Mexican Garlic.

Last week I was lucky to go on a lovely Valentine's trip (ok, slash, visa run trip) to Mexico. We went to San Cristobal de las Casas and loved it. The market there was, of course, incredible. I brought back that braided bunch of garlic..smelled great all the way home! I can't wait to cook with it since the cloves are bigger and easier to use than the ones here in Guatemala. I have a sneaky little feeling that they'll be tastier too!
I also got a beautiful little stack of Haas type avocados. They were the tastiest avocados I've had in ages and you can bet your bottom dollar that all four of those little seeds are in jars (hopefully sprouting) on a window sill in my house right now. Yay! I <3 C.A. markets!

growing my own spices

There's nothing like have herbs and spices to cook with! And there's nothing like not having herbs and spices to cook with. While there are many wonderful ingredients to be found in the markets here in Xela....there are a few things that I have grown accustom to cooking with that are not to be found! My solution? Grow them! Mustard seeds are something I incorporated into my cooking while living in Portland, Oregon some years back. I was going to traditional Indian food-themed pot lucks. I discovered a couple of dishes that influenced my cooking still to this day and probably for my ever. One of the dishes I made that had a huge impact on me was Bombay Potatoes. You start the dish by frying a bunch of spices...YUM!

Harvesting mustard seeds is fun but, a wee bit tedious. Thank goodness I've found a huge bag of mustard seeds (the dark ones) in the market...at a pet food stall. They are fed to birds. Who knew? Not me!!! Out of all the plants we had room to grow we only got about 2 tablespoons of mustard. It was a fun project and I've never regretted growing anything!

Mike even loved the plants and helped out, of course he did, he's a very good boy!

hydrangea :: life-long favourite

I grew up with a giant wonderous Hydrangea bush in my Grandmother's yard situated right at a quiet corner of her house. It was always a small place of refuge as a small child sitting under and behind that magnificent flowering goddess of a bush!

I feel so super lucky to have a gorgeous one in our little courtyard!!!

lovey plants from the market

I ran into these little dears for sale by an even more enchantingly dear lady from Chajul. She dug these plants up out of her garden, nestled them in a leaf secured with another plant fiber and brought them all the way to Xela. I of course could not resist purchasing one of each from her. The grassy plant I'm told will have beautifuly scented white flowers! And I'm a total sucker for succulents. I have to say I love love love the packaging. The cheese I buy at the market comes wrapped in leaves as do a few other things, I think it's rad!


Here's a map (below) showing where Chajul is in realtion to Xela (Quetzaltenango). It's a hellva chicken bus ride, a beautiful one no doubt but, it's a haul! Bless her dear darling heart.

I've never been in love with a peoples or place like I am with the lands and folks in Guatemala...I have immense love for Mayans of their ways and attitudes of life...it's a beautiful thing.

Hay Bale Garden Part 4

There's lots of action in the garden this week! We lost most of our lettuce because we had to leave them while they were way too young for a few days and it's been Africa hot here.

We have baby tomatoes, little collards, tiny lettuces leaves, a mini squash,a happy pineapple plant,

Mike and me in the garden this week!!

Here is a spicy lettuce.

AND...here is our mystery plant revealing itself! Summer Squash!!! Yum!

Collards!!! My personal favourite vegetable!

Mike, almighty garden protector!

Happy little baby tomatoes!

Mike & I enjoying the sunshine and our garden!

Hay Bale Garden Part 2

The bales have been officially 'seasoned' and seeds have been sown!

And the first plant has been planted in a bale. We picked this plant up from our local organic gardening supply, Worm's Way and we aren't sure what kind of a plant it is. Here are the possiblities as we see it: squash of some kind? watermelon? I really think it's a squash.

We still have 3 bales unplanted. Going in one will be Swiss Chard and Cherry Tomatoes in another. The third might be for herbs....we're not sure yet. Oh yeah!! The third bale is for our Hot Peppers: Anaheim, Cayenne, Jalapeno, Santa Fe Grande & Serrano!!

Ha Cha Cha!!

Starting a hay bale garden.

I did the research and decided on making a hay bale garden instead of building a raised bed garden or do a container garden here at the warehouse.

Zach's family gave us 6 bales to start with!! Yay, for awesome familia!!

We are using organic bone meal to speed up the breaking down of the bales which is the first step to creating a hay bale garden.

We'll be ready to plant the seedlings and sow the seeds this weekend!

Mike will accompany us every step of the way! He loves his new job guarding the warehouse and fenced in lot. He's an official lot dog. You can see our little composting sections behind and to the right of the bales. We started those when we first moved in, it's great they had a head start on the garden. It isn't suggested anywhere but, we are going to experiment by having squash and other creepy crawler vegetables grow out of the side of the bales, especially the ends! We'll see how it goes. We are pretty excited about the whole garden.

Here's what we are planting:

Tomatoes

Hot Peppers

Chinese Broccoli

Chinese Celery

Celery

Arugula/Mizuna/Red Mustard/Curly Endive

Collards

Squash

Lettuces

Rape

Swiss Chard

Cherry Tomatoes

Behind the bale garden on the chain link fence we plan on having beans run amock!!! We have our fingers crossed that they'll provide a nice privacy fence for us this summer. We are going to grow these in containers.

a freebie from the thrift store

This beauty was given to me for free as I was admiring her in a thrift store....the owner of the shoppe was by me and said if you like that junk you can have it! After I gasped at that comment, I was all, ok! Even though I noticed that one of her hands was broken off I really wanted to keep her and put her somewhere nice. So, here she is in a plant in front of my casita!

flora

I love plants. I have quite a few, nothing out of hand. It's interesting though, most of my favourite plants are plants that my Grandmothers had. My Orange Grove Granny always had a 'Lipstick' plant on her front porch & lots of Christmas Cacti. My other Granny had Staghorns, Rabbits Foot and a big Hydrangea bush [she would toy with the colour of the blooms by putting different acidic things around the base of the bush!]. 

Here are pictures of my Stag!

I love my Stag and hope it grows to be gigantic like my neighbour, Beverly's! Her biggest one is bigger than my Volkswagen, seriously. And she has two others that are almost as big that have 'broken off' of her main plant and then a few other ones ranging in size. She waters hers and throws overripe bananas in the top for food! It must be really good for them because she has the biggest most gorgeous Stags I've ever seen and being from the South, I've seen my share of them!
Last summer I was in Beverly's backyard one day chit chatting as she was watering her plants and as she squirted the hose into the top of her Mama Stag a whole family of possums cam tumbling out!!! That's how big it is! AND.....that's what had been driving my dogs bonkers the previous week!

succulents bloom further

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i was amazed at the blooms on my succulents weeks ago. but, now i am blown away by the blooms....because before they were merely buds as opposed to now....they are really blooms!!!!!