Spices Over Yanda Blog (Previously Allyson's Attempt at Domestication)

It's been forever, I know.... My garden fizzled out since we have had record heat, unrelenting days of over 100 degrees for a couple months now! My garden just couldn't hang on. I did enjoy it while it lasted! Since May I have been enjoying getting fresh produce from a co-op called www.bountifulbaskets.org . It has been great! I thought about opening a pick up site here locallly, but realized I just don't have the time to commit to it. If I have the time I drive about 30 minutes to the nearest pick up site and the produce is AMAZING!!! Today, I picked up my normal basket, which included: 1 head of lettuce; 1 head of broccoli, 3 large ears of corn, 4 tomatoes, 14 plums, 3 pears, 5 nectarines, 1 lb. strawberries, 1 large back seedless black grapes, 1 cantaloupe and 7 bananas. In addition I decided to order their case of plums. It said it would have 10 variety of plums, 12 lbs. for $10.50. I got 12 lbs. of 4 different variety, but that's ok. But, it's A LOT o

First harvest of the season!  I was watering my tomato plants and saw some bright red peaking threw and lo and behold, TWO gorgeous cherry tomatoes just waiting to be picked!  I saved one for my daughter who eats tomatoes like candy and one for my husband.  They both enjoyed them immensely! I have pea pods!  I can’t believe it!  I am soo very excited for these to plum up so I can pick them.  I think it’s important with peas to get them in early and enjoy them before it gets too hot.  My peas in years past haven’t done well if I wait too long to plant. Look at all the glorious tomatoes just waiting to ripen up.  I am very exited, especially since tomatoes are soo dang expensive right now! My spinach and lettuce are coming along nicely as well which is exciting.  I’ve tried every every year with lettuce and I just haven’t had much success.  I am going to clip some baby leaves off the lettuce soon to see if that helps it to keep growing and producing. Cantaloupe is doing well, I j

For information on the food co-op I'm talking about go here . Today I picked up some great produce from Bountiful Baskets Food co-op. I'm very excited. In my standard $15 basket this is what I got: 3 large onions 1 head romaine lettuce 2 bunches celery 1 bag carrots 1 head broccoli 2 6 oz. bags radishes 9 small Persian cucumbers 6 oranges 8 apples 6 mangos 3 lbs. strawberries I also ordered the tropical pack for $10.50 which included: 1 coconut 1 pineapple 1 starfruit 3 mangos 2 limes 2 lemons 1 bag fresh mint 2 vanilla beans I'm soo excited! I've been waiting all day to get home and google recipes to figure out what I'm gonna cook all week with my loot! :) Here are some of the things I've found. Asian Pork chops with mint Coconut mango chicken with black beans Braised Radishes Roasted Radishes Grilled Radishes I have two in my family that really enjoy salad. In fact one of my children will eat a salad in her lunch daily if I send it. I'll use the lettu

Wow! My garden is really pleasing me so far this spring!  It’s growing and growing and growing and I’m already seeing lots of harvest!!! Yay!!!  Check out the pictures! This is one of my bell pepper plants, with a bloom already! Soo excited! Solar Fire Tomato plant in my large bed on the corner.  See the tomato and all the blooms?!?! I have lettuce and spinach, green beans and onions, all doing really well! My second harvest green beans and extra onions! My potato bins!!!! I can’t wait! Green beans on the left and peas on the right, all doing really well! My tomato plants.  The only problem I think I’m having with my tomatoes it the one on the far left.  It got really bushy before growing up and while there are fruit and blooms on the plant they are all really small.  It’s a cherry tomato plant just like the one next to it.  We will see. My cantaloupe bin.  I’m only worried because there is only one plant coming up and with cantaloupe you need at least 2 plants to cross pol

I made THIS chicken recipe tonight and OMG!!!! It was sooo super yummy! I ate with my son before taking him to baseball practice and left the rest for my girls and husband. I was kinda hoping there was some leftover because I seriously would have eaten it when I got home, haha! However, I only found a little bit leftover which husband has neatly packed away for his lunch tomorrow. :) I decided kinda last minute that I wanted to make chicken tonight, so I pulled some out and defrosted it. I then went to water my garden (doing sooo great still) and I had a lot of basil I needed to harvest. I pulled off a bunch and then came inside to google basil and chicken recipes. I think I picked a winner! I will most definitely be making this A LOT more! My only note is to definitely use the lemon juice. I used fresh lemon juice and it was the perfect flavor with the basil and garlic. It really added a nice element. Great, great recipe! Let me know what you think if you try it.

  My garden is only 2 weeks in and it’s doing FANTASTIC!  I’m sooo pleased so far!  Here is my update! Here is a picture of one of my potato bins.  They are just starting to peek through so on Monday I plan on adding some more soil/compost on top to start my next layer. I think I’m most excited about these! This is my 2X2 bed that I planted onions in half of it.  They are coming up and looking good.  I plan to plant the other half with my 2nd harvest green beans.  I will probably do that in the next couple days.  So far so good! This is my main bed that I started out with a couple years ago.  I have green beans just coming up on the left hand side, my pepper plants are doing well and my onions are all coming up fine.  I even have SMALL plants coming up back in my lettuce and spinach area.  The bottom corner is a tomato plant that is also doing well so far.  I’m excited! This is one of of my 4X1 beds and as you can see I already have green beans and peas poking through!

It’s that time of year again!  Garden time!  I decided a couple weeks ago to head out and survey what shape my garden was in.  I had some frustrations last season and pretty much just gave up.  Bugs, bugs, bugs!  This year I plan on using a small amount of pesticide so I don’t lose my whole garden to bugs. Because of the last seasons frustration my garden was found in this shape: Needless to say the beds needed a lot of work before I could be ready to plant.  After A LOT of help from my wonderful husband and a little bit of help from my dog Casey (small bunny incident, hee hee) I’m happy to report my garden is planted! yay!!!  It now looks like this: We still need to weed around the beds and such, but the idea was just to get it planted and go from there! I like to add and try new things each year.  This year we are trying to grow some items in old storage bins.  My daughter drilled holes in the bottom and around the bottom edge of the bins.  We then added our soil mix and