How does your garden grow?

So far the garden is coming together really nicely.  After not having one at all last year, I'm especially excited.

I got the Columbus Orange Rose pruned back, big time, because it wasn't doing well, but seems to be trying to get a new start.  I got some Dusty Miller put in to fill the empty spaces in the front of the flower bed.  I picked up the trash in the yard for the 8 millionth time.

The back yard is going to take some time before you can see the difference, right now it just looks like less weeds.   But, I got 8 of my nine herbs potted.  Chamomile, Sweet Basil, Oregano, Garden Sage, Cilantro, Thyme, Lavender, Rosemary, and an empty pot left for the boys' catnip.  I planted fennel, too, but with the bulb-y nature of it, it's went in one of the rows of the garden.

I got 4 varieties of Tomatoes (Sun Sugar, Plum, Early Girl and Grape) - although, I really meant to get another Early Girl instead of the Plum.  There's 5 kinds of Peppers - Red Bell, Green Bell, Mexibell, Giant Jalapeno and Poblano.  I've got Kale behind that, and still need to add the Potatoes in the last row, before the Mint patch, on that side.

The other side of the yard has an Asparagus bed against the garage, and a pretty sad looking Blueberry bush in the corner.  Hopefully, the Blueberry bush amounts to something this year, since I'll have the time to give it a lot more love than last year.  Along the fence, I've put in Zucchini and Pickling Cucumbers.  The front row is my Fennel and some Rapini.

Two more rows need to be planted, the Looseleaf Lettuce and Sweet Mesclun in one and Sugar Snap Peas and Green Beans in the other, but the desire for lunch and a need to rest my back won out over finishing the last 2 rows today.  I'm also considering garlic and onions in large pots.

I'm really excited about my garden this year.  Dave is really looking forward to homegrown veggies, and while he has expressed a refusal to weed, I know he'll help me with what I need him for.  I've finally got good humus from my compost bin that I've working in as I go.  It's gorgeous and dark and it's got a couple earthworms living in it, so it should do good things for my veggies.

Wish me luck!

Homemade Sausage

So, Dave and I had a blast cooking again this week.  I've been wanting to make homemade sausage forever.  I begged my mom to get me the food grinder attachment for my Kitchen Aid just for that reason, in fact, but in something like 7 years, I've never actually made sausage.

I've used it for salsa of all kinds: hot, mild, cucumber, pineapple, green, red, you name it.  I've used to grind venison for chili and burgers.  I used it once or twice for fruit to make popsicles.

So, I had a pork roast thawed out and we decided to finally give homemade sausage a try.  It was loose sausage because it was too late to hit up the farmer's market for sausage casing.  We had a container of roasted tomatoes from Wegman's, and some leftover shredded parm.

We put all of that through the grinder along with whole pink peppercorns, whole fennel seeds, crushed red pepper, sea salt, chili oil, garlic, basil, oregano.  And it was delicious!  I made meat sauce with it and while I worried over the sauce, Dave cooked asparagus with bacon and parmesan cheese.

Next time I'll measure and share the recipe.  :-)