Lemon tree

My lemon tree is doing bad and good at the same time. I do not know what the heck is happening. I am losing leaves but the fruit is doing ok i guess. . it is turning yellow and seems to get bigger.. still the size of a quarter. I must do a little research.

Veggie garden

my vegetable garden is planted for the most part. I had some space left over because a lot of my plants were not able to be planted. They either died or became stunted. I think i am going to plant some flats today for germination and growth in the greenhouse to try to catch up to the season of growing. I hope all goes well for what i did get to plant
i think i will have to plant onions, lettuce and all other small delicate crops like that out in front to keep eye on them and be able to water them and keep them well.

Still raining!

It is still raining and I have had absolutely no ability to plant. The soil needs to be retilled and have the straw tilled in too.
I do not like this at all. I am glad for some of the larger containers for some of my plants. I just might choose to plant some other plants into containers for safe keeping and bigger growth to help out.
I did take care of all my indoor plants. Changing my bamboo over from the gel to water. I need to find a nicer vase for those. I did notice in the parent vase there is a new offshoot from the bottom of the plant .... Happy day!. The growth of the plants are slow but strong and wonderful.
I replanted my Boston fern that I have been trying to nurse back to health for approx 2 years now. I pulled it out of the pot and first found a brown cocoon I disposed of. Then I found a line of separate root growth with tons of frongs on it. I planted it more to the top of the soil to maximize the amount of plant growth in the pot I cannot wait for it to take off. It loves the current location in my house. My mini peace Lilly is growing like crazy. It looks as if another flower stalk is emerging. We will see in a few weeks. I am thinking of moving it to more sun until I find out. That always speeds the growth.
I repotted my lime tree in a bigger pot.. It is the strongest of the three fruit trees so I cannot wait to see that effect.
I am actually planning the move of the full sun plants for when I need to give up the full sun window. I am thinking a nice table with full spectral desk lamp for some of them but for the fruit trees I was thinking of a much larger decorative pot for the three of them to fit into. Then placing them in my part sun window and a full spectral floor lamp to supplement the light. It will be replacing the fake ficus in the living room (thank god!)
now as for the out doors.
I did make an online purchase for plants. I decided to go with mock orange bushes for the front of the porch. This year it will be a temp holding garden for some plants like chives, seedum, walk on me, hen and chicks and so on.
JUST HAD A BRAIN FART! I have sandy clay(ish) soil around the house. Mostly sandy.. I also have a problem with soil erosion around the downspout runoff.. I just had the idea to make alpine gardens around the house. I would use yucca as the taller back plantings against the house. Then I would use bigger rocks to fill in areas of interest.. Maybe some stone planters?
but keeping to the square shape of contemporary.. Maybe some stone art. Anyways.. I would use peastone or mixed gravel to do the ground in planting seedum and hens and chicks and so on along a dry rock bed following the downspout runoff.
oh it will look wonderful!.
with the rocks it will be little weeding! I am loving this so much.. I would rarely have to water the darn thing.
anyways. Back to the online order
I got 4 apple trees to start with. 2 yellow and 2 green.
I wanted nut trees so bad, I settled for experimenting with chestnut. They were cheap enough to try. I got willow hybrid for the drain ditches. Some horse radish which I LOVE
two different types of cherry bushes to help up the cherry production.
and then 80 1 year asparagus plants!! Because I want a decent crop for once.
As for the cherry bushes I am thinking I would like to have them all along the sunny side of the house. I think it is the south side ?Just use those for landscaping. They are real pretty when they flower. And they look cool when fall comes and the leaves are reddish.
around back between the decks I am thinking a tropical hostas look with maybe some creeping jenny.. But fill in with rocks and gravel for low maintenance. Possibly a water feature? I do not know about that the because of the insects. But they have the repellent for that. I am in just too much excitement. Very anxious for all of this.

Great Sourdough Bread

So I tried the sourdough bread once again using the kneading feature of the bread machine. I used small amount of starter and I used the regular yeast and not the rapid rise. It is wonderful! Great light soft texture.. Nothing overwhelming in the taste and beautiful small bubble rise.
I am so happy! Now to try it without the extra yeast.. Or possibly cut the yeast in half. I really want it to work without the yeast so I can make stuff without having to go to the store for yeast every time.

*sniff sniff* wahhh!!!

So we had the yard tiled and we had the yard planted with grass seed (all but my garden) I was so happy on Tuesday, It was a beautiful day. I could finally plant. I know it was a few days before the last frost but that is what extra bedsheets come in handy for at the night time. Well I go out there with my containers of corn ready to work up the dirt and plant. I start off with a hoe. It was real tough ground so I thought I should take my shovel to loosen up the first bit of it. It was hard. I could not get my shovel in very well and very deep. I loosened a small spot up for inspection. CLAY! It was not full clay pieces but it still was compacted to high heaven. I wanted to cry so bad. I have not had to deal with clay and I did not know what to do, but after some research I found that if a tiller could go through it that means that I would just have to do some years of amending and it will be fine. For this year tho I will just have Jason run the tiller over it adding some old straw into the soil. It will be ok. Hopefully
my seedlings I did stick out side did not do as well as I hoped. The larger ones did great. Including the semi hydroponic ones. They did the best. But I think the other ones needed more time in the house to get to the status of outdoor hardy.
right now I am at a standstill because it is going to rain for the next week or so .
not much I can do in the rain. And then after I have to wait until it dries out to work the soil.
on a good note I got around to repotting my indoor orange in a bigger pot and better soil. It has new growth.
also my lemon is doing pretty good. After I repotted it the one fruit I have on it has grown bigger and I have new leaves emerging (something I have not seen in a year)
I am slightly worried about the yard. Our tille seems to be backed up our whole yard is somewhat a pond. It did start to drain some inbetween the rain but if it going to rain as much as it did last night I fear we will be having some other issues. But it did rain a LOT last night and i think everyone has some issues from it.
Good news. The phone company did get out here and bury our telephone and internet line.. It has taken them 4 months, but it did get done. Now what is my husband going to complain about now?

Oh well

I have to say oh well to some more boo boo's I made with breadmaking
I went out and botched yeast. Lots of it. I have chosen rapid rise yeast because sometimes I need to make a loaf in a hurry.
Made one regular basic loaf in the bread machine but only used it on the dough function (I hate the part where you have to add as much flour while stirring because it hurts my wrist.) so I had some wonderful rolls out of that that were unlike the loafs that are cooked in the machine. They were light and airy. Subtle sweetness. Great crust.
then I made my first batch of sourdough using sourdough starter and no extra yeast. I started it at 2 and by 6 it had already doubled in size but I thought I would leave it overnight. The extra time did nothing to the rise. His morning I punched it down and made pan rolls out of it and now those are rising in the oven with hot water. They look pretty and have that very strong smell to them .. Nice.
well after I started that dough yesterday I thought I would do the basic sourdough recipe but I did not want to have to do the initial mixing so I thought I would try it in the bread machine. I did the same recipe I would have done with the extra yeast. Let the machine do all the work.
The only boo boo was that I did not add the right amount of flour and needed more so from that I had to knead and get some more flour in it. it was all fine until I forgot to oil the top of the bread before I put the plastic wrap on it. The wrap stuck to the dough and it collapsed it half way. I guess you learn.
also I was saddened that I had made a trip to the store for the yeast, a basket, a wrapping cloth and so on for baking bread all day for jason to take it in on Friday and he ends up not gone into work :(
oh well I guess I will just work on it next week
at least we had some nice snacking rolls and some sour dough for sandwiches.
This morning I am aerate started on those pan sourdough rolls. Probably will have a pig of them if they turn out nice.
I am also making the bread that I made yesterday for the guys working on my landscaping .. One is a friend of ours so at least I have a reason to bake today :)


As for the plants.. All have been out in the greenhouse or on the front porch.. Seeming to do great out there. I have not brought them in at night but there has been no effects from the colder temp. The last frost date is between the 15th and the 31st so I think I am in the safe zone to leave them.. No need to cover them in the greenhouse .

I did give in to a sale oh lettuce seed. They had buttercrunch and other bowl lettuce and so on. I only have the black seeded Simpson and would like to have salads this year of many lettuce.
I also bought some broccoli and some cauliflower to give that a try.
I am thinking of the semi hydroponics for all these new buys. Pace the systems right out there in my garden. Soon I will get to have my garden. They are working on the yard today so hopefully I get to stake it out before they seed. The cool part is it might be tilled up nicely before I plant from them just working on it .
The soil looks nice and I think I have extra that they brought in for my garden.

BREAD

My first batch of excellent sourdough.
I have come to find out that when baking bread there is no exact recipe from person to person. Well for me at least. I was never happy with any of the results i get from making bread by the book when i started a few weeks ago. well actually i have been doing bread on and off since about 2000.

First experience with bread was poor. I tried it by hand and it was not so good. it was heavy, flat, i could never get the right dough texture and so on. And a few years back i was very impatient so i gave up without even learning from my mistakes.
My husband, boyfriend then, thought i would have a better time if i got a bread machine. Good idea, very expensive but good idea. I spent my time making rolls which were ok at best and loaves of bread (following the recipe to the T) that were heavy and lifeless. When we had moved from that apartment we were in the bread machine got packed up and was never used. A few months ago i had become incredibly bored. We have our new house and things are easier to clean because there is a place for everything.. meals are easier to cook because we finally spend more money on groceries to get great things for great dishes so i had been cooking from scratch every night. it got boring with a clean house and a home made meal every night and i couldn't garden yet at that time of this year so for a couple months i thought of what hobby i would like to pick up. I do everything from knitting, sewing painting and so on but none of those are actually interesting and i did not want to be stuck sitting and working on something. I thought that those were also too expensive for my taste. I thought of the the only thing that would be beneficial to the household. bread. wonderful!
With bread i can show off talent and please people at the same time.
you do not get many bread bakers that much anymore. and within our group they must be hiding. But the cool thing is sharing my baked bread. I had jason take in some sourdough into work one day and he said people ate it right up.. how exciting! but that was one loaf. I cannot wait until he shows up with the basket of the many different breads.
This bread also makes a great gift so i will be baking for many occasions. I just love doing it and i need a reason to do it.
It will be great once i have some fruit or something to make home made jam out of then i can do the bread with jams.
so back to my trials and errors this time around.
I got the bread machine out, found the recipe book for it, bought the ingredients and started making the same kind of bread loaves as before, heavy and lifeless. I tried a few things and found that this machine was only good for a thick sandwich bread (which is great sliced thin) and making dough. so i thought i would give the whole hand making process another try. pulled out the ole' homes and gardens cookbook my mother gave me years back (that i love) and started to read before i actually did. Come to find out there is a lot of tips and troubleshooting advice on there so i read them all. I started with a batch of french bread. I actually like the recipes in the book because the bread machine calls for bread flour specifically and i did not have any at that time because i was out.
well the french bread turned out ok. two loaves, very ugly, but ok.
that night the first loaf was cut in half long-ways and drizzled with olive oil, butter and garlic to make the best garlic bread i have had in a long time. Come to find out that garlic bread is a great filler with dinner. when you buy the texas toast ones from the store they are so light and airy that they are just flavor on air. we had leftovers that night and my husband helped himself to two servings of the bread.
the bread from the bread machine just sat around for a while while i tried to do the hand made breads.
Under the bread recipes i tried to make cinnamon rolls. not so good.
but i know what i did now but i decided i like the ones from the store better because i do not want to spend 3 hours making fresh ones.
well then onto the next project. i do not know if it was the interest in trying something new or a craving i had that drove me to try to make sourdough. so i investigate what sourdough is. what gives it it's taste that is different. i could not believe the step that the tell you about how to make starter.
1 cup of 120 - 130f water
1 cup flour
teaspoon sugar
packet of yeast (if you want a quicker starter that will go right to fermentation and not spoil)
mix
cover with cheesecloth
leave for 5 to 10 days stirring it a few times a day
Now i thought this was interesting because i really hate the thought of leaving food out, rotted foods make me gag. i was afraid for any mold or bad smell or anything. so i followed the recipe to the T and let it sit. it looked so nasty, soupy
and so when i finally found that it was not rotting and actually fermenting and started to smell like a beer i was excited that it worked. well then i thought that people have been making it this way for a while and not be afraid of it and most of what might be spoil will cook out of it so not to worry.
i waited patiently, made my first two loaves and they were great!
a little heavy, but good.
The first two loaves i made i tried a pan loaf and a round loaf. the pan loaf was heavy and the round loaf was so so.
so i tried it again. I had an idea tho. If it is heavy then let it rise some more. Unfortunately i was ill that day. the loaves did rise perfectly and wonderfully more than last time when i had placed them in the oven with a bowl of boiling water under them to rise with. they got so huge and airy but i had fallen asleep and the loaves got so tall they fell. I cooked them anyways. they were heavy, flat, but had a good sourdough flavor.
Now every time i used the starter i fed it and replenished it so now i am on three weeks with the same starter. I found it was getting more of a sour taste and so i started feeding it with more sugars.
Onto meal planning for another night. I wanted to do burgers on sourdough rolls.
I followed the same recipe for the sourdough and then made them into 8 rolls letting them have ample time and warmth this time using plastic wrap to hold in moisture and so on. basically if you watch it like a hawk and through experience judge textures, consistency, and appearance then you can tell what will be the best.
the rolls became so huge. They cooked up well. before the last rising stage i cut two slits on the sides of the rolls for easier upwards rising and for easier cutting when the rolls were done. it worked out perfectly. a nice sourdough (not too sour) good texture, not too heavy, wonderful as a hamburger bun. Success!
Now in the meantime i found that if you take the heavy loafs from the bread machine and cut them with a good bread knife you can cut them into strips toast them and make them into good dippers for sauces, also i found if you take the french bread, cut it short-ways into thin slices you can make great bread chips.
you stick them in the oven on 250 to 300 and keep on toasting them until they basically become crouton. then dip them in butter, olive oil, minced onion, garlic salt ( melted and stirred together)
then toast them until crispy again. My father seemed to like these and i will be making more for him soon .
also during this last week i have looked for more info on the sourdough starter. I found you can make your own without yeast using just flower sugar and water. tried that but after two days i had to throw it out.. I do not know if i had to wait any longer for it to ferment or what but i smelled of spoil and i threw it out. I rather work with something that is already working for me now.
So.. Now with the original starter. I have no more yeast in the house. The regular recipe i have been using calls for a pack of yeast while making the actual bread recipe. i thought I do not get out much and it is a haul to the place i buy the yeast at so i did some research and found that the yeast in the starter should be enough for the bread. apparently i can just use that but it will take longer for the rising. Ok so now i am in the process of wanting to make this but i only have one jar of starter. so that means only one loaf at a 24 hour time. which sucks. so this time around i had taken the starter, poured half of it into a jar, fed it to replenish it and let it sit 24 hours, now i have two jars of starter. happy day.
now i going to try to make the sourdough rolls for my husband for friday at work.
i will make the dough today, let it rise the amount of time it needs to (possibly overnight) then bake tomorrow and he will have rolls for friday.
I hope all goes well.
But today i will try to get my husband to let me order some bulk yeast online.
we will see how that goes.

Fertalizing day

I have chosen mondays to be my fertalizing day for my plants. I do not know why but i have somewhat stuck to this.
mondays should also be photo days :) , i would love to have something where i could show the wonderful progress of these fruits of my labor.
Good news to report on one of my indoor plants! I have three miniature fruit trees. One orange, one lemon, one lime. The orange is doing so so. It had a few new leaf growths on it this year so not bad. I was thinking of repotting it so i can get it in some better soil than it has been in. I have the lime on a growing spree. I already had to prune it two times this year alone because of all the newer growth making it grow way out to the sides.I would like to have it slightly more verticle.
The lemon plant is interesting tho. I have lost a considerable amount of leaves off of it but it is producing a fruit. I have transplanted it and the fruit grew a little faster that week so i think i have resolved the problem. It is so cute to see it grow on there. Being in michigan i never have seen a citrus tree growing and producing so this is quite exciting for me.
as for my other indoor plants i have a small collection other than the mini fruits.
I have many philodendrons that i have had the parent plant since three or more years back.
I have some miniature ivy 3 years old, lucky bamboo, 3-4 years old, cactus of unknown age, ponytail palm 3 years old, miniature angel fern? approx5 years old, miniature ficus 3 years old, and my pride and joy a miniature peace lilly which is the first plant that my husband bought me about 6 or 7 years back. The lilly is bountyful and produces flowes every year.
and he says he got me a flower every time it blooms. (what a comp out :) )
as for the pics i want to post that will have to be later. My husband has the card reader, again.
i will be posting of my bread today tho.

Semi hydroponic

This is the semi hydroponics as mentioned in my first post. The plant looks somewhat spindly but i trust it is doing well. The stem is bigger than a pencil and has lots of oddle placed newer lower growths on it. traditionally i have only seen growth happen on the climbing side of it all but i guess if you keep on taking cuttings off the top it forces new growths where the leaf stems butt against the stalk. Rather interesting.

this is the root system that has reached down towards the cup full of water. I did leave some holes in the cup at the top (so the water does not leak out and some oxygen can get in) i found that without the holes the plant water gets nasty and the roots do not migrate to the water.
So far everything is great.
I have been starting the hardening process on the tougher of the tomatoes, not risking the weaker ones. I will try to do those in a week or so when the temp is 60F for a great majority or late morning.
my indoor beans are already 4'tall and my indoor corn is looking pretty good when the hardening process begins for those i will probably put a few into larger containers for bigger plants and possibly earlier crop.
not much else to report today because it is raining and the plants have not realy made any changes. Until i actually plant i will not have much to report on them unless one of them dies or does something drastic.

Semi hydroponic

This is the semi hydroponics as mentioned in my first post. The plant looks somewhat spindly but i trust it is doing well. The stem is bigger than a pencil and has lots of oddle placed newer lower growths on it. traditionally i have only seen growth happen on the climbing side of it all but i guess if you keep on taking cuttings off the top it forces new growths where the leaf stems butt against the stalk. Rather interesting.

this is the root system that has reached down towards the cup full of water. I did leave some holes in the cup at the top (so the water does not leak out and some oxygen can get in) i found that without the holes the plant water gets nasty and the roots do not migrate to the water.
So far everything is great.
I have been starting the hardening process on the tougher of the tomatoes, not risking the weaker ones. I will try to do those in a week or so when the temp is 60F for a great majority or late morning.
my indoor beans are already 4'tall and my indoor corn is looking pretty good when the hardening process begins for those i will probably put a few into larger containers for bigger plants and possibly earlier crop.
not much else to report today because it is raining and the plants have not realy made any changes. Until i actually plant i will not have much to report on them unless one of them dies or does something drastic.