Preserving Fuit the Lazy Way

I've written before about my awesome peach harvest this summer. We ate a bunch, gave tons away and still had peaches for miles. What I decided to do with the overripe ones was slice and core them and freeze them for smoothies. Delish!

The peaches on the tree are long gone but I still have about five quart-size Ziploc bags full of sliced peaches ready for dessert.

Here is my smoothie recipe that I use for my single-serve blender:

• Half fill the cup with milk. We use whole milk, but if you want a skinnier option, feel free to use reduced fat.
• Add frozen fruit. In addition to the peaches, I use strawberries, blueberries, banana, whatever is on hand. The riper the better as this eliminates the need for sugar.
• Blend.

That's it. Can't get any easier, healthier or lazier than that.

Enjoy!

Force-ripening Green Tomatoes

When I overheard a co-worker saying you can force green tomatoes off the vine to ripen in the sun, I thought this would be a cool experiment to try with the kids. We found our sunniest window, a south-facing one, lined the sill with paper towel and patiently waited. To our pleasant surprise, after just a few days, the tomatoes started turning red.

I did a little research on this and turns out heat is the main proponent required to ripen green tomatoes, not sunlight. This blogger mentioned sunlight inviting rot and toughening the skin. The rotting on my tomatoes was more of a sunburn at the very top, which I always slice off anyway. Further, the texture of the skin seems normal. However, next time, I am encouraged to try his brown paper bag and banana method.

How do you force-ripen tomatoes?

Afternoon Snack

Even though it seems my tomato vines are infected with a fungus, I've had and continue to have a very good harvest. One of my new favorite snacks is cherry tomatoes marinated in lemon juice, salt and pepper. Delish!

Mockingbird's Nest

Every year I have a mama mockingbird who makes her nest in one of my privet hedges. Usually she reuses the same nest and lays three eggs but this year the nest is a little bit higher...and larger and there are four eggs!

 

Isn't it beautiful! Read about some of my other garden babies here.

Its so hot...

...that I saw a fire hydrant chasing a pack of dogs! That's a joke I read in some local rag yesterday. Yup, that pretty much sums up how I feel about going outside to garden right now, though Saturday looks promising if the rain holds off.

 



Revamped Plant Stand

As a practical joke, a colleague left an old, rusted plant stand in my office when my department requisitioned an end table.

I didn't really see much humor in this, but I did see lots of potential for a refinished plant stand for my patio. My six-year old and I peeled away the cracked vinyl over the course of a week. She loved using a pair of pliers which are normally off limits and took to the task like a plant to water. (See the relationship there? he he) After some cleanup and several layers of black spray paint, it looks as good as new.

Hand-feeding Koi

Today I watched a gardener hand feed his koi fish. It was the most incredible sight! The fish heard him call, approached, ate, then swam away. See for yourself:

 

What can your pet do?