Light Brights

Our real lemons are allllllmost ready. I can find one or two at a time that are yellow. The 100s left are taunting me. We have also joked that if the backyard eating experiment goes astray we can just drink lemon juice with our dried peppers and call it the master cleanse.

Our green peppers also have started to turn bright yellow-orange. I prefer to eat them green, but I must admit they are prettier this way.

"We're making things with light.
Lite-Brite makes them glow so bright!
A steamboat, a chicken, a tropical fish.
A lemonade sign or whatever I wish!"

Lite-Brite Jingle

Lemon Cucumber

This little guy is amazing. It took awhile to arrive but has been worth the wait. I wasn't sure they would fruit since they seemed to take twice as long as regular cucumbers. As the name suggests - it looks like a lemon but tastes like a cucumber. It has a slightly different taste than a regular cucumber but not by much. A slightly different taste is what I will be looking for Saturday when we start our week long adventure of back yard really, really local eating. We have four types of cucumbers growing. I could make ummmm a four cucumber salad? four kinds of pickles?

It was supposed to be happening already. A friend called to ask if we had starved to death since I hadn't been posting about the experience. Actually, we went to Disney World. Going to Disney World just so happens to be the direct opposite of backyard eating. But my beautiful family lives in Orlando and they needed to see the dirtiest kid in the world. So off we went. Think of this as the Disney Detox. (Starting after our next two days of Thanksgiving feasts of course - Putting our grand total of Thanksgiving feasts at 4 if anyone is counting.)

Our experiment starts Saturday and I will try to post everyday. We have decided to do a solid week and then see if we can keep going indefinitely. Depending on how impossibly hard it is.

Best of all! The new chickens starting laying eggs- and not a second too soon. For that I am eternally grateful.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Stevia

I tried to grow Stevia from seed and look it worked!

Ok Ok That was a lie.

After I got my packet of seeds and looked up more information on growing Stevia- all signs pointed to the fact it was impossibly hard to grow from seed. I tried it anyhow and failed. It is supposed to be much easier to grow from a cutting. But I did succeed in finding it at the Annual Herb Fair and I think that's all that is truly important to this story.

The only real experience I had in consuming Stevia previously was when I tried a Stevia sweetened soda from Whole Foods- it tasted aspartamey. I was not impressed. But the leaves straight off the plant taste sugary great. Next step is to dry the leaves and try it in cooking. Hot tip from my friend Dana- When cooking with Stevia you can use half stevia, half sugar without compromising the taste. Then you get half the calories, half the sugar. Lord knows I could cut back on my refined sugar consumption. It is not all green beans and broccoli around here.

"Everything is a miracle. It is a miracle that one does not dissolve in one's bath like a lump of sugar." Pablo Picasso

Nobody In Here But Us Chickens

Chicken Mansion Alert!

Closed

Open

My husband re-purposed some old doors and old wood into a magnificent chicken mansion. The chickens are dubious. But, truth be told, they are dubious about everything. Easy, Sunny and Benny are much happier and fatter without the rooster. The rooster is currently living in our freezer and that is all I am going to say about that.

Why Our Laundry Always Ends Up With Peppers

Exhibit A.

PSA: This is Your Cat On Drugs

Our new cat, Professor Puddin LeMieux Bojangles, has been hitting the catnip. Hard. They start so young these days. He goes directly to the plant and eats a few leaves off everytime he is outside. Not unlike myself with our new stevia plants.

Hot tip: They say you can use catnip for an "I have the flu" rememdy tea. I have been fortuante in that I haven't had to test that out yet this season.

What's Growin

We dug up our sweet potatoes. Today at the farmer's market I saw a sign that said "How to Save Sweet Potatoes. 1. Dust off dirt but do not wash. 2. Put in paper bag with apple to keep from sprouting. 3. Place in cool, dark place. Will save for a week at room temperature and a month if cooler." The farmer's market is an amazing place.

Fall tomatoes.

Cukes.

The glorious shining light of massive amounts of beans.

The broccoli. Something is eating it. That something appears to be birds. (?) There are no visible bugs and whatever is eating it is only eating the leaves and leaving the baby broccoli growing so I am not so concerned at this point.

Baby Corn. We should specialize and sell to Chinese restaurants. We can ground our entire corn crop down to make one corn tortilla.

Wait for it... Wait for it...Fresh Strawberries!