Planting something new

I’ve always planted a backyard garden, its so easy to grow your own food here in the PNW . The weather conditions are perfect for growing your favorite vegetables. This year I planted potatoes, carrots, cucumbers, beans, peas, tomatoes and beets. Plus a bunch of my favorite herbs.

One of my old friends started a small batch microbrew a couple of years ago, so I thought I would try my hand at growing hops for his latest brew. Almost all hops used in beer production are grown in either western or central Washington.

I choose the Cascade and Nugget variety. I ordered them online from a local grower, and planted them in some of my best soil. It took awhile but in a short time they had grow to a height of fifteen feet in a matter of months, and in the last 30 days my first hops have appeared.

Looking forward to see how they’ll taste when they’re added to the new brew.

Cascade Hops

Garden Life

This spring I decided to convert my backyard into a garden area. When I was a kid, we always had a huge garden. So instead of more shrubs I planted sunflowers, pumpkins, cucumbers, watermelons, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, onion and garlic. All the things I like to eat and cook with. Its amazing how good food taste fresh out of the garden. This week the tomatoes are ripening and cooking with fresh garlic is a real treat too.

First Peach Pie

Second to my love of all things two and four-wheeled, is my love of pie!

I felt like I had mastered my apple pie, so this year I decided to try my hand at peach.

My daughter and I headed out to Sauvie Island, just about fifteen minutes west of downtown Portland, to our favorite U-pick farm. We picked our peaches right off the tree.

I'm big into tradition, so I decided to start with my mom's tried and true recipes. Both of her pie pastry and peach filling resulted in the most outstanding first ever peach pie for me.