This Morning’s Harvest

Guess what’s for dinner tonight? Grilled Eggplant, fresh okra and a salad with cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes and goat cheese! Our harvest this morning is dinner tonight!

Many people think that you can’t grow anything in the heat of a Florida summer, but we’re still enjoying the bounty of our garden.

We harvested the first of our garlic last week and a few pears are starting to ripen. Our first cantaloupe was almost ready, but a squirrel or raccoon beat us to it. {There is currently a warrant out for this creature, dead or alive.}

It’s time to pull the plants that are finished producing- for us, that includes tomatoes and brussel sprouts. I’m going to solarize this patch of garden- cover the ground with plastic & let the sun “cook out” any nematodes and fungi enjoying my garden. {Any experience doing that?} Everything deserves a rest- I’m thinking of God telling the Israelites to give their land a Sabbath Rest in Leviticus 25.

I’m happy to give my little garden a rest and am looking forward to mixing in a handfull or two of compost when it’s time to put in my fall garden!

meet me in the garden

Alex said he hadn’t seen me in a while.

I’m on a first-name basis with all the Publix employees- Alex is the solemn Russian in the produce department. I had to confess to him: I don’t need to come as often because I’m getting my produce somewhere else… My own backyard!

Chris & I have attempted gardening for all 13 years of our marriage. Some years we have bell peppers, others the tomatoes flow in all summer long… but this is the first year my garden has been bountiful enough to save trips to Publix!

I haven’t bought eggplant or collard greens in months, cucumbers are plentiful, the bell peppers and tomatoes are keeping us supplied, and okra is starting to roll in. The green beans and squash were tasty but I didn’t plant enough. Oops.

And my herbs… oh, the herb garden is my favorite!! It’s a little messy but fruitful beyond imagination… kind of how I view our family! {smile}

There is more, but I won’t bore you. Some are ready before I know it (radishes!) and others take their time (onions & garlic). The lemon flaunts it’s fruit but strawberries are nestled among large, deep green leaves like jewels in velvet.

My blueberries were trampled by well-meaning children… I need to find them a safer place for next year. The sticks are only a couple of inches above the ground, but I think they’ll come back. That’s the thing about a garden. With a lot of love and even more work, it’ll yield abundantly. Hmm… sounds a lot like the rest of life…

of Sunflower Houses and housekeeping

> The weather is beautiful and I’d rather be pittering in the yard than keeping house inside. So I’ve decided to accomplish both by planting a Sunflower House!

We have a corner of the yard that has no grass growing and I think instead of sodding it this weekend, we just may create a perfect playspace for the kiddos. We’ll sow sunflower seeds for the four walls, leave a doorway open and allow morning glories to climb to fill in the magical little hut. (See my amazing sunflowers I made in Paint?)

Here’s a helpful link if you want to try one, too.

I don’t have hubby approval yet (he was going to lay sod this Saturday) so we’ll have to wait to see for sure but I think it could be a fun spring project! Any other sunflower house builders out there?

Here’s Cookin with You, Kid

This article was originally printed in The Creekline.

    Onions, broccoli, purple potatoes, brussel sprouts, cucumbers, tomatoes, beets, butter lettuce, peppers, collards, rosemary, cilantro… do these foods make your child break into a grin or break into a run?!

Foods that normally end up on the corner of a plate or hidden in a napkin may take soon center stage if you and your children get creative in the kitchen together!  This month, pick an unfamiliar veggie and don your aprons for some delicious family memories.

Everybody loves a cheese quesadilla.  Older children can make these (put shredded cheese on one half of a tortilla.  Fold in half.  Cook ‘til it melts, flip, serve!) with all sorts of tasty additions folded in.  If you offer a plate of sauteed veggies to choose from, you may be surprised when your picky son chooses peppers and mushrooms to add to the cheesy yumminess!  Cilantro is a garden staple and family favorite over here.

If all of that are already fave foods, add guacamole to the dinner!  Any preschooler will love mashing Haas Avocado chunks with a potato masher.  Here’s a chance to teach big sister to chop, too… tomatoes, red onions, cilantro and garlic (jalapeno for the brave!) all need to be stirred in.  Let someone have fun squeezing in some fresh lime juice and dashing on a bit of salt just before the final taste test.  (I’m getting hungry just writing about this!)  Avocado isn’t an “icky weird green thing” any more, now it’s a yummy snack with tortilla chips or on top of the quesadilla!

I’ve been surprised over the years at how many things my children willingly try (and enjoy!) when they have a hand in the preparation.  Tuna or egg salad sandwiches are always a welcome break from PB&Js and now Lauren jumps in the kitchen & whips these up on her own!

Sure, you can make personal pizzas with unusual toppings.  And how about a salad bar where they choose which new toppings to try alongside?  Or head to Ace or Lowe’s to choose some new veggies to plant (and later eat).  March is a fine time to introduce your family to the delicious side of Florida gardening!

Using a familiar base (pizzas and quesadillas) to add something new can be a great and non-intimidating way to introduce new foods to your family.  And if the kids snub their noses at these new taste treats?  Keep offering the “good stuff” and reduce the fake food (remember cheez whiz?) you keep in the house until they naturally choose delicious and nutritious snacks and dinners.

You can’t go wrong when you’re creating a delicious meal and a great memory alongside your child.  Bon Apetit!!

Valentine’s Day for the Birds

This article was originally printed in The Creekline.

It’s February!  The sun is out again!  The promise of spring and the thought of donning flip-flops brings smiles and happy sighs all over Florida… love is in the air!!  Our 48 sister states still trapped in freezing winter (not Hawaii, of course) need encouragement to show kindness and love after shovelling all that snow.  To that end, February was deemed the month of love.  Valentine’s Day was born.

Kidding!  You can research the roots of this holiday (which predates Hallmark, in case you’re wondering) on your own.  But since we should be giving encouraging notes to our children year round, and passionately loving our spouses with actions and tokens (flowers and chocolate, golf tees and fishing lures, whatever makes your spouse’s heart beat fast!) all 365 days of the year, I thought I’d share an “unvalentiney” way for your children to show love after this cold winter.

My idea involves a little creativity, a little craftiness, and a lot of hands-on fun.  You don’t have to buy doilies or glitter or explain to your six year old why she is too young for a boyfriend.  February was designated National Wild Bird Feeding Month in 1994, so we’re going to show our feathered neighbors some love this month!

There are many ways to make your backyard a welcoming spot for birds.  Birdfeeders, birdbaths and sand baths can transform a space in minutes!  My all-time favorite bird feeding project is the pinecone birdfeeder.  You may want to do this outside!  Children smear peanut butter all over and throughout a pinecone.  Then they roll it in birdseed, tie a string to the top and hang it for the birds to enjoy!

Our older children recently made suet (recipe at www.gracefullmom.com).  This is nutritionally dense for birds and makes a large batch!  You’ll be able to keep the feeder full for a while without more messy projects.  Like birdfeeders and seed, suet and suet feeders are easy to buy if you’re not up for a project.

I was surprised last week by seeing some small birds (as yet unidentified) flitting all over our yard- and enjoying our bird bath!  I’ve had this bird bath for years and this is the first time I’ve witnessed a bird playing in it.  In fact, I had given up and stopped filling it!  Fortunately for the tiny bird, it had just rained.  A birdbath can be quickly improvised by filling a very large plant saucer.  Some birds prefer their water source elevated.  A fun experiment would be to place one on the ground near a bath on a pedestal and see which receives more visitors!

It’s been fun getting to know our backyard buddies and learning their preferences.  Sometimes we’ll put extra seed on a fence post for a bird who can’t get the hang of a feeder- we aren’t “birders” but we sure do have fun watching our backyard guests!

I’m reminded of the scripture, “All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your saints shall bless you!  They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom and tell of your power, to make known to the children of man your mighty deeds, and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.” -Psalm 145:10-12

The splendor of Florida’s weather and the birds in our own backyard can be breathtaking.  Teaching our children to appreciate the creatures that call St John’s County home and to love the Creator who made them is a wonderful way to celebrate love this month.  ♥

Gardening

This article was originally published in The Creekline.

    UF knows how to develop more than a solid football team… their Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences contributes to the success of gardeners all over the state!  This is the perfect time of year to begin a family project utilizing their knowledge.  It’s time to put in a family garden!

There is something about a garden that enamors a child.  Perhaps it’s raking their little fingers through the dark earth or watching the seed they’ve planted peek through the dirt and then grow into an edible veggie.  We’ve had a children’s garden for about 9 years… and although we have had little produce to show for it, the knowledge and healthy family fun gained make it worth the effort.  The children’s love for the process motivates me much more than the veggies that make it till harvest time!

Florida’s temperate weather allows family gardeners (and our insect enemies) to work almost year round.  So exactly when do we plant which veggies?  Are the veggies at Ace and Lowe’s suitable for our part of the country?  Which of the 7,500 varieties of tomatoes flourish here?  These choices are what make gardening in Florida both exciting and overwhelming!  Vegetable Gardening in Florida by 36 year University of Florida vegetable specialist James M Stephens keeps me from “throwing in the trowel.”  I have several gardening books and websites that I reference, but this is the most concise and most helpful.  My favorite part of the book is the planting guide in the back, which suggests varieties and planting times for North Florida.

Thanks to this guide, we’ve moved past our old gardening MO of driving to Lowe’s, letting each kiddo choose any herb and a veggie, plant them and wait as they wither in Florida’s scorching sun.  Now we compost, plant carefully chosen veggies, water, weed and harvest!  One thing hasn’t changed; every year we pick enough fat, green worms off the plants to feed a pond full of fish!  And so our gardening education continues.  What are these scary looking worms?

The critter question led us to some more fantastic resources that are tailor made for Floridians.  “Florida’s Fabulous Insects” and “Florida’s Fabulous Butterflies” are two photo-filled identification books in a series that covers plants, animals and even seashells here in the sunshine state.  When an invader is discovered in the garden, our children quickly grab these handbooks to discern whether it’s a beneficial insect or a menacing muncher.  The children identified the tomato hornworm- whose sole purpose in life is to gross out mommies while destroying tomato, eggplant and pepper plants.

Through Internet research and a phone call to our local UF extension office we learned that the best way to eliminate tomato hornworm caterpillars was to handpick them from our plants… eeewww.  What next?  What do you do with a bucket of several-inch-long-juicy-green caterpillars?  Feed them to the fish!  But the fish in our pond refused to eat them… and worse, the slimy terrorists made it back to shore and started crawling back up the bank toward our garden!  Timothy, our three year old knew just what to do.  He and a shovel made quick work of the enemy bugs.  How could anyone think gardening is boring?

We have learned much through gardening as a family.  One of the biggest things is where to go for help!  Localized reference books allow the children to find answers quickly, which encourages them to look and learn on their own.  Our county’s extension office enables us to speak with Master Gardeners about trickier questions.  For the biggest challenges, like scorpions, icky bugs and big snakes, we still call the experts.  Daddy and Timothy are tougher than a whole football team when armed with a shovel!

Keeping Christ Central

Kim gave me a Christmas Cactus with vibrant pink flowers last year. I love
the brilliance of the blooms and the fact that these plants are so easy to care
for! I water it sparingly, as succulents prefer, and that’s about it. But
December saw the cactus, like it’s owner, swamped. I was displaying it on the
back porch and it rained. The soil is saturated and it is drooping from too
much, too much, too much water. I was so disappointed that I would miss the
simple beauty of the Christmas Cactus’ blooms!

At the beginning of this week, I felt like my cactus! I was droopy from much too much ____ (fill in the blank: travelling, cooking, parties, errands, projects). I had drenched my schedule and lost the simplicity of the season. Then I read in Brenda’s blog, “Take time to quiet your soul and savor the Savior. A few precious words from our Lord will minister to the deepest needs of your soul and you will fill
strengthened, refreshed and ready to encounter whatever He has waiting for you.”

It was Christmas Eve! But it was not, and is not, too late to focus on Christ’s birth!! So that morning I sat on the back porch with the children, reading Mary’s First Christmas and sharing some delish pine bark. When we finished, Andrew was covered in chocolate and wouldn’t let Ben hose him off. When I got up and went over to clean Andrew up, I saw that my Christmas Cactus is COVERED in buds!! Isn’t this just like our God?!?

It was not by my careful cultivation. Nor will I (or the children) see the goodness of our Savior through my careful instruction. Our God cares enough for me to cause a flooded, droopy plant to bloom!! And His miracles stretch far beyond plants… He is
causing my overwhelmed, self-sufficient soul to see His goodness. It wasn’t too late. He mercifully lead me to keep Him first this Christmas.