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Saturday Was A Busy Day

Paul is in trouble now!

It’s a beautiful day to garden… Paul planted the remainder of the  winter veggies into the front part of the backyard garden!  The straw mulch will keep the roots moist while detering the little “pesks” (unfortunately, not the minions!).

Paul designed the garden to be easy on the old 70+ year bones!

Each of the “fingers” are exactly four feet wide and 30 feel long!

We are going to try to grown the shelling peas on the metal supports this year instead of the stick/string approach!  Much easier to install and tear down!  We planted twelve plants.

Did You Know: A pea, although treated as a vegetable in cooking, is botanically a fruit; the term is most commonly used to describe the small spherical seeds or the pods of the legume. As with most legumes, snow peas host beneficial bacteria, rhizobia, in their root nodules, which fix nitrogen in the soil—this is called a mutualistic relationship—and are therefore a useful companion plant, especially useful to grow intercropped with green, leafy vegetables that benefit from high nitrogen content in their soil.

When a pea plant dies in the field, for example following the harvest, all of its remaining nitrogen, incorporated into amino acids inside the remaining plant parts, is released back into the soil. In the soil, the amino acids are converted to nitrate (NO3?), making the nitrogen available to other plants, thereby serving as fertilizer for future crops..

Trying a steel support cage this year

Earlier this month Paul planted Stevia, a natural sugar plant along with Swiss chard, basil, and onions. We harvest the stevia plant by cutting off the branches at the base of the plant. We wash the branches/leaves in clean filter water. We pick the leaves off stevia plant, discard the stems, and dry the leaves for 12 hours in the sun. Once the leaves are dry, we grind them in a food processor or coffee grinder to make pure stevia.

The Stevia currently has blossoms… We will collect the leaves pretty soon and dry them in the sun for 12 hours

Gardening is a lot of work and certainly not as economical as the market but we know the food is fresh, we know there are zero chemicals on them or in them, and it is wonderful to cook up your own foods!

Around New Years and for a few months past that we will have to “suffer” with really really fresh veggies!

After working for several hours, it was nappy time!   Paul uses the Amazon Echo Dot to play “Alexa, play ocean sounds”.  Works so well!

We departed for Garden Grove about 6:30 PM to meet up with some of the gang.  We saw the Branders, Will & Iris, the Slaters, and others.  It was 5th Dimension tonight and while the music was OK, it was so loud we had to leave early.  We are getting too old to destroy our hearing, huh?

Paul ate the blackened sea bass which was really spicy and so very moist.  He had planned to take half of it home but alas, the taste just overpowered him and it all disappeared! The Garden Grove Elks is not elegant but the kitchen staff and the wait staff are outstanding.  Best fish in town!

An eerie Moon peeked out from beneath the clouds!

It was early, Sue said “What should we do… We can’t go home, the neighbors will talk!”.  Patty’s Place came to mind and at 9:45 PM we arrived at Patty’s Place in Seal Beach.  The place was pretty empty but John and his lady were there so we sat and talked to them for an hour and a half.  Sue has a glass of wine and Paul had four cups of coffee. We really enjoy Patty’s because “It’s a place where everybody knows your name!”.

The moon was following us to Patty’s Place… A view from the parking lot!

Time for going home!  We returned home and watched three episodes of “Friends”.  We got a deal.  Paul set back the clocks so we crashed at midnight which was really 1:00 AM.  Tomorrow ought to be funny!

About Paul

Just an old retired guy trying to finish out my last years on this planet. I lost my best friend and wife in early 2020. I was blessed again by reconnecting with Dr. Mary Côté, a long-time friend. Mary and I got married July 28th, 2021, and are enjoying life together and plan to spend the rest of our lives being a blessing to our friends and family.
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