Jun 29: Vegetable Garden Status

Hot! Hot! Hot! These past few days: 80's and low 90's.
I was curious how the veggies were progressing in my garden.

April 12th: planted beets and carrots.

Today, I pulled a beet and a carrot to see how they're progressing. The package suggest 60 days to maturity, but during the Spring, we had only a couple days of sun per month so the plants were really growing slowly due to a low heat index.

Carrot is developing the desired spherical shape. The beet still more carrot looking than spherical looking. I'm guessing both are at least 2 to 3 week from maturity.


May 15th: started sunflowers, Thai Basil and Brussels sprouts.

The Thai Basil - flopped. A couple seed sprouted and died back. These seem very hard to grow and very slow to germinate.

Brussels sprouts are in the ground and growing very slowly. 5 out of 10 were eaten by slugs.


Sunflowers are in the ground, but 7 of 10 were hit by slugs and snails.
One of the few


Sunflower #7 bites the dust. Slug ate well this morning before he met Mr. Heel.


I have a little fig tree... actually more like a fig twig I purchased late in the season last year on the clearance desk.

Lone Peter's Honey Fig.

May 17: Sausage Gravy in a Can !?!?

On a previous shopping trip, I found sausage gravy in a can!
Like the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot, I've heard of this mythical product, but haven't spied the can until recently.

My plan for today was to take advantage of three days of sunshine and warm weather to work on the backyard. To fuel up for the day's chores, this would be a good time to try the gravy.

Canned biscuits and sausage gravy from Campbell's.
Instructions are very simple: Heat, stirring occasionally.


The Final Dish:
Biscuits and sausage gravy with two fried eggs over easy.


The gravy has an initial taste of sausage, for a brief second, but then the saltiness overpowers taste buds. The little sausage bits have a weird squishy texture. From all of the processing?

This product would probably make a good basis for a larger casserole-type dish, like the other Campbell's "Cream of" soups. For serving on biscuits, maybe adding milk to the gravy would help cut down on the sodium.

The rest of the day...
After running errands around town, the temperature was 93F when I returned home, which is much too hot for working in the backyard.

I was able to replant a habanero plant I keep at work. After three years and many inadvertent attempts to kill it, the plant bounced back each time and did well. However, now it's pot-bound to the point where the leaves are dropping. This called for some drastic measures. Massive pruning on the top from 3 ft span down to 10" inches. Trimmed and cutout 50% of the roots.
We'll see if the plant bounces back after a drastic root and leaf pruning.


Took a look the seeds from a couple days ago... The brussels sprouts have sprouted. Wow! Germinated really quickly. No germination from the basil and sunflowers.