Visitor in the Garden - Part 2

We live in a very urban area (2 miles from the city limit of Chicago) so most of our "wildlife" consists of squirrels, possums, the occasional raccoon, fox or coyote, along with lots of rabbits and birds.

With a bird feeder in our backyard, we get lots of the birds and squirrels. Our neighbor's cat, Muffin, loves to watch (and try to catch) the birds. Though to our knowledge, she hasn't actually caught any since we have moved in. She is too slow, too orange and whips her tail back and forth like crazy alerting the birds to her approach. She, on many occasion, has also decided that the best place to "hide" is in the grass right in front of the feeder. How does she do that? By laying as flat as possible. We often refer to her as the orange rug on the lawn.

That being said, she views the feeder as HER territory so imagine my surprise when I saw her squaring off against a squirrel one morning. They sat like this for about 3 or 4 minutes. (Sorry for the blurry picture, I had to take it through the screen so I wouldn't startle the critters.)

No worries though, the squirrel just chattered at her from the sidewalk then the roof of the garage. Not actual contact was made. But that little squirrel still pokes his head around the corner to check to see if the cat is there weeks later.

Yup, never a dull moment around here.

Visitor in the Garden - Part 1

I planted a small garden again this year. Peppers, tomatoes (Roma and Cherry), dill, oregano, rosemary and parsley.

One morning to my surprise, I found this little guy hanging out on my dill plant with two of his siblings. He's a colorful little guy isn't he?

Some internet searches later, I learned that he is a Black Swallowtail caterpillar and when he grows up he will look like this. Gorgeous, isnt' he?

(Photo found in the Black Swallowtail Butterflies Flickr Group)

Parsley, Basil and Oregano - Oh My!

This week I harvested the last of the herbs in my garden. I still had a ton of parsley, basil and oregano.

After making two big batches of pesto and putting it in the freezer, I still had the parsley and oregano to deal with. Since the house is for sale, I couldn't leave trays of herbs all over the house drying for days so I had to find out another option.

Through several Google searches I found that if you freeze parsley, it doesn't loose its flavor and if you act quick enough, the frozen parsley will crumble into little pieces that can be added to recipes. That sounded good to me. So the two quart size bags of frozen parsley will get put to good use all winter long. I love Google.

Google was also the source for info what to do with the oregano. Who knew that if you froze oregano it would make stripping the leaves off easier? Not me before I started. But that is really the case. So now I have a good quantity of oregano to add to sauces and other Italian recipes.

The best part is that I know all my herbs were grown without a single pesticide. Holy cow, I guess that makes me an organic gardener. Yeah for me!

Update - Attack the Shrubs and Share the Hostas

Last month I posted about removing the shrubs and hostas in the back yard to make room for next year's garden. Click here to see the original post.

Before

Well, the 25+ hosta plants were given away via http://www.freecycle.org/. One of the women even gave me three tomato plants when she came to pick up her plants. She wasn't sure of the variety as they were "volunteers" from last years plants but it looks like they may be cherry tomatoes. The plants have been blooming like mad and fruits are just now forming so Mr. Gooch and I are waiting to see what type we end up with.

The biggest job, the cutting of the shrubs (thanks Dad for letting us borrow your chain saw) and digging out the stumps is now complete. We had no idea that the stumps would be such a pain to remove or that there were so many of them. We had to dig down at least 2 feet on each of the 20 stumps. We ended up breaking up the digging/chopping sessions since trying to get them all at once would have probably given us heart attacks.

After

But the after picture is fabulous, don't you think? I now have so much room for a garden. I am already starting to lay out what I plan to plant where.

My Tiny Garden

This year, I have a garden...a small garden...think of it as a garden with training wheels. I only have a few herbs, two pepper plants and three tomato plants in this little garden of mine. But Mr. Gooch and I are getting excited because it looks like the pepper plants will each have a pepper to pick early next week. I can't believe how excited we are for 2 peppers.
And the test run has been pretty good so far but I swear, the weeds grow faster than I ever imagined. Another problem was that the cilantro went to flower faster than I thought it would. Next year, I will have to watch that one like a hawk. All the herbs smell so good when we are cutting them for use in our cooking. Earlier today I hauled out the food processor and made fresh pesto from our basil plant for dinner tonight. It smelled so great. I also harvested parsley, dill and oregano. I am going to make a dill sauce for salmon tomorrow night. This batch of oregano and parsley will be washed, air dried then frozen for use this winter.

For next year, the plan is to have a large garden. So we will have cucumbers, french beans, peppers, corn, tomatoes, strawberries and salad greens. I can't wait. I have already started ordering seed/vegetable catalogs and have started saving my yogurt cups to start the seedlings in next spring.

Basil Pesto
Ingredients
1 cup packed fresh basil leaves
2 tablespoons pine nuts or shelled pistachios (omitted)
2 sprigs fresh parsley
2-3 large clove garlic, mashed
6 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Directions: Place all ingredients except oil in food processor. Process with several on/off turns until blended. With processor running gradually add oil to make a smooth thick paste.

Lemon-Dill Sauce
Ingredients:
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley
1 tablespoon grated lemon rind
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 clove garlic, finely minced
Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions: Combine all ingredients at least one hour before serving. Cover and chill. (May make the night before.)

Yield: 1 1/4 cups

Attack the Shrubs and Share the Hostas

Today Mr. Gooch and I attacked the row of shrubbery and hostas. I have been dreaming of taking them out since the day we moved in. The shrubs are fast growing, need to be trimmed almost weekly in the summer and bugs seem to love them. So out they go. Cue sound of chain saw. The best part is that once the shrubs and hostas are gone, I can start preparing the beds for our garden next year.

The only problem I have is the hostas at the base of the shrubs are in great shape and can probably each be divided into several smaller plants. I didn't just want to throw them way so, on the advice on one of the community boards I frequent, I offered them up on our local Freecycle group. To find your local group, visit http://www.freecycle.org/. I will let you know how that all goes.

Before