Garden Progress- Day 62

My patio/deck garden.....looking a little sad.  :(

First off, I found out from my friend Sharon, that the spiders on my tomato plant is BAD.  Some of the leaves on the bottom are turning yellow and dying off.  Sharon let me borrow her bug spray.  I didn't want to spray pesticide on my plants but I don't want bugs destroying them either.  I sprayed my plants this past Tuesday before work since the shade was on them and it would give the spray time to evaporate before the sun hit them again.

My basil plant is doing well.  Big difference from here.  :)

Look at the red tomato!  :)  It's getting more red everyday.  :)  I'm thinking by the end of the weekend he might be ready to eat.  :)  We're getting a pretty big storm with lots of rain as I type this blog.  I love storms.

In the front my house I have a ton of DAISIES and both sides of the front!  :)  I have a few in the back but not as many as the front.  haha

How pretty?  :)  They are a pain cleaning up in the fall but look how pretty they are.  :)

I love them!  :)  Soooo pretty.

One of my neighbors, Cami, has had a bad week.  Yesterday, I snipped some daisies and put some ribbon around them and wrote a handmade card (with a daisy on it) and left it on her doorstep while she was out.  She said it brought tears to her eyes and that they really made her day.  :)  Sometimes, it's the little things that we do for each other than can make a big difference.  :)

Ohio 2012 Family Reunion

Father's Day weekend, Nate, Gene (Nate's dad) and I went to Ohio to meet up with family for a reunion.  We hadn't been in 3 years since Labor Day 2009 so we really wanted to get back to Ohio.  After 8 hours driving......We got to town Friday afternoon around 4pm.  We stopped off to stretch our legs at Breitenbach Wines.  Nate and Gene wanted to get some wine. They also tasted a few wines while we were there.

I saw Guggisberg Cheese and Troyer's Trail Bologna.  Troyer's is celebrating 100 years this year which is pretty cool.  We didn't buy any but I wished we had.

After that we stopped off at R.W. Leather Amish Shop to get Nate a new belt and myself a new little purple wallet.  We have been going to this leather shop for over 10 years.  We love this place.  :)

We then drove around the corner to Gene's childhood farm.  An Amish family lives there now.  Jonas Burkholder (owner) greeted us and brought out a aerial painting he had that he couldn't wait to show us.  We took a picture of Gene with the painting.  Gene is planning on getting one for himself.  The aerial shot is depicting the time he lived on the farm so it really means a lot to him.  (You can see a little bit of a buggy behind Gene).

After all that we decided to get some Amish cooking for dinner at Der Dutchman.  (Supper as the Amish would call it)  We knew Grandma Miller was out with Uncle Gene having dinner so we knew she wasn't home.   I had baked chicken breasts, mashed potatoes and applesauce.  Nate and Gene both got the salad bar and a Troyer's Bologna & Swiss sandwich with fries.

I also got a slice of Peanut Butter cream pie to go.  I ate it at Grandma's that night.  It was heaven!  :)
On Saturday morning, we went to my Amish Pen Pal, Lovina Swartzentruber's.  We sat around and chatted with Lovina and her family for about 2 hours.  Lovina made a fresh pot of Coffee and she also shared Chocolate cake, Heini's Swiss Yogurt Cheese, crackers and water with us.  So yummy!  They are all so sweet and just so nice.  At 12 noon we picked up some fresh pies from Beachy's for Grandma to bring to the Family Reunion.  Then at 2pm we headed over to Aunt Leah's for the reunion.  

This is a group shot that Nate took of everyone there.  Grandma Miller is sitting in the front in the pale yellow.  She said to me before we left that house that she was wearing yellow for the fellows.  haha  :)  Grandma Miller just turned 91 earlier this month.

The 2 pies at the back are the ones Grandma Miller ordered from Beachy's.  On the left is the Texas Sheet cake that was AWESOME and then on the right was a lemon ice box pie.  Sooooooo gooooood.  :)

We didn't have much time to go around and take pictures or try to get lost.  So, we def want to plan another trip to Ohio sometime later this year.  We're thinking Thanksgiving maybe.  We'll see.  :)

Chicken Taco Wontons

For dinner tonight I made chicken taco wontons.  :)

To make:

Cook chicken and then cut up into small pieces.  Add chicken to skillet and add in your taco seasoning.  I used my homemade seasoning mix.

Add wontons to your cupcake pan with pam spray and bake for about 2 to 3 minutes on 350 degrees.  Then after your chicken taco mix is finished add to wonton cup, sprinkle with cheese and bake until cheese is melted.

New Things Monday

For the first time over the weekend (in Ohio at a family reunion) I had TEXAS SHEET CAKE!  It was so good!!  It's a very moist chocolate cake.  You can find a ton of recipes online for these cakes.  I've seen them on Pinterest as well and want to make one.  They seem really popular and easy to make.  It's basically a cake made with sour cream and cocoa and a frosting with chopped pecan bits.  This particular Texas Sheet cake was made by Ann Mast.  It's one of my favorite cakes now that I've had it.  MMMMM  :)

New Things Monday

Back in March, Nate and I went on a day road trip to Pennsylvania.  One of the goodies we brought home was Pineapple Salsa.  It is by far the best salsa I've ever had.  I had wished I'd gotten more than one jar.  We do plan to go back to Pennsylvania in September so I'm going to get me a few jars then.  :)  Anyways, while at Wegmans the other day I wanted salsa and I found Pineapple salsa in the Wegmans brand.  YEY!!  I don't have to wait till September to have pineapple salsa.  I had some as a snack with some tortilla chips last night.  It was good.  It wasn't as good as the Kitchen Kettle Village kind from PA but it will hold me over.  haha  :)

Garden Progress- Day 51

    

I've updated my deck/patio garden today.  I went to Lowes and got better soil.  I got Miracle grow soil this time that is made for container plants.  The last time, I went to Lowe's I got some generic soil and I asked the employee if it was good for container plants even though it said on the bag that it was 'in ground use'.  He said that didn't matter.  I said okay and got the cheap stuff.  Well I feel it does matter with just seeing the results of it with my plants..  It just stayed watery and stinky.  Not a fan of it.  So, I got new fresh soil.  I immediately, dumped the red pot soil  (carefully removed pepper plant) and put fresh new soil in the pot for the red pepper plant.  :)  I need more tho.  I only got 2 small bags (I couldn't lift the big bag) and the red pot took one whole bag.  I want to replant the green pot too.  Anyways......Do you see the other new additions?

Brightly colored flowers like Zinna's (above) are suppose help with pollination for the pepper plants.  Hopefully, some bees will come around and help out.  :)  I need to get a bigger pot for the flowers.  (eventually)  I'm not too concerned about it right now.  It's a pretty healthy plant.  :)

I also got this sweet basil plant a few weeks ago from a friend at work.  He had extra and I got the last one. It was sitting in a red solo cup in a window but I felt he needed to be re-potted and added to the deck/patio garden.  :)

I also bought a new green pepper plant from Lowe's while I was there today.  He seems to be really healthy, so if my other one completely dies then I have this guy to replace him.

This is my red bell pepper plant.  I was saddened b/c a lot of the leaves fell off yesterday morning and evening.  I hope now that he has clean, fresh soil that he will get better.  I also added epsom salts to the water today while watering the pepper plants.  I also sprinkled some epsom salts on top.  I don't know if that's good or bad but I did it.  We'll most likely get some rain tonight and tomorrow so I figured if there were epsom salts then they would dissolve with the rain.

This is the green pepper plant.  See how sad it looks?  :(   Today, is day 39 of this plant.

 At least my tomatoes are doing good.  :)

Tomatoes.  :)

Homemade Peanut Butter Cupcakes with Chocolate and Peanut Butter Frosting

 Today, is my friend, Crystal's birthday.  I made Peanut Butter Cupcakes with Chocolate and Peanut butter frosting.

How yummy does this look?

We are eating at Firebirds for lunch and then going to see the movie 'Snow White and the Hunstman'.  :)

I used 'Fat Girl trapped in a skinny body' Peanut Butter cupcake recipe.  And for the frosting I used 'Our best bites'.  How to get your frosting twist colors you can read the tutorial here.  I also added some pb cups to the batter and that idea came from our best bites as well.  :)  My own idea was to add some chocolate sprinkles on top and 2 little pb cups.  :)  I had some batter left over so I made a tiny cake with it so I could test everything.  It's pretty good.  :)  I will post the recipes later for you but for now I'm off to celebrate Crystal's birthday.  :)

Garden Progress- Day 50

Today, I went out and inspected my plants.  I wasn't very happy with somethings I saw.  :(

Here's a view from the deck steps looking at plants.  :)

 I've got several tomatoes.  I didn't count them but there are a bunch.  They are doing great.  The plant seems very healthy.  I did notice a lot of spider webs and some little harmless spiders crawling around.  (mainly on the tomato cage)  I'm not a fan of spiders but I know they eat bugs so I will let them protect my tomatoes.  :)

This is the biggest tomato so far.  He's about the size of my fist.  YEY!  :)  I can't wait for them to turn red.

Here's all three plants.  Do you see why I'm sad?

This is day 38 of my green bell pepper plant.  He's just losing more and more leaves each day.  I don't think he's going to get any peppers at all.  :(  I might have to get rid of him.  :(

Here's my red bell pepper plant.  I watered him yesterday (b/c he was looking wilted) and today when I watered he still had a ton of water around him.  I took some more soil and filled in the water hole hoping that would help it.  Maybe I'm over watering?  I'm not sure.  There were several leaves that had fallen off.  :(  I just googled why my leaves are falling off and some people suggested to add a tbsp of epsom salts to the water before you water the plants.  Also, I read to water with warm water and not freezing cold water.  Something else I might need to do is to plant some brightly colored flowers in a pot next to the plants so they help the peppers get pollinated.  (Marigolds or Zinnias)  I might be making a trip to Lowes this afternoon for some flowers and foodlion for some epsom salts.  :)  Cross your fingers for me.  :)

At least my one pepper seems to be good and it still growing.  :)