Saturday, June 22, 2013

Saturday Farmer's Market - 6/22/13


Saturday Farmers Market is a weekly event originally created by the beautiful and nature loving, Heather at Capricious Reader. It's a weekly event that celebrates gardening, be it your own garden or gardens around you; local food, be that at your local farmers market or at a restaurant or festival that celebrates eating locally; a recipe that you've created using fresh ingredients or a whole cookbook; and veggies, flowers, herbs and farm goods galore. Anyone and everyone can participate. It was originally started within the book blogging community but I'd love to see it expand beyond as well. You don't have to have a garden or grow veggies to participate, just post about how veggies, flowers, local farms, etc. have impacted your life this week. You'd be surprised! It may be too cold to grow things and it may be too hot to grow things, but you may just want to post about the plans you have for when the ground thaws. Or maybe even share with us how your community aims to keep things more sustainable or even about the local trails and nature offerings around you! This will also connect really well with Mrs. Beth Fish's Weekend Cooking ;) Thanks Heather for letting me take over the reigns for this wonderful idea that spawned from your creative brain :) Feel free to leave the link to your post in the Mr. Linky below, spread the word, and come back to read everyone else's posts as well! 

Well my dear friends, I'm afraid that I didn't get to take any pictures of my garden before work today because I got a late start to my day :( And I won't have any time to take pictures tomorrow morning, so sadly, you get pictures of all the INDOOR plants and thingies this week :p I hope you enjoy it anyway. Hopefully next week I'll be able to update you on the outdoor plants again! I DO however hope that I can see all of your gardens though ;) I'm a bit of a garden voyeur :p So anyway, here's what's going on IN my home.


Well here you go...here's a picture of some of outside :p It's just me in my apartment this gardening year, so I've been freezing everything until I'm ready to use it! I'm just freezing the tomatoes whole as they come off of the vine and look at all of the tomatoes I have already! I think it's just about time to make some salsa :) Not too many jalapenos yet, but I only have one plant this year. The ones I do have are HUGE and there are just as many on the plants right now. And last night I chopped up four bell peppers and that's them all frozen in that top bag. Always convenient when I need them for seasoning to cook with!


Here's one of my little jade cuttings that's continuing to do well. I love jade! I bought one plant years ago and probably have about 6 or 7 different, decent size plants from that one. They make cuttings and new plants so easily! You should see the one I have outside! It's getting huge and gorgeous! I also love the little pot that this one is in. I found it at my moms. They were going to toss it, but I loved it :)


My dracaena tree continues to amaze me!! It really loves the spot that it's in apparantly! The leaves just continue and continue to grow and the plant continues to get taller. I've never seen a dracaena grow this well, really.


Here's my little red robin tomato, which I finally put in a pot! This is the little tomato that was growing in a bag up until tonight...the one that I got from Barnes and Noble. I'm so proud of this little tomato :D I planted it from a seed and it's grown into this! It's the only kind of tomato that grows as a houseplant apparently and it's an heirloom variety. I hope it likes it's new little pot :) I'm curious to see how long it lasts since it won't be exposed to any freezing temperatures.


The fiddle leaf fig tree!! I really love this plant!! It's definitely my favorite of my houseplants, and may just be my favorite plant I have. It doesn't look all that healthy, but let me assure you, it look FANTASTIC compared to what it looked like when I bought it. I'm just proud of the little plant that could :)


Here's my little bonsai "I can't remember what this plant is called" plant. I got this from Whole Foods years ago and it just keeps on keeping on. SUCH an easy little plant to care for. I just water it occasionally and it keeps on doing fine :)


Here's Matt's plant that he left here and it likes it's little place in the apartment too and I think he'll be glad to see that it's CONTINUED to thrive where it is :) I think it enjoys the company of the James Jean and Anne Julie Aubrey prints :p


Here are my homemade liqueurs in progress! The cherry one on the left only has about two weeks or so left and then it shall be ready to drink!! I can't wait to see how it turns out :D On the right is a mixed berry liqueur that I think is going to be AMAZING! I can't wait to see how this one turns out!! It still has about a month ago but is a mix of blackberries, blueberries, strawberries and raspberries....and vodka and sugar of course :p Can't wait to see the finished products of these!


AND finally...I'm so excited about these!!! Though the filter that I put on the picture stops you from being able to see anything :/ These are seeds from Ante in Croatia! We did a seed exchange :D So he will being growing stuff from New Orleans and I'll be growing stuff from Croatia! He bought me some turnips that are native to Croatia as well as some lettuce that is native to Croatia and some gorgeous hollyhocks! Then he sent me three types of lettuce from his own garden, some sage from his garden and three types of squash/pumpkin from his garden :D I'm planning on planting a lot of this stuff on Sunday when I'm off!! I really want to build a little mini square bed just for lettuce to put on my patio. I'm just sort of wondering where I would fit that on my patio :/ And wondering how much the apartment would hate me if I added yet ANOTHER thing to the patio :p

Ok...so let me know what's going on in YOUR garden or in your neighborhood! Really! I want to know!!!! Leave a link to your posts so we can all read all about it :)

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11 comments:

Beth F said...

Ha! We are still on strawberries and radishes and lettuce!! No tomatoes yet. But I'm enjoying the cooking greens and salads from my CSA.

Snowball said...

Your houseplants are beautiful. I have a cat who eats everything so I had to do away with indoor plants and I miss them a lot. My 5' jade plant got hit hard with frost this year (in California!), even with a covering, but it's coming back well. I need to find a way to move it inside this year but keep the cat away from it.

Do you prepare your tomatoes in any way before freezing? I'm being over run by tomatoes right now, and I never really found an easy way to save them. I cut way down on the number of plants I put in this year, but the ones I have seem to feel they need to pick up the slack!

A seed exchange! How exciting! I'm a 'forget the neighbors, it's a garden' kind of girl myself. But on the other,hand is your car big enough for you & all your plants to live in it? :P

DesLily said...

I was wondering about the tomatoes also... I thought I remembered they had to be blanched for 1 minute before freezing??? Has this changed? I think it was done just to be sure all bacteria was killed

DesLily said...

oh my I forgot to mention.. you REALLY NEED to find that home with a yard!!! all those seeds! Gah!I know you are good but sheesh... you need Scotty to create a few Miracles for you!

Gwen@ChewDigestBooks.com said...

I suck at houseplants and yours are so healthy and beautiful!

Why have I never thought of a seed exchange like that? Genius.

Vasilly said...

Your liqueur looks so good!

Ali said...

That seed exchange is a wonderful idea! (As long as you don't end up planting some sort of invasive species, I guess...though I've never heard of an invasive turnip.)

tohko said...

I LOVE your house plants!!! So beautiful.
And I didn't know that we can put tomatoes in freezer until today!! (Is that common sense in the US?) My tomatoes are started to color red! I am so happy:) Still rainy season here in Tokyo.

Carole McDonnell said...

Pide for the little plant that could. I so understand that one. My cabbages are looking sooooooooooo good.

Jeane said...

You plants all look so lovely. I thought from comments you've left, that you didn't have much luck with jades. Doesn't seem like it to me! The Dracanea looks awesome, and I wish I had a fiddleleaf fig! I'm pretty sure your bonsai plant is a schefflera (I've got one, too) and the one in the corner by the prints is a dieffenbachia (don't eat the leaves- it will make your tongue go numb. Also called Dumb Cane. Poison to cats.) :)

Bookfool said...

We've got a few tomatoes and one green pepper growing. I'm not sure what I did to everything else but this has not been the most successful growing year for me. Maybe I started too late.

Someone mentioned not having plants, anymore, because of the cats. Same here. We haven't had indoor plants in years. I miss them, really. I was okay with indoor plants - not great, but okay. We had one that lasted for a very long time but Fiona thinks everything's edible so I put it up high when she came into our world and I guess the heat by the ceiling killed it. Or, maybe I forgot to water it up there. Hmm.