Twins!

Never grown squash before so don't know if it's normal or not - but I got conjoined twins!  Also 2 types of zucchini - black beauty is the smaller one on left & cocozelle the striped one.  

Here's Brenda Lee - I replanted this one as it got hit so hard with the fungus.  I planted 48 seeds total & as you can see, unlike last time, not many have come up.... BUT look closer & you can see someone has been rooting around in there - suspect they didn't want to wait for more beans & just ate what they found.  Pooh!

Here are some comparison pics of Leo so you can see how the cucumbers are loving the netting.  No cukes developing yet tho.

Leo 5/4/11

Leo 4/17/11

Meg - the spaghetti squash isn't looking quite as vigorous, but steadily growing - no fruit here either, nor any pumpkins.

Spaghetti Squash 5/4/11

Spag. Squash 4/22 - more leaves, shorter tho

Pumpkin 5/4/11

Sanford - look at those beans grow.  The ones growing up the strings were least hit by the fungus, but not producing yet.  The ones on the left of the pic were hit harder by the fungus but we're starting to see some beans there.

Sanford 5/4/11

Not what I planned to do

The other day I had planned to cook: marinara sauce, pizza sauce & bbq sauce.  But it was low 80's & low HUMIDITY!  Yippee!  The doors & windows are still open. So, of course there had to be something I could do outside.

Yes, my seedlings have been ready to go into bigger containers.  I think they look pretty whimpy, but I'm still learning.  But all of these were started from seeds & that's a new thing for me.  They are what they are.

Peppers & a few tomatoes from seeds

This flat has a lot of chives, chamomile, & other stuff, the tomato that looks big & dying is actually a stem that fell off one from my garden.  I put it in a glass of water, it grew roots, so now I'm giving it dirt.  We'll see, no reason not to try.

I also replanted watermelon, it was not growing at all in Meg, although all that spaghetti squash & pumpkin has taken off just great.  Maybe I planted it too early....

 I also replanted our mystery plant.  I put him in a container, so we'll see what we get.

I did finally get around to my sauces!  But haven't done much in garden for past few days - just keeping everything watered can be a big chore right now.

We love bread

One of my favorite things is my  Zojirushi bread Machine.  DH got it for me for Christmas & we thought I'd use it if I were busy & didn't have time to let it rise or gotta go somewhere & bread was ready to bake.  There are many things in life that do interfere when you make bread from scratch.  Imagine our surprise that now it's something I use a LOT!  I love it!

In Houston it is hot so many months.  When the fall & winter months are here I do bake an awful lot & love to try new recipes.  Now however, I don't want to heat up the oven for bread.  This wonderful machine makes it so nice.  I just put the ingredients in, set the timer & voila in the morning we wake to the smell of fresh bread... yum.  The machine does put off some heat, but that heat dissipates easily in the early morn.

Thought I'd share a few photos of my bread that I made this week.

Cheddar Cheese Bread

I got this recipe from King Arthur Flour & yes it's really is yellow looking & GOOD.  I have been having it with ham, grilled in my cast iron skillet for lunches, no need to add any extra cheese.  There is absolutely nothing healthy about this bread, but it IS good.

Our daily sandwich bread is 75% whole wheat (yes, that I grind in my Nutrimill Grinder).  It's very good & healthy too.  I will eventually make it 100% whole wheat but this works great in my Zo bread machine, so for now it's good enough.

Daily Bread

Lastly today I made some very healthy Hi-Fiber English Muffins.  These are for breakfast - Yum.

English Muffins

Not too bad looking for a first attempt, I think.