Yay Monday! Garden Planning, Cookies! 03/08/2021

 Good Monday morning all! BEAUTIFUL out today! So excited that we're going to be having a few days in the 60's this week. Seriously need to get my garden planned.

I grew up in rural Ohio and we always had a vegetable garden, as well as fruit trees and plenty of flowers. My favorite fruit tree was this huge mulberry tree in the yard, next to the driveway. It was big enough to climb too. My sister and I would climb it and stuff ourselves on mulberries, great childhood memory there. But, we always had to help in the garden, whether big or small tasks. My dad had a "special" hoe. He had measurements on it marked with electrical tape so as to be able to mark the row distances and mounds. We also measured out spaces for the more finicky plants too. I've never felt there was a lot to gardening and canning since it was a way of life. Canning. The kitchen always got too warm, having to clean the messes, but the food was always great. My mom had us helping with this as well. I would get lucky and get to use the food mill for the tomato juice. I think we canned almost everything. Vegetables, fruits, soups, pie filling, jams, jellies, you name it! Ah, the jellies and jams! We used to drive along the roads, which were dirt at the time, and pick wild strawberries, not to be confused with the mock strawberry. So sweet and yummy jam there! The wild blackberries, elderberries, so much food in nature, unfortunately not so easy to be found anymore. I am very lucky that I have a couple of small patches of black raspberries in my yard. I've been trying to get blueberries to grow, but space to plant them is a little limited right now, so hopefully will be able to get them moved at some point. Okay, huge digression there!!

Back to the garden planning. As I mentioned, I'm used to the tilling, hoeing, lines, mounds and all but with the RA and pain, it ain't as easy as it used to be. Hubby and I have tried some different types of boxes and containers for beds over the years and I think we found a pretty good system that works for us. My current layout is like this:

Last year, I attempted squashes in the left pots, it was a fail! This year, I will move the squash to the boxes and move the lettuces to the pots. I think I will need to expand a bit as well, since kids are older and eating more. Plus I try to preserve as much as possible and would like to start adding more soups and stews to my canned goods inventory. Sorry, homemade is much better than store bought!

Potatoes. These are actually pretty easy to grow and I need to get those started soon as well. Literally, either use potato starts or older potatoes with eyes. Cut the older potatoes up and with these or the starts, just start layering them in the pots. I had a decent batch last year.

You see that little weird shape to the right of the garden? That is my water. We have a tap on the house to which we attached a 4 way splitter. We attached one of the steel garden hoses to run out from the house to the garden and placed a staked garden hose reel with a spigot there. On that is a timer that is set for frequency, watering length and amount. This has been so handy to have!! All of this is attached to the watering system. We went with the Rainbird system at Mendards. I like shopping Menards as they have the 11% rebate going on right now. We also got our boxes and pots there. The beds are the metal 48x36 and the pots are 18 gallon poly storage tubs. We really like the storage tubs. We drilled holes in the bottom for drainage and also wrap our hoses in them as well. Plus, a lot cheaper using these. Okay, so this is a start. I plan to get 2 more boxes and I should be able to add 6 more pots to this layout. I have limited room where the garden is currently set up. Apple trees to the left and vehicles and a trailer to the right. At some point I would like to get our ornamental pear taken down and perhaps move the garden out there. More open and will have more space there too.

Had a bad day yesterday. Was aching and just every little thing was aggravating. The only cure at that point was .... cookies!! I had debated on chocolate, cake, pie, brownies but lol, needed it sooner. When I was in high school, guy I was dating spent a lot of time at his grandmother's house. She taught me the best peanut butter cookie recipe  - the 1-1-1. One cup of peanut butter, one cup of sugar, one egg. Last night, I whipped this up but added chocolate chips. In place of the sugar, I used my 1:1:1:1 sugar/sweetener blend. The chocolate chips are also a blend of sugar free and semi-sweet chips. Bake these at 350 for about 10ish minutes, think I ended up pulling these out at about 13 minutes last night. So written out:

1,1,1 Peanut Butter Cookies

1 C peanut butter, smooth or crunchy, based on preference

1 C sugar or sweetener (I use my 1:1:1:1 blend)

1 Egg

1/3 C chocolate chips, based on preference

Preheat oven to 350F. Mix peanut butter, sugar and egg until blended. Add chips and mix until incorporated. Using a medium cookie scoop, spoon onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake from 10 - 13 minutes until set and golden appearance.

Okay all, about it for now. Expecting the truck today around 12:30 - 1:00pm. Take care and God Bless!!