Category: Garden

Melon shake

On By CarynIn Garden, Recipe

My eldest and I have been experimenting with fruit smoothies and we have stumbled on a really good combination: Melon and vanilla. I’m growing Aspire melons, which are small 1-2 pound melons with sweet orange flesh. They taste like what I grew up calling cantaloupe. The flesh scoops out of the rind like a dream, and it blends well with our smoothie base.

Using a spoon to scoop out melon

For two shakes:

  • 1 cup milk
  • 1/2 cup plain greek yogurt
  • 3 Tbsp Sweetener (sugar, Splenda) or to taste
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • About 1 pound of melon scooped from the rind
  • 1 cup crushed ice

Add ingredients in order in a blender, blend until smooth.

Melon smoothies

This is reminds me of a treat we would have when I was young: a scoop of vanilla ice cream in a cantaloupe half. Nom nom.

Left over harvest

On By CarynIn chickens, Garden

After collecting the leaves I needed for my recipe (Thai Chicken Basil uses at least three cups of fresh basil), I took the branches that still had leaves out to the chickens. My chickens really like basil.

Hens tucking in to hanging basil

I shove the thick stems into a hole in their chicken swing, which holds it secure so the hens can rip off leaves.

Basil branches stripped bare

It doesn’t take long for the flock to strip off all the leaves!

Harvest

On By CarynIn Garden

The melon vines have produced a continuous harvest of ripe fruit, and the basil is growing nicely. I collected a ripe melon, and a large amount of basil! Since those are the only things I seem to be able to grow, that is all I planted this year. The new stock tank garden is doing better than the small multiple container garden from last year. The addition of the frog army (attracted by adding a standing water dish), has helped yields as well.

Melon and basil harvest
Soldier of the Garden Brigade

Water garden

On By CarynIn Cats, Garden
Mr Tom observing my work

My mint and strawberry patch fell to a field of grass. It was watered regularly, but maybe it was the heat, or that the trees over grew the area and there is more shade than I thought. Either way, I finally decided to pull the grass in the “cool” of the morning (if you can call 80 degrees at 7am cool). The water bowls I put out in the sprinkler area were doing well providing wildlife and cats with water, so I put another bowl with rocks out (so the frogs and bees have landing areas), and turned over a few terra cotta pots to provide moist frog cover. It isn’t any kind of work of art (yet), but it is functional and has potential.

Mr Tom getting a drink from the in-progress water garden

Melon harvest

On By CarynIn Garden
Ripe melon fresh off the vine

We have two more melons! I’ve been checking the melons every day as I pass by to check the chickens, and these two turned yellow rather quickly. One day one had some yellowing, then the next day they were both yellow and coming away from the vine. One was in a sling, one was not. It took a little effort to remove them from the vine, but I didn’t need tools. Since these are small, And I check them daily, I don’t think I need to sling them. Which will make the frogs happy.