different times and it is nice not to have to hold a mixer and try to add wet or dry ingredients alternatively   

Next, be sure to put an old cookie tray on the rack under the cake to catch drippings.  My cake was so full that when it cooked the filling overflowed and dripped all over the bottom of my oven, thus rendering the oven unusable until I could clean it.  It is a messy process.  I had a couple of days when every time I tried to cook something in the oven, my smoke alarms would get set off.  I have no idea why it took me so long to realize I needed to clean my oven!

Also, when you bake the cake, the recipe gives a very vague description of how long to bake it: "about one hour."  I found that the cake needed one hour and fifteen minutes to be absolutely done.  The best way to know is to put a toothpick in it, and check for spring-y-ness (you know what I mean right?) as the recipe indicates 

Finally, when you cool that cake on a wire rack, be careful how you transfer the cooled cake to a plate or cake stand.  As I said, I lost a lot of the crumb topping in the process.

This cake is best when totally cooled.  We couldn't wait, and had some while still a little warm and the rhubarb was very hot.  After the cake cooled completely it was even better.  The flavors had a chance to settle and really find their "happy place" (because that's how flavors work.  hehe jk).

This cake was so good that I'm very sad we only get rhubarb for such a short time.  There are so many good things to make with rhubarb, this cake, pie, ummm  and other things too.  I'm actually contemplating planting some rhubarb in my garden (I'm not much of a gardener), so I have my own.  I don't want to be dependent on the grocery stores.  A friend told me you can only pick rhubarb on "R" months like March and February (?).  Guess if I do grow my own I will have to figure all that out.  I don't want to poison myself.

So go...make this cake (if you can find the rhubarb) and enjoy a great cake.