Saturday, March 24, 2012

Sweet Little Green Babies!

How cute are these!  I have about 45 seedlings growing in various types of herbs, onions and tomatoes.  This shot features my fino, sweet, genovese & opal basil, marjoram and a little peek at cippolinni onions all growing in my Aerogarden seed starting kit
All of these little babies showing will go into my vertical garden that I am putting together this week.  I won't plant them of course for another month or so but I wanted to get everything gathered together and ready to go as soon as I can.  I have chosen to use a pallet style vertical garden because I like the horizontal aspect of it and I really like using recycled materials.  If you choose to do this be sure to get the type of pallet that is heat treated for bugs not chemically treated.  They will have HT stamped on them and I got mine from a grocerty store, figuring that they would need to use food safe products in their warehouse, which they did.  I wrote a little post on this style of vertical garden here.  

I have to say the Aerogarden has been a wonderful tool in helping me to plan and implement my garden.  This year I did a digital layout of my landscape and it really helped me to get a good idea of how many plants and types of plants I can actually use in such a tight space.  The vertical garden should double my gardening ability and will add a lovely layer of softness to the large concrete retaining wall that is in my backyard. 

I hope everyone is having a lovely spring and enjoying time with family for those of us that have kids on spring break...we are heading to Boise for a day trip and hitting up PizzalChik for some pizza and do a little exploring of the northeastern part of our fine state of Oregon on our way to Boise.  Happy Spring!

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Honeyed Maple Bacon Jam

So I am researching candied jalepenios...a recipe I highly recommend... my whole family is now highly addicted...and I find on the Foodie with Family website a recipe for Bacon Jam.  Bacon Jam! What on earth!  So I keep searching and the recipe keeps getting better and better and the reviews are making me more and more curious...and hungry!  So bacon finally goes on sale and I buy 5lbs and get to cooking...after torturing my family with its amazing smell we sat down to hamburgers off the grill and ramped up with the following amazing recipe, with a few Cayuse Cowgirl modifications -please enjoy!