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Showing posts from June, 2011

Viva Green Tomatoes!

I walked out the door Monday morning, and what did I see?  Two green tomatoes nubs on one of my tomato plants.  And then I took a look at my currant tomato plant, and it's got several little green currant tomatoes on it.  I have to admit, it all made me a little verklempft.  I mean, I went into this experiment, just hoping to harvest one thing.  And now it looks like I will have not just one, but some tomatoes (plural)!  As mi madre would say, Ya-hoo! On another positive note, I have a purple flower on my eggplant plant (ok, that sounds weird), and a pepper nub on my purple pepper plant. Bring on the salsa and the baba ganoush!  Also, my zucchini flowers have turned into little zucchinis - about 6 or 8 of them so far, and my basil and chives are all of a sudden going gangbusters.  Hooray!  Success!

Karaoke Cafe Redux

Got together with some of the girlfriends Friday night at The Karaoke Cafe for a belated birthday celebration.  We enjoyed a fun dinner, and I tried to have my best lounge act on display.  I even convinced most of the girls to get up and do a couple of group numbers with me. And being the birthday girl, I also got a complimentary dessert (chocolate banana milkshake, YUM!).  Karaoke, cheese fries, a milkshake, and great friends.  I hate to quote beer commercial cliches, but really, "it doesn't get any better than this."

Crisis Contained

Well, the crisis of a couple of days ago seems to be contained, at least for now.  The hot pepper plants are looking pretty well so far, and even seem to have grown a bit.  I also bought some osmocote fertilizer at the garden store, which I sprinkled on all the pots, with the exception of the Red Butte plants, which already had some.  A sprinkling of osmocote should last through the summer.  Now if it would just stop raining so that they could take advantage of some heat and sunshine, and the extra food. On another front, I have found some more gnats on my tomato plants.  But they all appear to be dead already.  Maybe they were overcome by the strong aroma the tomato plants give off. Whatever it was, I'm grateful.  Because I'm starting to get flowers on them, which hopefully means that tomatoes are on the horizon.

Garden Crisis

Ack! A minor crisis in my garden this week as I discovered that the pot my Jalapeno and Anaheim pepper plants are in was infested. Now, I check my garden at least twice a day, heck, I even pray over it, and this was the first time I'd seen the horrid little buggers. I figured they were just your basic fungus gnats, so I decided to wait it out and let the plants dry out. There's not much else you can do without going all crazy with the insecticides, which I was hoping to avoid.   Alas, by last night, I had finally determined they were not just fungus gnats, but tiny flies, and that there were literally dozens of them. Not knowing what to do, I sought some inspiration and finally came to the conclusion that they needed to be replanted. So this morning I took the drastic step of digging up the plants, throwing out the soil, and replanting them in new soil. Thankfully I had just enough soil left over to fill the pot. I inspected the little root balls, and while there was not much

More Garden Pictures

Woke up this morning to a brilliant big yellow flower on my zucchini plant, so couldn't resist sharing some more photos.  My orange bell pepper plant is also doing really well, and you can see that it already has a little bell pepper going on it.

9th South Delicatessen

Went to lunch with my pal Sidney yesterday.  We both enjoy trying out new places, so we decided to try a new one we've been hearing about, the 9th South Delicatessen.  The owner is my former Bishop from the Monument Park Ward.  Apparently it's been a dream of his for some time to open a New York-style deli, and he was finally able to make it happen.  And I have to say, we really enjoyed it.  I had the Reuben, and seriously, it's the best Reuben I've ever had.  The corned beef was super lean, and it was just fabulous.  It also came with a pickle and a super yummy red potato salad.  Sid had the Pastrami, and from what I could tell, loved it.  Bishop Harmsen was there, and was kind enough to take time and visit with us.  Sister Harmsen also arrived as we were leaving, so we got to say hi to her as well.  So kudos to Bishop Harmsen and his new deli.  I will definitely be back. P.S. Check out the great review they got in The City Weekly: http://www.cityweekly.net/utah/artic

Strawberries!

Great news, my strawberries are coming in, and all sort of little fruits are starting to appear on my two plants.  And yesterday morning, I harvested - and ate - my first strawberry of the season.  Which I can only say was the juiciest and tastiest strawberry I've had in quite some time.    I would also like to report that the rest of my garden appears to be doing very well so far.  I dutifully check all my plants a couple of times a day, and so far I've only needed to water every 4 days or so.  The sun has been out, the tomato plants are getting nice and bushy, the zucchini has flowers on it, and the orange pepper plant has a big pepper nub on it already.  My flower plants are also improving.  Hooray for my garden!

Going Milk-free

Quite sick last week with the "flu".  It started after breakfast that Monday, which made for a doozy of a Memorial Day, and continued all week.  I even stayed away from work for an extra couple of days.  So after limiting myself to English muffins for breakfast all that week, by Saturday morning I was craving a bowl of cereal.  I downed a big bowl of rice chex, and it wasn't long before I was feeling as I had on Monday.  So as I was considering what could be the cause of all this agony, I realized that both episodes started after having a big bowl of cereal and milk.  And since the cereals had been different, it had to be the milk.  I did some reading on the internet, and it says that adults can develop unexpected intolerance to dairy products, and the symptoms I had that week seemed to bear that out.  But I thought I could be over-reacting, so I waited until today to try eating another bowl of cereal and milk.  Um yeah, that was the wrong thing to do.  Now, I love dair