Home depot just got in a shipment from the local nursery and they have all sorts of small plants/vegetables/herbs available for $0.99 each. I didn’t know what most of them were, but I bought 10 of them anyways.
I got a tomate, ruda, oregano, mejorana, limoncillo, habichuela, curis and albahaca de cocinar. Tomorrow they will make there way into the new garden bed :).
I’ve been working on Garden 2.0, and it has now become Garden 2.2:
I have transplanted 3 healthy Tigerella tomato plants, 3 purple bell pepper plants, one spicy pepper and 6 spicy mesculin lettuces from the small backyard garden (Lucky, the seeds I planted produced enough plants for the front and back gardens!). I have also planted a row of lemon cucumbers, edamame and red oak leaf lettuce from seed. In the corners of the planter I planted 4 small rosemary plants and I also planted some marigolds around the edges (to ward away pests).
I also want to plant two more rows of heirloom tomatoes and one more row of lettuce. That should fill up the planter completely and give us a good variety of vegetables to use :).
I have been through more hurricanes than I can count: New Jersey, North Carolina, Florida, Rhode Island…I have sat through them everywhere. I have to admit though, I was either renting, at my folks house or at someone else’s house. The only thing I really had to worry about was my car and that I was stupid enough to park it in a low area of town.
I know I am going to jinx myself here, but I kind of want to get the hurricane thing over with. Like a band aid, just rip it off quick!
It doesn’t look like that is going to happen over the next two weeks, the warm Atlantic Ocean hasn’t kicked up any activity lately and the Cape Verde islands don’t have any African low pressure systems pushing off. I guess for now, it’s just business as usual.
As Stefan mentioned, for whatever reason, where ever we decide to dig on our entire 3 acres, ends up being the wrong place to dig…
Four months ago, we were planting a palm in the backyard. The “perfect place” we decided to put it, just happened to be exactly where our septic line ran through the yard. Seriously? The one place I told Stefan to plant the tree had to be smack dab in the center of the septic line?! Stefan didn’t graze the septic line with the pickaxe, he busted right through the center of it!
Well, we decided to plant a Beach Grape tree in the front yard the other day and Stefan asked for my opinion on where to put it. I choose to put it across for the other Beach Grape I planted a couple of weeks ago and Stefan went to work on digging the hole. Dig, dig, dig, THUNK. SPEWWWWWWWWW. Less than a foot into it, Stefan hit the water main. A 1″ PVC pipe. We couldn’t have hit it if we tried. WTF. So, any who, we went for a day without water, worked through a torrential downpour, took 4 trips to the hardware store and Home Depot and now we have a new spigot for the front of the property (and water for the house):
Stefan went above and beyond and poured a bit of quickcrete (concrete) for the splash-down spot and layed it with blue stone. It looks great!
It’s actually the best spot for it. I guess it was meant to be :D!
There are many, many, many things that I never considered when I would day dream about the ‘pride of ownership’ and owning our own place. I simply wanted to surf, work and not pay someone else’s mortgage in doing so. Those three things helped direct us to the Caribbean and Rincon (all though there isn’t much surf here in the summer months).
Now that the pride of ownership has worn off a little, I am realizing that ‘maintenance cost of ownership’ is what the Real Estate Agents don’t tell you about. The biggest maintenance project we have, which is ongoing, is our yard. We have it sectioned off (in our heads) and certain areas get more priority than the others. For example, the right hillside to stream area is going to be fenced off for the Mini Donkeys. Therefore, we aren’t mowing the grass in there…so it is 10ft tall after 3 months of no-love.
The front yard is probably getting the most attention. It had been excavated so many times during construction that it had nothing living on it at all and is filled with rocky veins.
A few days ago, Summer and I decided to plant a Beach Grape that Mark gave us up at the top of the driveway. After about 4 swings into the rocky dirt, I heard a familiar sound. The pick (which I swung) hit some sort of PVC which echoed up under the ground in both directions for about 40ft and then began to spew water everywhere. Wow, finding a water source to dig a well was going to easier than I thought! No, just kidding. I hit the main water pipe running from the city water up the hill down to our house.
Here is the hole I dug around the pipe getting it ready for repair. Do you remember me busting the septic pipe just a couple of months ago?
Our plan has always been to put a spigot at the top of the hill so we wouldn’t have to drag 125ft of house all around the yard every time we want to water something. The hole in the water main is a little lower than we were planning on putting the spigot, but since the pipe is exposed and the hole is already dug, we are going to make the best of a bad situation and add a spigot. Heck, we probably couldn’t have hit that pipe if we tried to put the spicket any where else. Stay tuned for the finished product!
FYI: Spigot is not spelled spickat
As you can see by Garden 2.0, Summer and I are working on our computers by night and planning/building a healthier lifestyle/diet with our renewed vigor towards gardening by day.
With that, we are definitely going to try to grow cucumbers. I see them all over the grocery store year around, so they must do well here. Tell me if you know otherwise or have any pointers for us.
Here are two Cucumber Recipes my mom sent me today:
Cucumber Soup
3 cucs about 8 inches long, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1/2 cup white onions or whatever kind
3 Tbsp butter
6 cups chicken broth (bouillon)
2 Tsp wine vinegar
1 Tsp dill weed
4 Tbsp Farina or dried potato flakes. This thickens the soup.Cook onions slowly in butter until soft. Add cucumber chunks, chicken broth, vinegar and herbs. Bring to a boil add farina. Simmer for about 30 minutes partialy covered. Puree and carefully season with salt and white pepper. Add 1/2 cup of sour cream and stir. May be served hot or cold. Sprinkle with dried dill.
Baked Cucumbers:
6 cucs 8 inches long
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp sugar
3 Tbsp melted butter
1/2 Tsp dill
3to 4 Tbsp minced green onions
1/8 tsp pepperToss the cucs in a bowl with vinegar, salt and sugar. Let stand for at least 30 min. Drain and pat dry. Put cucs in baking dish with butter, herbs, onions and pepper. Put into 375 oven for about 1 hour, tossing 2 or 3 times until crisp. I always double the receipe because they are just as good cold the next day.
I’ve been noticing that there are caterpillars EVERYWHERE right now. When I was weeding the backyard, I came across thousands of caterpillars in a dozen or so different varieties. They better not be trying to eat my garden!
I was working in the living room yesterday and something crawling up the wall caught my eye…A GIANT spider!
I noticed that the spider only has 5 legs, so I suspect that Chichieto the Cat had his way with this spider before releasing him into our house…
We just got back from San Diego, where we got inspired by Ricky & Lyndsey’s awesome garden. Stefan and I have never been gardeners so to speak, so our garden consisted of some seed thrown around to see if they would magically grow. We succeeded at some things (tomatoes, soy beans, lettuce, basil) and failed at other things (composting, cucumbers, corn, lemon grass, weeding regularly, etc.).
Our tomatoes and basil have run their course, so we are planning our Garden 2.0. Stefan and Jerry made a new, mas grande, raised planter in the front yard and we have plans for two more, to start.
We tried to locate a composter while in San Diego, but unfortunately the guy at the hydroponics store ending up selling the one he reserved for us (stoner). So, we are still trying to find one…
Not much to say about Hurricane Bertha as far as Puerto Rico goes. By the looks of the ‘predicted path’ it is moving North and is going to sweep by Bermuda, hopefully causing minimal damage if any at all and no injuries. The thing with hurricanes is that you can’t write them off until they have completely dissipated over cold water. For that reason, I’ll keep an eye on it for the next few days.
As far as waves go in Puerto Rico, the hurricane didn’t push any swell over to Rincon. Rumor has it that it was head high up North yesterday, but the trade winds were blowing hard all day (makes the wave faces choppy and less desirable). When I woke up at 6:00am this morning, the trades were already pushing a gorgeous sea breeze through our master bedroom. It’s probably really windy up there again today.
Tropical Storm Bertha has become the first hurricane of the 2008 Hurricane season. It is currently over 800 miles east of the Leeward Islands with sustained winds blowing around 75mph. It is moving West North West at about 17mph but the National Hurricane Center says that it’s movement is going to slow down quite a bit over the next two days. This is going to give it time to strengthen and become a more powerful hurricane.
At the moment, all of the forecasts are predicting that it is going to pick up strength and head north of the Leeward Islands and not affect land at all. However, there is a big BUT! Because it is slowing down and gaining strength, there is a chance that it could change its mind and surprise all of the forecasters.
