The First Year : Gardening Lessons Learned

As the end of the growing season is upon us, I just wanted to take a minute to say how awesome growing stuff is.  I honestly can't tell you how much I love it.  Well actually I love it so much that I have decided to make it my plan B in life.  If all else fails (and maybe even if all else doesn't fail) I am going to go to school for organic farming or horticulture and create an organic cooking school/retreat on a farm.  I know I told you that already.  Whatever.  It will be freaking awesome.  You can all pay me and I'll let you come.

Also I just wanted to recap some things I have learned in my first year of growing... for all of our benefits.

• Most importantly, plants WANT to grow.  It's not that hard, if you water them and give them sunlight they grow.  I don't know why before I started gardening I thought it was this big complicated mystery.  Here's a secret: it's not.
• Follow the instructutions on the seed pack.  This may seem like a "duh" but sometimes I would plant things too late and then they wouldn't really work out.
• Tomatillos are rock stars in the garden.
• Everything that is from a warmer environment than here should have been grown in the green house; ie: eggplant, cucumber, peppers, etc.
• lettuce and radish give you instant gardening gratification... and by instant I mean like a month.
• Potatoes are really easy and taste 100 times better fresh from the soil.  
• Don't dump water on seedlings, just mist them with a spray bottle.  
• Grow bags are not all they're cracked up to be.
• And finally, grow things you would want to eat!  

And here is what I am looking forward to in my quest for food self sustainability:

• Ducks and chickens... but especially ducks.  They're much cuter than chickens don't you think?  Chickens give me the creeps a little.
• Growing Jerusalem artichokes - most underrated and totally delicious vegetable ever.
• Planting fruit trees
• An asparagus patch : it takes a few years to get these started, so we have to wait for our forever home to invest in this.  
• A pumpkin patch : Pumpkins are my favorite and they keep for months in the pantry.  I have a few pumpkin recipes in mind for this month so hopefully I will get around to posting them.  I know I have been neglecting the blog - especially the recipes bit.  

Do you guys have any good growing tips?  

Happy Halloween!

It was a typical love story.

British Boy meets American Girl and they fall in love.

They also have crazy hair.  

Can you guess?

In addition to dressing up, we went to a take that tribute band concert on Friday.

They called themselves... "Take That... Again."

Note to self : It was really awkward.

Like there were 30 ppl there and no one would dance and at least 20% of them were their family members.

Next tribute concert is Lady Gaga, we'll let you know how that goes.

October Trip to the USA - The Good, the Bad,and the Ugly.

The Good

• Spending time with friends and family
• My godfather's spectacular wedding to a girl we are pumped to welcome into our family
• Winning $100 at Keeneland horse races
• Taking my husband to his first public sporting event EVER, yay Bengals!
• Absolutely perfect weather... sunshine I missed you!
• My first hot yoga class with my sister 
• Food, food and more food.  My mom's home cooking really deserves a shout out. And I'm sorry British folks, but you're food sucks compared to American food.
• Outlet mall shopping.  Hell yeah.
• Nick feels a renewed sense of America's awesomeness.  Hopefully that means we will move back sooner rather than later.

The Bad

• 10 days is not long enough
• Accidentally leaving my digital SLR on the train platform at Sheffield Station on our way to the airport. (Although the good thing is it has been recovered!)
• Watching the $100 we won dwindle away to $2... but at least we still came out on top!
• I probably gained 10 pounds.
• It's raining a lot in England now.

The Ugly

• Listening to the advice of the lady on the train to get off the train and go back and get my camera.  A train NEVER came going the other way, we almost missed our flight, and this resulted in a lot of gesticulating and a few choice words between the husband and myself.  
• Drinking too much wine at aforementioned wedding and thinking it was hilarious to tell a woman that her kids were "mediocre at best." even if she knew I was joking - lets just say other ladies did not...
• Man in front of me doing a downward dog in boxers at hot yoga class, dudes should be required to wear briefs for these occasions... talk about an eye full. 
• Getting in a dispute with the 20-something high on herself snooty snooterson at UK border control who told me I had to go to the back of the foreigners line because I went through the British ppl's line because I was with Nick.  Apparently we are supposed to split up to go through different lines because all the other people with foreign passports are going to be mad at me for cutting in line even though I have indefinite leave to remain in England and a british husband.  Are you following?  Anyways, she sucked.

My Husband in a Tux

One day, I'll be your plus one.

When we're a little more important.

You swanky man, you.

It's Mushroom Season!

Last year Nick and I dabbled in a bit of mushroom hunting, but without the knowledge we were too scared to eat anything, and identifications seemed complicated and dangerous!  We usually identified everything as poisonous or "no idea what that is" but yesterday we had a major break through!  We identified this bad boy as a Bay Bolete.

And we're convinced enough to eat it.  But we haven't yet.  I will let you know how that goes.  Unless of course I'm dead.  Knock on wood.  

Also this nifty website, Wild About Britain, has a forum where you can post your mushroom pictures and people can help you identify them.  So you have to be a little trusting, but it seems like a great learning tool when you just can't find the right pictures in the books or you want a second opinion.

Speaking of books, the one that is our favorite is Mushrooms : River Cottage Handbook.

Have you been mushroom hunting?  I highly recommend it, it's like a treasure hunt for epicureans.... which Lord knows most of you blogstars are!