My attempt at (straw bale) gardening...

For some reason, the need to garden is deeply rooted (pun intended) in me. Maybe it's the frozen veggies that sit in my freezer for years or the waxy feeling to a tomato at the grocery store, but something is telling me that I need to grow my own fruits and veggies. Unfortunately, I live in the worst possible place to garden. The "soil" (and I use that loosely) here is dust and rocks. And every few weeks gets another layer of dust on top of that. In order to have a functioning garden, you have to essentially dig up your entire yard and replace it with acceptable soil for growing a plant. Since I'm just beginning this gardening journey, I was looking for something a lot less demanding!

A couple months ago, while surfing Pinterest, I found out about Straw Bale Gardening. Essentially, you buy a couple straw bales, fertilize them, soak them with a hose for a few weeks and magically you have an acceptable place to place your plants. The websites I read claimed that you could buy straw bales for the cheap price of $2-$5 but around here, I found them at a local feed store for $7.95 which is still cheap considering how much it would cost to dig up the ground. I started with 3 bales and some ammonium sulfate as a fertilizer. It absolutely did the job but next time I will stick with chicken manure in order to keep it as organic as possible. Live and learn. After getting started, I bought three more bales of hay so now my garden consists of six.

I planted some herbs and tomato plants. Fortunately, once the bales have soaked for two weeks, you do not have to water your plants every day. The bales are more than wet and only the top dries out. The bales also keep the ground underneath them wet and fertile and now the ground under the bales is more like soil than dust and it's teeming with bugs and worms. The ground around my straw bales is also very wet and fertile and there is grass growing all around them. I'm not sure if it's left over grass from the straw or some dormant grass seed from a lawn long ago.

Here you can see the bales and the grass growing all around them. If you look past the bales you can see the rocky hard soil that is my backyard. And to the left top of the picture you can see the path the water run off takes. That hasn't been watered since the night before but you can see the ground is retaining water much better.

Unfortunately, we had a little set back when we went to visit my parents. Our new puppy, Mindy, ate the seedlings that I had nurtured and dug up the plants that I had planted. I didn't think anything had survived but the mint I had planted seems to be making a come-back on it's own.

So, I cheated and went to Wal-Mart and bought an heirloom tomato plant about two weeks ago and planted it. Low and behold, it bears fruit!!

Feeling pretty confident after seeing that!

And just as a comparison, I did dig up a four foot by two foot patch of land for corn. To fill in with the organic soil and fertilizer, cost me about the same as three bales of straw. And it's efficient. Especially for corn which I hear is hard to do in straw because it's so top heavy.

The grass or whatever it is, is seeping into this area as well. I may have my own field of alfalfa soon!

"Taglong cupcake"

"Tagalong" Cupcakes

 

 

My daughter is a Girl Scout, a great one at that. Often I keep a stash of cookies left over just in case anyone orders some after cookie season is over! This year, I used some of my stash to make these cupcakes. I couldn't find a recipe for a Tagalong cupcake that felt truly represented it to me, so I made this one up using inspiration from a bunch of other recipes. This makes about 20 cupcakes.

 

 

 

 

Cupcake:

 

20 Tagalong cookies. About a box and five more.

1/2 cup of butter, softened

1/2 cup of peanut butter

1 1/2 cup of brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups of flour

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/4 cup of milk

 

Preheat oven to 350. Place cupcake liners in muffin tin. Place one Tagalong at the bottom of each well. Beat butter and peanut butter until smooth. Add brown sugar and combine until smooth. Continue beathing and add egg and vanilla.

 

In a separate bowl, combine dry ingredients. Add milk and dry ingredients to butter mixture about a third of each at a time.

 

Fill cupcake liners about 3/4 of the way. Bake for 15-20 minutes until toothpick comes out smooth. Allow to cool completely.

 

Glaze:

1/2 cup peanut butter

3/4 cup chocolate chips

 

Combine ingredients into microwave safe bowl. Microwave 30 seconds and stir. Continue to heat it on 15 second intervals until smooth and liquid.

 

Dip cooled cupcakes into glaze and allow to cool.

 

Peanut Butter Buttercream:

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup of butter, softened

1 tsp vanilla extract

Around 4 cups of powdered sugar

Milk, as needed

 

Beat the peanut butter and the butter until smooth. Add the vanilla extract and continue mixing. Add powdered sugar about a half cup at a time until the mixer becomes dry. Slowly add milk until it is creamy but still stiff.

 

Chocolate Buttercream:

1 cup of butter, softened

1/2 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp vanilla extract

Around 4 cups of powdered sugar

Milk, as needed

 

Beat butter until fluffy. Add cocoa powder and beat until well combined. Add vanilla and continue mixing. Add powdered sugar about 1/2 cup at a time until it becomes dry. Add milk until it is creamy and has a stiff consistency.

 

To get the swirled effect, I put the two frostings in separate bags and then put them both into a larger bag and piped it on with the 1m tip.

 

Enjoy