Zeus and Zasha

For those of you that haven't heard, we've added two new members to our tiny family. Back in January, Taylor and I decided that it was time to get a dog. We wanted a Goldendoodle: low-maintenance, no-shedding, absolutely adorable. Instead, we found these two guys:

After sorting through dozens of pitbulls and chihuahuas, we located these two Alaskan Huskies at the Sarasota Humane Society. They weren't technically up for adoption yet, but we managed to sneak a peak when one of the volunteers tipped us off about the new arrivals. We asked them to place a hold on them over the weekend, and we brought them home with us as soon as they finished up their heartworm treatment. They told us that Zeus was about six years old, and Zasha is around four.

Zasha's the lady. She lays down with her paws crossed, which is just adorable. She licks everything (the dishwasher, oven, and refrigerator are her personal favorites), and talks to herself a bunch. We love her bright blue eyes!

Zeus is the man of the house. He's a total teddy bear, and just loves to snuggle. He's enormous, and lumbers around our home like a wolf. He's definitely Taylor's dog.

They are the two most spoiled dogs in the world. They go just about everywhere with us, and go on plenty of walks and to the dog park, and they love riding around in the car. Zeus sticks his head out the window and lets his tongue flap around in the wind.

We absolutely love our two dogs, and don't know what we would do without them!

Our House: Before Pictures

So, like I said earlier, Taylor and I moved in 1422 17th Street on the first of the year. We had started looking for a house in September or so, but were growing discouraged when every offer we placed got turned down. Contrary to what they say, banks really did not want to negotiate on foreclosures. After looking at dozens of houses, we finally placed another offer on a short sale home in Bradenton. We had been avoiding short sales because we heard that the process could stretch on for ages. After only a couple weeks, our contract was accepted by the bank and we got the news on Christmas eve. Taylor and I rushed down to sign the papers on the 31st, and the key was ours!

We grabbed some buckets, towels, a screwdriver, and went to work. Taylor's parents came down a couple days later, but we got as much cleaning done as we could (oh--- did I mention there was no running water? Try washing baseboards using milk jugs filled with water. Not fun).

The house was painted these horrible dark colors. Midnight blue in the living room, burgundy in the back. The rest of the colors were vaguely reminiscent of vomit and mashed peas. Ick.

Notice that nasty carpet? In the incredible darkness you can't see the grossly discolored ick spot smack-dab in the center of the room. Yeah, that quickly got torn up.

Funny enough, in the before photos, the kitchen and sunroom appear to be the colors we eventually painted them. What you can't see if how vivid the colors actually were. Neon green and a nasty color that couldn't decide whether it wanted to be chartreuse or buttercup yellow.

Still, we were in love with the house. It needed a bit of cosmetic work, but some fresh paint really helped quite a bit.

Coming soon: In-progress pictures!

The Return!

After an almost year-long hiatus, OurTineyGarden returns--- with a new house, some dogs, and plenty of new adventures.

Taylor and I moved into our new house on the first of the year. We're still settling it, but it's come a long way so far. The house was built in 1938, and is full of 73 years of charm. We're loving the wood floors, antique doorknobs, and quirky layout. A before-and-after tour will come shortly.

Updates won't be daily, but they will be frequent. I don't know how I managed to keep up daily updates for as long as I did. Instead, we will be writing longer entries with more photos of our crafting, cooking, gardening, and travel.

Making radish chips!

So, what have we done with all of those radishes from our garden? Radish chips! I've been waiting almost a year to make these with radishes from our garden.

To make them, we slice the radishes as thin as we can, and coat them with salt, vinegar, and spices. Then they go in the dehydrator at 150 for five or six hours, until crispy. They're delicious by themselves, but also make a wonderful topping for salads. Just don't use too much salt! We've ruined an entire batch this way. You can also bake them on a low temperature for the same results.

Moving the herbs out front?

The cool weather killed off most of our herbs this winter. We're thinking about moving our herb garden out front. We picked up some basil and some rosemary, but we're still not sure where to plant them. We don't have a ton of room out front, but they won't do quite as well in the back. Oh well, we'll figure it out.

Weird germination rates

We've been having a funky time with a lot of our seedlings germinating. We've kept them in a sunny spot, and have watered them frequently, but they're still not doing great.

Quite a few of them haven't come up at all. Most of the ones that have are twisted a gnarled (although I suppose it beats the leggy ones that we've started up till now!). We're going to have to find a better way to start seeds. Most of the local farms around here use fish emulsion to fertilize the little guys, and keep them in shade for part of the day. We're getting better at the big-picture stuff here, but we need to put some more time and attention into the details.

Off to Boston!

Back in October, Taylor bought us tickets to go see The Lion King in Boston. The time has finally come, and I'm so excited! We'll be gone for a week, and staying with his Aunt Debbie, who has so kindly offered to put a roof over our head while we visit.

See ya in a week or so!

Looking for tomatoes!

Our 95 cent tomato plants are looking awesome. There are tons of blossoms, but so far, no tomatoes. We went out the other day, and closely inspected, looking for little green orbs that would be the tell-tale sign of yummy things to come.

The two varieties are a cherry tomato, and a larger 8 oz. variety. We're keeping our fingers crossed!

Cowpeas are up!

After a recommendation from our friends Cole and Stephanie, we decided to plant one of the front beds with pink-eye-purple-hull cowpeas. They make for nitrogen rich compost, and are quite yummy. They're basically black-eyed peas with a lighter pinkish-purple eye. The hulls they come in are dark purple to black. We planted them a few days ago, and now they're up!

We're looking forward to some yummy pork and beans over rice.

Whoa, Cherry Belle!

Last fall when we planted radishes, it took about three months to grow some about the size of a grape. We added them to salads, and they were delish. We decided to plant some in our front beds a couple weeks ago, and they've simply exploded!

After just a couple of weeks, we could see their little red heads poking up through the soil, and their leaves were just huge!

We yanked a couple up, and they were about the size of tangerines. We decided it was time to pick em.

They were bright red, and perfectly round. Only a couple of them had split, like the ones we had planted out back.

I don't know if it's the sunlight or the compost, but our front bed is showing tons of promise!

New Vegetable Basket

We've finally gotten to the point where we're regularly harvesting things from our beloved veggie garden. Carrying in bunches of collards and radishes can be oh-so-cumbersome. My Oma has kindly donated this wonderful woven basket for the purpose of carrying our harvest! I love it, and think it's absolutely adorable. It'll be wonderful to have around the garden--- to haul out our hand shovels, bottles of water, lettuces, or whatever we might not have room to carry in our arms. Call me silly, but I love it!

Spending the day in Sanibel!

Sorry guys, no post today! We spent the day in Sanibel on an Ornithology field trip. We saw bunches of cool birds, and a couple of alligators, and the weather was gorgeous.

Hope it doesn't eat us!

Tour of Jessica's

Just down the street, there's an awesome organic farm called Jessica's Stand. We visit on Saturdays when we can to pick up some wonderful, tasty, local produce. They also carry a bunch of organic produce that they purchase from elsewhere, and the prices are generally pretty reasonable.

Taylor met someone at work that is married to a guy named Brad, who works part time at the farm. He offered to give us a tour of the place, which we gladly took. We scheduled and rescheduled a few times, but we finally made it there!

The weather was kind of uggy (rainy, cold, and windy), but totally worth it. We got to walk the fields full of lettuces, onions, and beets, and Brad told us everything he knew about Jessica's Farm.

They grow all kinds of stuff, including lettuces, herbs, beans, greens, beets, onions, etc. Whatever they don't grow, they order in from some world-wide organic association. Whatever doesn't get sold on Friday and Saturday, a buyer from Miami hauls down to a Farmer's Market, so there's really no fear of over-growing or underselling.

It was unbelievable to see just how many seeds this place grows! They start dozens of 72 or 144 slot flats a day. They don't really follow a calendar from year to year, but instead grow whatever they think they need when they need it.

They do use some organic fertilizers on their crops. In the seedling greenhouse, they use fish emulsion in the hose-lines. The weeds growing around the tables were amazingly huge from the washed-off emulsion. Their seedlings looked strong and healthy though.

People that work at Jessica's get to take home tons of produce, which is perhaps one of the greatest perks of the job. Perhaps one of the better things we learned? They water at least every day, which supposedly really helps things grow this far south. They also use cover crops (cowpeas), and really work on rotating fields. They have a huge problem with nettles, which someone grew there for tea that got out of hand. Jessica's is a cool place. We'll do a post about the farm stand there sometime (it's closed during the week).

Flowers

The tomatoes we've planted are doing great! They've only been in the ground a few days, but we're already seeing the little yellow flowers that are the tell-tale sign of fruits to come!

When I was younger, we had a cherry tomato plant on the patio that just pumped tomatoes out like crazy. I think the six plants we have will be more than enough to keep our salads full of little red tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes are probably my absolute favorite variety.

Leftover pots

The other day we planted those twelve tomato plants we bought.

Not only did we only spend 95 cents per plant, we got a dozen handy-dandy pots too. We've now got 12 leftover pots that are the perfect size to start some larger tomato and eggplants. Hopefully later this week we'll get some of them started so that we can grow them soon.

Radishes

Our radishes are looking great. They only popped up a few days ago, and are already looking rather radish-ish. 

I got a great recipe for sauteed radishes in balsamic vinegar, which I can't want to try. All of the radishes we grew last season were very mild, crunchy, and tasty. 

Some more seeds for the garden

We've finally figured out what else we want to plant here in our garden. We went to our local big-box store and picked up some varieties of vegetables.

On the list?

Kale

Collards

Summer squash

Zucchini

Sunflower

Eggplant

Pink-eye Purple-Hull Cowpeas

We love kale and collards, and they grow really well out back, so we hope to start a bunch of them. The summer squash and zucchini will do well out front (we had trouble last season with powdery mildew, so we're putting them in a dryer, sunnier area). Sunflowers are my absolute favorite, and the seeds are quite tasty in salads. The chickens will love them too. Taylor is a huge fan of eggplant, so of course we have to grow some. Ours last season lasted fairly long into the cold, up until December! As for the cowpeas, Cole and Steph really recommend them. They look just like black-eyed peas, and are super tasty. We're going to use some of the left over wire to grow them through, and the left over plant matter makes for wonderful compost. We're going to try a bed of them out back, and a bed of them out front and see how it goes.

Tomatoes!

This is our first time growing tomatoes here in our garden. We started too late last year to grow any. Yesterday we picked some up for 95 cents a piece.

We wound up planting a dozen of them in our bed out front. They'll love the sun, and the weather is finally warm enough.

We picked up two varieties: Patio and Better Bush. The Patio tomatoes are a yummy little variety of cherry tomatoes, and the better bush are a little larger fruits that are great to eat fresh. We hope to start some more varieties soon.

Watering can

With our new beds out front, dragging out a hose is nearly impossible. We already have an elaborate system out back, and don't really feel like forking out more money for hoses out front. Instead, we've decided to use a watering can. We picked this one up for four dollars, and it holds about two gallons of water.

It's working out pretty well. The attachment on the end screws off, too, so we can add other ones.

It's a nice way to add a little bit more exercise to our gardening.

Home-made pizza

One of our favorite dinners to cook is fresh, homemade pizza. The smell of yeasty dough, browning cheese, and rich tomato sauce is just about heaven.

Some of our favorite toppings? Pineapple, bacon, and sausage pizza.

Or veggies! This one has onion, tomato slices, red pepper, and mushroom.

We've finally figured out the absolute best recipe for an airy, yeasty, moist, chewy dough. For your own homemade pizzas:

• 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 1 cup warm water
• 2 1/2 cups bread flour
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt

Mix yeast, sugar, water, oil, and salt, and let sit for about five minutes. Stir in flour (we use half wheat, half white) and knead just a teeny bit, and then let sit in a warm place for a while until it just about doubles. Then press it flat on top of some parchment paper, top with pizza stuff, and bake at 350 for about twenty minutes. We broil it for two to make the cheese brown, and then slice and eat. Yum!