Tuesday, May 6, 2008

A walk through my yard.

My first lettuce harvest!

I took you for a short walk through my yard a couple of weeks ago but so much has changed. The temperature here has risen and we no longer even have much cooling at night. The lowest it has gotten in the last week was 65 degrees. Not very cool at all. Next week looks like it is even higher with a low temp of 70! That is still cool compared to our July, August and September temps.

Needless to say my little container garden is struggling already. I have completely lost my cilantro. I am going to try to get some to grow inside. Hopefully I will get better results. My basil is still doing alright and my tomatoes are starting to ripen. I got my first taste of a tomato and some lettuce from there last night and it was incredible!!!

This is the second tomato to have ripened. They taste so amazing!
Lettuce in desperate need of thinning

My basil is still going strong but the cilantro is done.

My avocado tree has lost all of its fruit but for 3. The tree is pretty young yet so I am happy to have 3 on it. My mango tree has gone nuts. It must have about a 100 starts on it. Hopefully I will be able to get 1 or 2 off of it this year.

3 is better than none!!!

Crazy mango tree. In the next couple of weeks it will drop most of this fruit and only grow what the tree can support!

Onto some food. I have been trying to make beet chips for several weeks now and have yet to find the best method. I use my mandolin to slice them nice and thin. Coat them with olive oil, salt, pepper, and thyme. Place them on a parchment lined sheet pan, pop them into a hot 400 degree oven. I cook them until they start to curl about 20 minutes. Turn them over and keep cooking them. This is where I am running into trouble. Some of there edges burn before the center is cooked. What am I doing wrong? Should I use a lower temp? Thinner slices? Any ideas???
I love my Mandolin!

Beautiful, bright beets!

Any ideas or tips would be appreciated!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

6 comments:

Thistlemoon said...

Hmmm. Judy, I don't think I can help with the beet issue...I haen't tried making chips yet...but once you have the secret and the recipe all figured out, I will be glad to make them! ;)

Great looking garden - the lettuce looks nice and tender. Sorry about the cilantro. I had a hard time keeping herbs alive last year - this year I started from seeds...so we will see how it goes!

If you need some help eating those mangoes, you know where to reach for help! LOL!

Peter M said...

The garden's looking great, love the rocket!

As for the beets, it sounds like the same issues people have with baked potato chips (burning around the edges).

Why not just deep fry them or do dredge them in seasoning flour, dunk in ice cold water and then a quick fry?

I like to call this method a Greek tempura.

glamah16 said...

I just purchased some herbs to plant in conatiners. In the city I havent had much luck. What does bloom the ghetto squirels come and grab them up.
I love my mandoline too.

Judy@nofearentertaining said...

Hi Jenn-You are welcome to come and snitch mangoes from my tree anytime!
Keep me posted on your garden. When I lived in Daytona gardening was the furthest thing from my mind so I have no experience in your area!

Thanks Peter, this container garden was just an experiment to see if I could grow stuff into our hot, miserable summer.
I would really like to stay away from frying them to help keep them a bit healthier for the girls but I may resort to it!

Dharm said...

Oh I so wish I could be in your garden!! Everything looks so fresh and lovely. The only thing that grows in my 'garden' is screwpine, lemongrass and curry leaves!

Judy@nofearentertaining said...

hi Glamah-very strange here but we don't have squirels where I am! One less thing to get my food I guess. I am going to try to grow some inside this year too!

Oh Dharm that is a shame. I might starve there as I haven't had good experiences with curry!