The latest garden news

Well I'm not posting a picture, but my garden is starting to look like crap. I guess its because its organic. Organic=lots of bugs. I'm planning to do a better job companion planting next year and hopefully deter some of the bugs that are destroying my garden. I noticed today that squash vine borers are taking out the remainder of my squash plants. Not only that, but they also have powdery mildew all over them. I'm not really that torn up over it though, I'm honestly getting sick of yellow squash and the plants are so big that they're creeping around the garden. Next year I'm putting them on dedicated hills... I now see the reasoning behind that.

Yesterday I went in-organic with my tomatoes. I had enough... I STILL don't have any red tomatoes and every time I find one starting to turn its rotten with squash bugs on it. I had it, I grabbed the bottle of sevin that Jason bought me when he was feeling sorry for me over the aphid epidemic and started spraying. Oddly enough as sad as I was to in-organic my garden it felt GOOD to get revenge on those bugs. Organic gardening is SO hard, you can stick to your guns and risk all your hard work going to the bugs or you can get some pesticides and ensure that you actually get to eat some of your crop. I'll try again next year. I only sprayed the tomatoes but I'm sure if I were an organic farmer that would negate my whole farm for 5 years... luckily I'm not.

But the positive thing about the garden today is that for one, I keep picking cantaloupe. I've picked about 20 so far, maybe a few more than that, and I have about 10 left out there to ripen. The downside is I am getting SICK of cantaloupe and it isn't as sweet as I would have liked it to have been. Oh well.

AND the okra is blossoming. I have never grown okra before or even seen an okra plant, I had no idea that they flowered so beautifully:

So that is pretty exciting. Hopefully we'll be eating some home grown okra soon!

Bloggity blog blog

I haven't blogged in a few days and I was really on a roll. I don't know what to blog about today but I need to get back in the swing of things. We went camping this weekend and that always screws me up for about a week, the house is a wreck and I am either exhausted or just lazy. I haven't figure out which it is yet.

So today I have a few goals: wash the dishes, which are overflowing onto the counters, mop the kitchen floor which is disgustingly sticky, and get some sewing done. I would really like to go to Jo Anns but I am not going unless I get those dishes washed and I really don't feel like washing dishes.....

The decisions of a home maker, how did I ever get to this point?

A literal PITA pocket

Yesterday I made whole wheat pitas. Pita making, for those of you who haven't made pitas before, is a delicate process. A real pain in the ass, if you will. Make some pitas yourself and you will discover the little pocket bread's true namesake-- Pain In The Ass. This is why I only make them about once every 4-6 months and buy all my pitas until I have forgotten just how much trouble they are to make.

First you make the dough, knead it and rise it once. Then you must shape the pitas in perfect little circles (wand let them rise for 20 minutes. Next the oven has to be at the right temperature as well as the pan inside the oven. Then you must transfer the pitas to the hot pan inside the oven without disturbing the pitas so much that you cause the rise to fall. Then you watch in the oven window, praying and willing the pitas to "puff" and if you're lucky, maybe half of them will. Then you have to flip them halfway through cooking but only once you're certain the puffing is either finished or will never happen anyway. I also want to add that a non-puffed pita is not a waste of time, it just won't be a natural pocket you have to cut it open.

So out of yesterdays batch of 8 pitas only two rose to the occasion. And of course, being the blogger that I am, I took pictures. (You can see on left rear pita where Nathan got ahold of it and took a chunk out with his hand, yeah.. that doesn't help the whole rising and puffing process.)

So.. intelligent girl that I am, I uploaded the wrong picture. I am on dial up so I'm not going to let my precious uploading time go to waste and I'm leaving this picture up for your viewing pleasure. My little bookworms... awwwww! <3

Hmm

I got these flip flops from a swap on a message board.. they're cute but I don't think they're me. Every time I am walking with them on I keep thinking "THERE IS SOMETHING ON MY FOOT!" and I keep trying to shake it off. Honestly.. my dirty old toes just don't look right with flowers. But I wear them around the house and garden, they make me feel glamorous in a Zsa Zsa Gabor kind of way.

The Family Bed- room, that is

We cosleep with our babies as infants, once they reach toddlerhood they transition to a crib. When they get older and need us at night they come back to our room once again, but not to our bed. They sleep on the foam couch on the floor and sometimes things get a little crowded. I couldn't resist snapping a picture when I woke up to find them sharing <3