Cayenne Pepper

Here is a picture of my first cayenne pepper taken on May 9th. It was the first pepper to emerge from all of our different pepper plants. Look at how cute and small it is.

Look at it now! It is so big that it rests on the ground! I actually had to prop it up so that I could get a good picture of it.

Here is closer look. I just looked up that cayenne peppers are to be harvested when they turn red and are 3-4 cm long. It is about that long so I don't have much time to find a good recipe using one cayenne pepper! Does anyone know of a good recipe?

A Squash is Born!

Every morning around seven thirty LT wakes up and I hear him on the monitor. Along with him Maggy also arises from her sleeping location at the end of my bed - she gets up there after Mr. T leaves for work. And every morning Maggy decides that her needs come before anyone else's, even an 8 month old baby. So after going to get LT from his crib we walk out back and enjoy the fresh air while Maggy gobbles up her breakfast. This morning I checked on the garden and lookie there...




What is that? Let me get a better look.





Why it is a squash, a crooked neck squash to be exact. Isn't it cute and fun sized?

Here is a shot a little bit further away. This is an excellent example of how the vegetable of a plant grows out of the base of the flower.

There are both male and female flowers on summer squash plants, since there is a vegetable growing out of the base of this flower it is a female. The male flowers tend to have a skinnier stem leading up to the flower. Both are completely edible, however, the male flowers should not be picked because they are needed for pollination.

Next post will be a cooking one, I promise.

My Garden

Here is the raised garden that Mr. T built for me. I have absolutely no experience with growing anything. In fact, I will openly admit that I do not have a green thumb! My first experience of trying a garden was in West Texas. The previous owner of the house that we bought had a little pepper garden. There were green bell peppers, jalapenos, and these little red "bombs" that we never found out the name of. I would say that the environment there is not the best for growing anything other than peppers and succulents. We did, however, grow some of the hottest peppers I have ever tasted.

Now that we live in an area of Texas that is more suitable for growing gardens, I decided to try my hand - or thumb - at it. It is still a bit early for my garden, since it hasn't really produced anything yet. But I thought I would share some of the progress that we have made.

Here is our first strawberry! Please excuse the rock next to it. We bought dirt with compost in it, which secretly means that there is a bunch of crap along with the dirt. Mr. T teases that this is a $100 strawberry because that is about how much it cost to start the garden. It was a great tasting strawberry, but it was on the plant in a smaller and much greener form at the nursery so it might not really count as "home grown" in this garden.

Here are some more strawberries on the other plant. These are definitely home grown! You might have noticed that we have a fence around our garden. Let me explain.

Her name is Maggy. She is a six year old, blond, slightly over weight Labrador Retriever. She has a huge appetite and will basically eat anything that she can. One Valentine's Day I made two dozen chocolate covered strawberries for Mr. T and I to enjoy. I left them on the counter to set and not only did Maggy eat every strawberry but also the wax paper they were resting on. Needless to say, we needed a fence for our garden.

Yeah, I am talking about you.

Back to the garden. Here is the beginnings of a jalapeno. I like to call it my Barbie sized jalapeno. It is actually a Mammoth Jalapeno so it should be interesting to see how big they get compared to the basic jalapeno that is growing next to it and the ones that you can buy at the grocery store.

Here is a cayenne pepper. Again, it is Barbie sized. I can just imagine her cooking it in some great meal for her and Ken to enjoy. Ahh, the perfect world of Barbi. Life in plastic, its fantastic!

These little babies will be bell peppers. They aren't looking so great right now, but I have hope for them.

On to the tomatoes. I have two rows devoted just to tomatoes. These are Roma tomatoes. You can kind of see how they already have the shape of a Roma tomato.

These are Husky Cherry Tomatoes. They do look a bit beefier than your typical cherry tomato. I just went outside to double check the name of them. The bottom tomatoes have turned an orange color. It looks like we might be having husky cherry tomatoes on our salad one night this week!

And finally, pictures of the zucchini and squash plants. Both are considered summer squash so it is no surprise that the plants look very similar to each other. I haven't been able to find the beginnings of any vegetables on these plants, but I suspect they will be coming soon. By the number of flowers it also seems that these little plants will be producing a lot of vegetables.

Here is a closer look at the flowers. Aren't they beautiful? They only open when the sun is directly on them. They are also completely edible and can be stuffed or fried, niether of which I have actually tried.

So there it is, the beginnings of my first real garden. I will update you when more is produced - that is if anything else is produced.