The Rhodes Family

Garden Update - The Good, The Bad, and The Unexpected

It's been almost a year now since I started our little vegetable garden, I think Liz and I have had a lot of fun with our experiments, and learned quite a lot. As 2011 comes to a close, here's what's going on in my garden:

 

Late Summer, Bill helped me convert the circular bed into four raised square beds.  The weed situation in the round bed was a nightmare, and a lot of the space was wasted as I had to walk all over the bed to get to the vegetables.  Right now I have brocolli, cabbage, brussel sprouts, carrots, spinach, kohlrabi, spring onions, kale, and parsley growing in the beds.  Through the Winter, these beds seem to perform the best as they get the most hours of sun.

 

 

 

Kohlrabi - not quite sure yet what to do with this, but I'm sure it will be good, and the kids will eat it all up just as they have been doing with all the other vegetables I've grown - not.

 

Kale - slow to get started this fall, but really good in salads, now it's getting a little larger I need to make some 'kale chips' with it.

 

The other part of the garden doesn't have a lot going on right now. The eggplant (aubergine) continued producing all the way into November with delicious eggplants, definitely plan to plant at least three different types of eggplant next Summer. I never really had much success with zucchini - the plant would get huge, then a few little zucchini would form, then a bug would get in them and that would be the end of it.  The hippy bloke up the road told us to plant basil under them to keep out the bugs, but as Liz and I have discussed, they take up so much room, for not a whole lot of yield, and they're not even a veg we're that interested in, so I think I'm going to forgo zucchini for next year. I had a similar problem with butternut squash - big plant, little vegetable, bugs, so no to those too.  The brocollini I tried this fall, grows incredibly fast, it tastes OKish, but the heads flower so quickly, it gets bitter if I don't get to it in time, the bees love the flowering heads though - I may just plant some in the borders around the veg garden this spring just to encourage the bees.

Anyway, look at Jazz - my little garden sentry.

 

 

The bad: Frigging stinkhorns in one of my beds.  These things are my gardening nemesis, just when I think I've eradicated them, one or two reappear.  They are completely non-toxic, but they smell like s##t - to encourage little flies to them, I truly hate them. So far, they're only in with the rutabagas, which is OK, as after I planted all of these rutabagas, I went and bought one to eat, and it didn't get very good reviews from the family testers.

 

The Unexpected: Clearly the compost I thought I'd composted hadn't really composted, as now I have little volunteers from it popping up in the two beds I spread it in.  Could be butternut squash, could be zucchini, could even be a melon - I'll let them go for a while.

 

This little tomato plant is popping up next to the planter that I grew my best tomatoes in last Summer, I'm curious to see if it can make it.

 

Finally, my two best garden companions:

Jazz isn't afraid to admit she's got a few more grey hairs this year (possibly more than me now).

 

Guess who got her 'heartworm negative' all clear this week?

 

2012 Resolutions: Post more - we have some crazy stuff coming up in our future so it shouldn't be too hard.  Work at least half as hard as the little sugar ants that just can't seem to stay away from my kitchen. Get five dead hang pull ups, and pistol squat on both legs (Liz is really enjoying working towards this goal!)

Happy New Year!

Pumpkin Carving in Tuscaloosa, Al

Daniel and I took a road trip to Tuscaloosa this weekend to carve pumpkins with Ben and Sarah.  Ben and I did discuss at one point, that if someone had told our fifteen year old selves, that one day we would be carving pumpkins together in Alabama, both with American other halves, we would have found that hard to believe.  But anyway, on with the pumpkins..

 

Daniel and Sarah dig in:

 

 

Jazzie came too, she kept a close eye on the neighbourhood squirrels:

 

I don't think Ben had ever carved a pumpkin before, obviously not too impressed with the process:

 

Sarah became fed up with his lack of enthusiasm:

 

Just kidding:

 

I think we started drinking at about this point, so I put my camera away and used the iphone to record the results.

 

Sarah's (did I mention she's an artist?)

 

Daniel and Sarah proudly display their efforts:

 

That was it for the pumpkins, after that we moved inside, and i wowed them with my secret recipe of butter/garlic stuffed hamburgers.

But this morning, after a massive breakfast, we headed to the University where Sarah is teaching for a semester, and had a look around.

 

Iron Giant sculpture:

 

 

The obligatory iphone self-portraits:

 

Impressive buildings:

 

And that was it, then we got in the car and drove five long hours home.

 

Iphone Goings Ons

A few things that we were up to this weekend:

 

Daniel - cute as always.

 

He had to come to crossfit me, and snapped this of us all working out.

 

Abbie got stung again by a hornet, it caused a nervous breakdown, and she spent almost the whole day recovering from it in this position.

 

Bow season opened, and Papa Dusty came over while Matt was practising, gave it a try.

 

Real hunters never wear a shirt.

 

Daniel and I spent Saturday afternoon with Bill out at the lease.

 

I would have thought Daniel was perfectly suited for sitting silently in a stand for hours on end, but no, every ten minutes - whisper, whisper 'I'm hungry', 'this is so uncomfortable', 'how much longer' etc etc

 

Beauty berries in the yard to wrap things up.

Garden Club

Friday afternoons are 'club day' at Daniel's school, which means all the 5th graders picked a club they would like to be in, and they meet and do 'club like activities'.  Somehow, Daniel wound up in Garden Club, taught by the art teacher - he's very nice, but somewhat lacking in gardening knowledge, so I somehow became recruited for garden club coach.

Bill's company donated a lot of our material, so far we have built three raised beds, filled them, and got some veggies growing.  The kids really are a lot of fun to work with, some of them had no idea that food actually grows in dirt.  Here they are putting the soil together, and planting out some seedlings.  We've done a mix of seedlings, and direct sow.

 

 

 

A couple of quick pictures from my iphone yesterday afternoon, we're having some nice success.  The biggest challenge will be getting them to eat some of it:

 

A little note about the iphone:  Bill and I both got the new 4s this week, and I'm really having fun with the camera on it, so probably lots more iphone photography will pop up on the blog.

It's The American Way

Hard to believe I've lived in the states for about 17 years now, but I'd never shot a gun before this afternoon.  So, Bill and I headed out into the country this weekend with some friends to take a tactical safety gun class.  It was kind of scary for me, I'd never even handled a gun before.  My aim was pretty poor, so all the folks hoping I can help out during the EMP - I'll stick to cooking.

 

Me - badass:

 

My friend, Brianne - super badass:

 

Elizabeth - focussed:

 

I expect I'll get a call from the SAS any day now.

Eleven

Eleven today. We love you, Daniel.

 

 

 

 

Matt's Summer

All kinds of back to school preparations going on here as the countdown begins, not sure how we're going to cope with our 5:45am starts after a Summer of sleeping to eleven (matt).

Anyway, looks like Matt had a good Summer - here's a video he put together of all the stuff he's been up to.

 

 

In Conclusion

Daniel and I are safely home after an uneventful journey.  I managed a film watching marathon on the plane, getting through: The Adjustment Bureau - very good, Soul Surfer - cried through the whole film, very embarassing on a crowded plane, Unlimited - strange, but good, and Jane Eyre - period drama, mine and Elizabeth's favourite kind of movie viewing.

But before we left England I did manage to get a few last pictures:

We went to the zoo, and Daniel rather reluctantly milked a fake cow.

Then he got kicked in the nuts by a goat.

Then it pissed down with rain, but all in all a good day. Seems like everywhere I went in England I was taunted by lovely looking chickens and bantams.  Not surprising really, as according to the British Hen Welfare Trust (ha ha,that is a true organisation), chicken ownership is at an all time high since WW2.

 

Moving on. My brother Neil had a bare, depressing front garden, it distressed me every time I walked up or down the village. 

I had to do something about it, so I made him spend a bunch of money, then we spent a lovely afternoon drinking tea and planting it.  In a couple of years it should have achieved the dreamy English cottage garden I was going for.

 

He also has a really evil looking cat, nothing I could do about that.

 

OK, so the last few photos I was a bit drunk when I took. It was our last night, and we'd been drinking champagne - they were celebrating us leaving I suppose?  But anyway, Bill had asked for an update on Colin's house.  For those not in the know, Colin and Gail bought my Grandad's house, demolished it, and have pretty much single-handedly been building a rather large house ever since, I think they are on year three now.

Looks almost finished eh? It's a trick, the outside is pretty much done, but he estimates another three years to complete on the inside - that's how it is when you build everything from scratch, from the window frames to the kitchen cabinets.

Finally, to finish off back at home - when good gardens go bad. 

Time to start over.

Visiting Marathon

Daniel and I braved the roads with a rental car last week, and spent several days catching up with friends.

First up a white knuckle ride down to London to visit Judy and her grandson Liam, unfortunately I was too busy eating her excellent curry to take out the camera, but we had a lovely day.

Next up, visit with Lisa, Liam and Jasmine.  More fantastic eating, coffee drinking, and a lovely walk around The Plantation Garden, a restored Victorian sunken garden.

 

Back at home Gemma seeks out her favourite little dip in the garden, arranges her toys carefully, and takes a nap.

 

Finally, a trip down to Kent to meet up with Ben, his sister Mags, her husband and two girls - also some lovely sunny weather for a change.

A nice post-pub lunch walk along the river at Faversham.

Brendan and Ben supervise the girls up the ladder into Ben's latest rather large restoration project.

 

The car went back today, so now a quiet last week at home, before heading back to Florida.

Ickworth House

Friday we enjoyed some lovely warm weather, so we headed out to Ickworth House, near Bury St Edmunds, to have a walk around the gardens (Daniel declined to be a part of this, and hung out at Colin's house instead).

 

Of course, the star attraction for me is always the vegetable gardens - they were nice, but not Kentwell's standard.  Funny little fact found out about Kentwell this weekend - I went to visit my friend Ben, and on mentioning that we had visited there, found out he was a gardener there for four years, and actually help design and build the veg garden that we so admired. Anyway, Ickworth's: