Tasty Salad - An Oxymoron?

I know, most of you are saying, tasty and salad do not belong in the same phrase. How about satisfied? That is the other adjective that describes the salad that I had today at Avanti at Fountain Place. It was a Salmon Cobb salad. It had grilled salmon, roasted tomatoes, feta, and a poppyseed vinaigrette. Only 8 points on Weight Watchers when I cut out the egg. I also used a trick from my good friend Jill. I got the dressing and the feta on the side. I put on the 2 Tbs of dressing and about 1/8 c of the feta on my salad. So good! And because the salmon has the healthy oils and protein that I need, I feel completely satisfied! I even skipped the bread basket with the olive oil sitting next to it! I was going to snap a picture with my phone but in the fanciness, I thought it would be inappropriate. I will go back, but I am in the mood to explore the great downtown of ours and see what else has changed since I worked here 13 years ago. From what I can tell from my research, Mariano's has left downtown for Skillman and that makes me very sad. Alas, El Fenix is within walking distance, but I can have that in Plano any time. It's time to celebrate the new!

The Good Life

So...where where we? I don't know. As Flylady would say, "Jump right in, whereever you are". So, I am. Since my last post, January 2010, much has changed. I started a new job last week. It is a much different commute. I take the train to downtown so that I do not have to struggle with the horrible Dallas traffic. I am getting back into reading, my bible devotional, my email, and my books. Oh, it is quite enjoyable.

I now have a membership at the YMCA. Many people would scoff at that fact, but it is a really nice facility with a plethora of workout equipment. Today I was really surprised to find that many people were running outside. There was one man waiting for someone so I asked him...where do you run? He says there are many routes, but you do have to watch out for traffic (thanks to my dad, I won't cross against a crosswalk, so that can be time consuming downtown). He and his friend run over to the Katy trail for a short 6 mile run or on up to SMU for an 11 mile. These people are either really fast or they get much longer lunches that I can ever hope to have. Don't people work?

I am slowly but surely getting used to the corporate grind. After working at Cooper for 7 years, I was very spoiled. There are no microwaves on my floor and if I work out at lunch that means that lunch needs to be ready to eat. I have been alternating between peanut butter or ham and cheese sandwiches. This is getting very boring. I miss my warm meals. Alas, I am going on an adventure to find a nice ready to eat lunch that is low in points. Surely, this should not be hard. I'm thinking hummus or babaganoush with veggies. The one drawback? I'm not a fan of raw veggies...the silver lining? Maybe if I eat them with hummus or babganoush, I will like them better.

Cleaning the Garden

Today was my first day of the 2010 gardening season!

We went by Lowe's to pick up things for Brad's welding project and I was excited to see the onions and potatoes available. So, of course, I picked up my Yellow Granex onions, some russet seed potatoes, and seed packets for lettuce and spinach. As we left Lowe's for North Haven Gardens (NHG), it started to rain a little bit. It did not deter me at all. When we got to NHG, I was a little bummed that they were out of cauliflower plants, but the garden associate assured me that good things will come to those who wait :) That is exactly why I love their store! So, I picked up my compost (Back to Earth Composted Cotton Burs) and we headed home in the slightly heavier rain.

After everything was unloaded from the car, it may have been raining harder but I was determined to do at least an hour worth of work on the gardens. I pulled off all of the bird netting and stored it in the shed. In addition, I pulled the tomato stakes out of the ground, only breaking 2 of the 5. I also stored the tomato cages. When I assessed my situation, I realized that our bermuda had really taken over the gardens in the late summer and early fall. In reading on the NHG website, they suggest putting down newspaper under soil to help prevent the bermuda coming up into the garden. So, I will be buying a paper for the first time since Thanksgiving tomorrow.

I started pulling up as much as possible by hand. Today I didn't want to pull the soaker hoses out of the gardens, so I didn't break out the hoe and rake to till the gardens. Plus, the strawberry patch created so many runners last year that I was having to pull the bermuda runners out from around the strawberry runners. After working for about an hour, the gardens are still overrun with bermuda but I feel like I made some progress. I even pulled out about 2 pounds of carrots out of the north garden!

Here is what they look like now:

This is the south garden. You can see all the parsley on the far side that is still dying. We even have some onions growing back in this garden.

Here is the strawberry patch with the bermuda still growing it, but there is a lot less than there was before I started.


This is the north garden. You can even see a few of the stray carrots that I pulled up when pulling out the bermuda. I am looking for a roasted carrot soup recipe for tonight. Sounds tasty!

Here is the herb garden, the thyme on the left, the rosemary on the right and the extremely sad sage in the middle. My goal is to pull the sage next time I am out and pull the bermuda out, making way for possibly basil or another herb. I am not sure if the basil will do well in this garden since it does not get full sun but half sun. I have plenty of time, though. Basil does not get transplanted until at least late April. I have lost too many basil plants over the years from early planting to worry about trying to get a "head start" on the season.

And finally, I have only 22 pounds left to hit goal weight after many months of walking, spinning, and now running. My goal is to hit my goal weight by April 30, right about time for squash planting. I do have to thank all of my friends and family because, without their support, this would not have been possible. Here is where we are:


I am going to try to update my blog weekly going forward as I plant onions, potatoes, lettuce and all of the other terrific spring goodies. Here's to a great growing season!

June Has Arrived

June has arrived and so has consistent 90 degree weather here in Plano. Still walking about 25 miles a week to keep up with my 3-day training - my Italian color is really coming through. Today I went out to check the garden and my hydrangeas are beautiful:


(these dates are wrong - this was from 6/1/09)

I also checked out the vegetable garden and the green beans are blooming:
I need to read up more on these beans...I don't know what I am doing. I just go out every few days to see them growing. I am guessing now that they are bush beans and not pole beans because they do not have any tendrils and are not trying to climb at all. A bit of a bummer because I was really hoping for that.


And the potatoes are in full bloom, meaning they are heavily producing tasty tubers! Yum! Roasted potatoes here we come!

The Yukon Gold are doing much better than the Red Bliss and the only difference is that the YG were seed potatoes from North Haven Gardens and the RB were potatoes from Walmart that I let sprout on the counter. The RB were probably sprayed with some kind of something to keep them from growing too fast...my opinion only. But we will see who is the true winner when it comes to harvesting. (in September) That seems so far away!

Another beauty is our landscape are the Hostas. They have started flowering this year.

I have not liked them much in prior years but I am starting to think it is because I did nothing for them. This year they are set up on the same soaker hose as the hydrangeas and I water every other day. They are flourishing and almost taking over the azaleas which I hope will flower more next year after I can help them produce more branches and foliage this year.

The parsley that I planted from seed is absolutely obscene now:
The worst part is that I have absolutely no idea of what to do with it since using it for garnish would not be my idea of everday dinner cooking. Any ideas?

Last but not least, we have several yellow blooms on 3 of our 6 tomato plants. We still have two tomatoes growing on the Bush Goliath plant. I check them daily to make sure that they have not started to turn yellow or even red.
This week I am going to finally net this garden so that we do not lose any of our precious tomatoes to the birds. They seem to be especially prevalent this year but I have been very diligent about mowing the yard every week. I must be giving them plenty of opportunities for bug seeking...well, that is what Brad tells me.

First Tomato

Last week I decided that I no longer wanted to share my strawberries with the birds. I put out bird netting on the strawberry/lettuce/watermelon patch.

One week later (tonight) I went out to check for some strawberries for breakfast:

And happened upon the first tomato growing on the Goliath Bush Tomato plant:

I also noticed that the green beans that I planted last Tuesday have started coming up:


But the biggest thing out in the garden right now is the lettuce and the potato plants. They are HUGE!

I am very excited to make more salad tomorrow. I am worried that we have a short time period before it gets too hot here in the Dallas area and the lettuce will wilt and die. I am also trying to harvest as many spring onions as we can eat as often as possible to make more room for the full-size onions. Oh the harvest!

Harvesting

So far we have had a lot of lettuce. It keeps growing and growing and growing. And with all of the watering that God keeps doing, it is growing taller, even though it is leaf lettuce...check it out:
You can also see the shallots in the background up against the back board. I cannot wait to see them when they come up. Makes me think that I should plant some garlic. Just today I was watching Gardening by the Yard and Paul James suggested interplanting other crops with the lettuce since it will die out by the time we get to 90 degrees.

I have also had a few strawberries that I have managed to harvest before the bunnies started eating them:


They are the most delicious strawberries that I have ever had! This tops Driscoll's strawberries on any day of the week!

Fencing it In

After the recent frost and animal activity took hold of all 5 of my tomato plants, we decided to fence in 2 of my 3 gardens, each of which has tomato plants in it. We purchased 4 foot metal posts from Lowe's and staked at the corners and in the middle of the 8 foot sides.


We then added 2 foot tall chicken wire around the entire bed.


I planted a second basil plant because there is never enough bail for the winter pesto. Now I just need to research how best to freeze pesto.



You can also see, in the top left of the photo, that a potato plant is growing. We originally filled this bed with sphagnum peat moss as well as part of the soil from last year's garden...I guess we missed a potato!

So, the whole purpose of all this fencing was to provide a safe growing environment for our tomatoes. This time I planted Goliath Bush, 2 Bush Early Girls and 2 Celebrity plants. I used the medium sized plants vs. the smaller plants. I also noticed in far north garden that the two tomato plants that were topped by some animal are starting to sprout new foliage.