Green Beans

My son picked the beans last week and cooked it adobo style with pork.  My kids and husband love this dish  so whenever we have beans, that's what they want.  My  daughter can eat bowls and bowls of  steamed green beans  sprinkled with black pepper.  I am planning to  plant more beans next year rather than  brocolli which took a big part of our garden.

I forgot to take a photo of the  dish, I will do that next time though so you'd see hehehe.

Natural Eucalyptus Mulch

I took a break from writing my online tasks when my children arrived from school.  We  tilled our garden and planted some vegetable seedlings.  I did not have the spinach and lettuce seeds  so we still have to go to the store and buy some.  My flowers are starting to come up and  return to life again.  I would like to add some  mulch in one of my flower beds because  the  three bags I added last year seems to be vanishing or maybe it got incorporated in the dirt  because I did not use a landscaping netting or tarp.

If you live in Florida and would like  a mulch that would block the growth of weeds from your  garden, Scotts Florida Select Natural Eucalyptus Mulch can help you  eliminate that problem.  Scotts Florida Select Mulch  is a great sustainable gardening product that you can use.  Using Florida Select Mulch will  help your garden  to have a healthy growth free from weeds coming  up from your flower beds.  This would also  lessen  your use of water during the extreme heat of the sun as the mulch  blocks the  heat hence your ground won't be so dry.

Having a garden is not that hard, you just need to have the  basic gardening supplies such as:

1. Pots
2. Gardening soil
3. Seedling
4. Rake
5. Shovel
6.  mulch that you like.

For the non-Florida gardeners, Scotts Nature Scapes mulch is a great option for their  landscaping needs  this Spring.  The Scott's Nature Scape Mulch comes in three different colors which includes  Classic Black, Sierra Red, and Deep Forest Brown.  They are all natural  forest products that  comes in a variety of texture.  

Flood Wood Care

We had  rain and thunder storm last night that made  our dogs freaked out.  We were watching TV when the rain started pouring and the wind was gushing, then when the thunder rolled in, our dogs just lost it.  Some part of our State were on flood watch last night.  We lost our satellite connection for a couple of hours but it went back when the rain stopped.

Anyhow,  one of the projects that we are looking forward  into doing  this year is  staining and painting our wooden fence.  I was looking at the projects  on Staining Made Simple at Flood® Wood Care and  it showed me exactly how to perfectly  pick the right   product to use for  our project.  We used pressure treated lumber with our fence before  so based from the guide that I followed from Flood Wood Care, we have to use a wood finish remover and flood semi-transparent finish.  I think this would look great when   pushed through.  The only concern I have now is on how to save the money to do the project .  As you can see in the photo below,  our fence  need  re-staining again.  

Norture and Enhance Your Love of Gardening

We recently  added a little bit of curb appeal to our front  house.  We have a newly built  porch so we wanted to  put something that would compliment the porch.  We  bought some white rocks and some  plants  and  planted it in front.  I was very satisfied of what we did  especially that we only spend  a bit of money  compared to what we could have spent if we hired a professional landscaper.    I used some  plant food  in front but  I wanted to use something different at our vegetable garden at our backyard.  I haven't  done anything yet  at the back except  add some  mulch.

I don't really used  chemical based   products  for my vegetable garden but Whitney Farms® has a full line of 100% natural plant foods and organic soil  which  I like.  I have two  lovely kids, two dogs, and two bunnies so I don't want to use   anything that could harm them in anyway especially at our backyard where they frequently spend a lot of time during  warm days.  An organic plant food would be the perfect product that I could use for our vegetable garden.  According to the product description, Whitney Farms organic plant food has no manure odor  which is great because  last year I was kinda taken a back with the  product we used because it smelled like pure manure.  I want to use a different one this time so I might try this.  There is a $3 coupon off that you can get if you want to try this product  to nurture and enhance your love of gardening.  

Gardening Activities

 We have been straightening out our garden this week.    Am so  glad we got done  laying out the  landscaping rocks today.  The kids had so much fun helping us.  We are almost done at the front yard but still have a lot of things to do at the backyard.

A Spice A  Day # 97

 - My quest to update this  blog daily -

April 6, 2012:

• Another busy day  for us.  Hubby  hauled a ton of  landscaping rocks earlier today and we  laid it in our front yard.  It looks a lot better now at our front yard.
• After we got done at the yard and showered, the three lovelies of mine took  nap.  
• We went to my FIL and visited for a while.

Flowers by Mail

When you  experience something unusual in your garden and you don't know the reason, it always  drives you to  search about it.  That's what I do most of the time.  Just like when I had a twin bloom of my daisy last year,  I ended up browsing  for plant care at eHow.com.  I also  planted some herbs last year and I wanted to harvest it the right way and eHow was a great help for me.

On the other note, valentine's day is coming up.  Do you have any plans  for your special date?  Are you planning to send flowers by post?  Buying flowers nowadays is very convenient through the flower shop online.  It's one way of surprising your  love ones especially  if you are working somewhere and you want to   send something especial for your wife or girlfriend.

Cheery Tomatoes - P365 # 236

I did not buy any tomato seedling to plant in my garden. I just grew the seeds I have dried and collected from last year. As it turned out, they are all cherry tomatoes lol.  So if you want to make a salad and need some cherry tomatoes, you are welcome in my garden and pick some.

August 25, 2011:

• I have to pick up my daughter at 12 noon today.
• I just got done tutoring my son, it's our fourth day of lessons at home and he is doing  great. He can actually right his name alone.  If he master to right his whole name, I would start  making him spell it.  Right now, he  learned to recognize  most of the alphabet letters and  number 1-10.  I'll advance him after a month of teaching so that when starts to go to kindergarten, he will be alright.
• I haven't figure out yet what to cook for lunch.  I made omelet for breakfast.  That's what daughter had  for her cold lunch too, that and a rice.
• Time to get ready folks, thanks for dopping by.

Tropical Veggies and Fruit

I was in the mood for some photo taking when we arrived this afternoon from our visit to my FIL.  I tried to grow some tropical plants such as papaya, mango, and pineapple i in my garden.  I just want to see if they will grow  because I use the  seeds from the  fruits that we bought in the store.  They live but I don't think they will bear fruit before  the end of summer  hehehe.  Below is the photo of the papaya, I am not sure if it will survive if  I transplant it into a pot and keep it inside the house during winter.  

My peppers are just starting to  bear fruit and I am hoping that  I could harvest some before the cold  weather rolls in.

I have so many questions about gardening and I am glad I found   an array of videos of the Scotts Miracle-Gro's garden.  They  offer different kinds of tips  to improve your gardening technique.    This site is where I got the idea of adding mulch from my flower beds that I created in our backyard.    I actually just put a little in each  bed but when I saw the video at their site, I bought an additional mulch and added it to the flower beds. You can watch the video below and  choose the topic that you want to  see and you will  see the video being presented by Scott's associates.  

Unorganized Garden

Because of the rain that we been getting, all the plants I have planted alongside our fence got out of hand. Most of them fell on the ground as I did not put any support to each of them (I will definitely do that next year).  I am happy though because most of my cherry tomatoes are getting ripe already and most of the veggies bears  fruit already.

Shallots and Scallions - P365 # 142

Scallions and Shallots are two of my favorite ingredients that you would always find in our kitchen. They are in the same family and StartS with letter S So a perfect etry for this week'S ABC Wednesday, woot!

May 24,  2011:

• Glad to see  that our lettuces are starting to come up.  My husband was  looking at our garden plot this morning and he saw them growing.  We have three kinds, iceberg, butter crunch, and medley blend.  I hope that they will grow god,  our pet Wubbzy will be happy to share  with us hehehe.
• If you were givine a chance to go for a vacation, where would you want to go?  I p would personally choose Italy.  I could have some fun tasting their sumptuous meals while staying at one of the lake garda apartments and sipping some  wine.  Ahh that would be great isn't it?  If only....
• My plan for the day includes doing laundry and vacuuming the floor.  I'll do it as soon as I  finish this post and get off the chair..
• I did not prepare a pack lunch for my daughter because somebody will be bringing in pizza for lunch today.  Students has to bring their cold lunch the whole week this week.

Frost & Harvest

Hello everyone, howdy? We had a frost last night. Good thing, I harvested everything in my garden last weekend.  The peppers and tomatoes were still green but I picked them all anyway.  I was shocked of how much I  had, I didn't anticipate that there's so much fruit in it.  Below is a Tahi pepper that I grew out of the seeds that I  stored tow years ago.

The tomato above looks like it doesn't have much fruit to it but I  picked a whole lot and filled one big box out of it.  My husband was making fun of me when I went to the garden because I was pretty bundled up.  Hey, I want to stay warm so I had to lol..

I made some battered pepper and it was spicy-delish!

The tomatoes are now turning red, I will try to canned them soon!

Just remember....

that a little bit of this

and a little dash of that

makes a sumptuous life...

so Spice Up Your Life.

Tomatoes

I only have two tomato plants in my flower bed this year. We were on the process of putting our fence this year so I did not make a vegetable garden. Maybe next year, I would be able to. I adore my FIL's vegetable garden because the tomatoes are huge. He mixed some organic dirt on it before he planted the tomatoes which make them very healthy.

He also planted some on the side of his house as it always give lots of fruits from there. We were excited because they were big tomatoes hanging in there already which I took photos of. The following day we've visited, I came down the backyard to visit his garden again and the tomatoes were gone. We were bummed out. We think that the kids at the neighborhood picked and played with them.

The tomatoes in the fenced garden has a lot more fruits though and the kids don't bother them.

We love making fried green tomatoes. They're crunchy and yummy. Even you just put a little bread crumbs and egg, they're delicious hen fried!

Just remember....

that a little bit of this

and a little dash of that

makes a sumptuous life...

so Spice Up Your Life.