Harvest from the heart

Today I went to wonder around the garden and found that I could do the most rewarding activity. My first real harvest because I needed a basket and I didn't eat everything I picked right away. I am super bad about picking and eating the ripe fruits without sharing. Especially tomitillos yum. In fact it is so bad that yesterday my husband was telling me that the tomitillos were not doing well and he might have to take them out soon. My response was, "Well think of how many tomitillos we have gotten." He smiled at me then asked, "How many would that be because I have only had one." No response from me because I know that he knows that I have eaten a few every morning for a month. Only sharing if I have company in the garden. Listen before you judge my greediness I did full tell everyone I was going to the garden. Just because they did not want to come see what was ready with me means they missed out. Besides that my sweet husband eats as he goes too. Don't be fooled by his sweet loving smile. We all have our weaknesses.  I want to show you what I harvested this morning

Yellow boy tomatoes. Hello boys!

We ate this one. It was sweet and just a little tart and totally perfect.

Onions! I pulled the rest of the yellow onions as they were completely ready. Sadly I found two that were over ripe and went in the compost bin instead of the table.

I know that these babies are small but it turns out that onions don't grow that big on their own.

At least here in good old hot Texas.

This is how you store onions. Braid the top and hang them up. They will last a long time.

This is my first harvest.

I even saved about a dozen tomitillos

I totally did a happy dance when I found these green beans.

Banana Peppers

Jalapenos, bell peppers, and tomatoes.

I picked some of the tomatoes before they were ripe because they will ripen on the counter. If we let them get ripe all the way the bugs and birds are more then happy to help harvest before we can. I am so happy that we are finally getting meal sized harvests. I have tons of swiss chard I need to find a recipe to use them in. Maybe I could do swiss chard rolls. I need to look up some recipes.

I hope you have a happy day filled with love and laughter. Be well my friends.

Garden update

Yesterday I went out and took pictures of the garden. It is winter and all of the trees are naked, the grass is hibernating (a nice way to say dried up and died), and the lovely asparagus has been cut back. Basically the garden looks sad but I love it. In the winter when all things are dormant and the possibility of a spring wonderland is still just a sweet whispered secret. We have added a couple of new trees. We are still waiting for a mulberry tree to arrive (Rob ordered it online months ago. We are hopeful), and in the spring a couple of lemon trees and that should be all of the trees we can possibly fit into our back yard (according to my lovely husband) but there is a chocolate persimmon that I have my eye on and I think it could fit. I like to daydream about the trees being all grown and leafy with lovely fruits hanging so low the children are never hungry. I can only hope that we will be here to see the fruit.

Let's take a walk around the garden together.

We planted eighteen feet of these little beauties. Candy Apple oinons and a sweet yellow onions.

We are hoping to actually use these in the kitchen one day.

Candy apple onion. I am going to use this one in a lovely sweet potato salad this summer.

This is a Pecan tree by far the prettiest of all of our trees, mostly because it is taller then the other trees and it has branches. The down side is it will take 4 years to get any nuts. I'll wait and I hope the military doesn't send us away before I get to bake cookies with homegrown pecans.

This is a Mulberry Tree. Jam's and pies sweet and delicious. First this tree needs to grow branches.

This is the pinapple pear. The Bartlett pear had fire blight so bad that it was taken out and in an extreme effort to save this pear Rob cut it back. I still think that it will grow up to become a lovely tree.

Potatoes!

Baby lettuce. These greens are one of the good things about south texas. We can still grow stuff in January.

This is the fig. Last year it grew branches and leaves. I can't wait to see what it will do.

This friends is a Jujube tree. I will let you know what the fruit is like when I see some but my dear husband thinks they will be worth the wait.

The persimmon tree. Still small. Those are onions around it.

Funny story, we bought a little three inch plant that smelled wonderful that grew into a tree. It grew about three feet last year so we had to move it away from the house. Lemon Eucalyptus tree get big. Good to learn after it's been planted.

Lettuce, Radishes, and beets.

Swiss Chard

Mustard greens

 

Autumn decorations that wanted to grow. It makes me smile when I see it.

This is one of the gauva bushes. We are so lucky that we only lost one tree, and that this one came back to life.

The herb beds. In front is peppermint that is growing like crazy.

This stick is really a Celeste Fig

The other side of the house is busy growing too.

Thanks for letting me show you around our winter garden. I am excited for spring to come and transform all of the random sticks into lovely leaf baring trees. I left out the olive trees, orange tree, pomegranate, and much more. As you can see by all of the pictures it was hard to control myself, but I did. We have big plans for the gardens in the coming year. When we moved into this house 18 months ago the yard was just a big slab of dead grass with a trampoline in the middle. Now with more then a few truck loads of dirt it is coming along slowly.

I hope that you can find the beauty in nature even when it is sleeping, and that your week is filled with Love and Laughter. Be well my friends.