Things are growing.

I know I know. I'm sorry I never write. Big things have been happening and there isn't time. My days are spent at the So, There store and the time I'm not working I live life!

On that note, I've been meaning to share the results of our "garden". We really just planted stuff all over the yard to see what happened. It was tricky to keep the first sprouts from being eaten by slugs and bugs, but once they got started....


Here are a bunch of pictures of our plants at the beginning of June.



One of our three artichokes.



A couple of summer squash plants.



Broccoli finally looking like broccoli.



Lettuce!



Potato flower.



Potato bags.



Snap peas!
But now it's July, and SPIDER SEASON!





The lettuce is still going strong!



The kale is DELICIOUS.



Delicious I say! (Patrick loves Kale, even more than I do. He brings it home.)



Lots of flowers one of our GIANT tomato plants. We've already had 2 early tomatoes off of this one- they're Sungold.



There are sprouts starting on our brussels.



WHICH ARE HUGE PLANTS.



Our new strawberry plants are going crazy, but something keeps eating the fruit before we can get to it. (It leaves teeth marks! This has been a problem in several areas of the garden.)



But not at the summer squash. Which are GIANT and delicious.



They have the prettiest blooms.



Lookit that squash! We've gotten probably 4 times that amount off the 2 plants already.



Then there are the true miracles- artichokes!



These two plants are supposed to be the same variety but they sure don't look alike.



There's our first harvested artichoke with some of the kale. I braised the kale tonight and we ate it with



Zucchini sandwiches!


Not shown : We harvested the first bag of potatoes. They were DELICIOUS. So perfect and amazing. The other bag has  purple potatoes, which we'll probably harvest this weekend.

The broccoli made food- but we didn't love the taste. We've definitely figured out what's worth the effort (which is minimal, really) and what isn't.

So we probably won't do Broccoli next year, but we will do:
Snap Peas - delicious and effortless.
Cherry Tomato
Squash (also effortless, after the bed was built.)
Potato (maybe)
Kale (in containers again)
Lettuce (")


Still don't know about:
The brussel sprouts

Perennials:
Artichoke
Strawberries
MINT (More of a weed. A nice tasting weed.)

We have a little bit of asparagus planted, it shot up one sprout-- who knows what will happen with it next year. It's all magic!

so get a log little doggies.

I'm not sure the images in this post are for the faint of heart.

Let's talk about Mushrooms. It was only a few years ago that mushrooms moved from the list of foods I would not touch with a ten-foot pole swiftly to the list of things I crave. CRAVE. 

Then one day I see something called a "Shitake Log" at the Capital Hill farmers' market and although I don't buy one, I obsessed about them until, nearly a year later, Patrick brought one home for Valentines Day. (This one from our local Feed Store, the Grange.)

This particular log,from Cascadia Mushrooms, looks less like a piece of wood and more like a loaf of bread someone made from the backend of a wood chipper. But that's not the point. The point is that you get it saturated with water, wait a couple of weeks, then you start to see little bumps pop out.

Then the little bumps become more pronounced, in kind of a creepy "HOW DID THAT GROW SO FAST" way.

Then even bigger, and lewder.

Bigger...

Bigger, and more populated...

Until all of a sudden you look at them and they are little mushrooms.  So that's where we stand today- adorable little mushrooms on a stump in the living room.

This is actually the third cycle on this log, so I know that soon the little mushroom group will look like this...

Then this...

And (this is where it gets gory) it will look like this...

Then this...

AND THEN I WILL EAT IT.

that I heart stew.

We've had another couple of craft days, since I spoke of them last. There is no photographic evidence, which I think is proof of how much fun we had.

I WILL speak for everyone!

I decided to make a version of my favorite vegetable stew for the pre-valentines event, and used a little inspiration from Tara to sweeten the pot. (ALL PUNS INTENDED.)

I don't have the original links, but if you decide you're whimsical enough to make hearts from carrots to spice up your stew, I'm pretty sure you're handy enough to find a how-to. All I did was carve a divet along the length of a carrot, sharpen the other side, then cut of slices. (Think- extruding a heart on one of those Playdoh Fun Factories) 

The best part- I froze two batches of stew for later consumption- and I by the time we got around to eating them, I was surprised by the sweet little hearts.

I think I "Awwwwww"ed.