Welcome to the Weekend coffee share! Can I get you a cup of coffee? Or tea? Just like last week it’s a good thing that this is a virtual cup of coffee we’re sharing, the damn cold that’s been lingering around our household doesn’t give up. I’d say that my children started to feel slightly better on Thursday, and my son is completely back to normal. My daughter and I still have a way to go. That said, I NEED to be back to work on Monday. I can’t believe I have missed a whole week. All I’ve done this week is resting and making sure we all eat healthy food to make us feel better (= a lot of celery from the garden, large amounts of sprouts and salad greens, fruits, and many cups of herbal tea made with various different herb from the balcony garden enjoyed with large amounts of honey, and of course I’ve added garlic to every soup and stew I’ve made this week.) If we were having coffee I would try to make you speak as much as possible, both because I am truly interested in how you are, and to save my voice. How are you?
Since I’ve had a little more time than usual to think this week I’ve been thinking a little bit about my blog. I choose the name Green Dreams for my blog mainly for two reasons; because I like to consider the environment in my daily choices, and I absolutely love to grow my own food. I am working towards my dream of living a more self-sufficient life, growing the majority of my food myself. I’ve decided to be more conscious about including something about a sustainable lifestyle in every post I make on the blog. It’s something I often write about, but I want it to be something that you can expect to find in one way or another, when you visit my blog to read a new post. If you want to read more about some of my choices towards living a more sustainable life you can read about that in the very first post here.
This week I have literally not left the apartment to do anything else except taking the garbage out. Therefor I’m going to share the progress of my balcony garden this week. I did not do all of this the same day, but rather a little bit every day. A few minutes at the balcony here and there is the only thing I’ve done besides resting in my bed, trying to cure this stubborn cold.
The Miner’s lettuce in my winter garden is really starting to grow. It’s wonderful to have this great source of vitamin C close by.
Unless you live very far north it’s not too late to plant Miner’s lettuce. They do best if they are planted 4-6 weeks before the first frost. They can be planted outside as an edible ground cover, or in pots (likes the one I have at my balcony.) They thrive in almost any type of soil, but do best if they are not planted in direct sunlight (if it’s too hot the plant becomes bitter.)
I mentioned last week that I planted my broccoli too late this year (new growing zone for me.) I had ten big containers with broccoli to figure out what to do with, since the nights are colder now, a couple nights have been in the mid 20’s.
I discharged some leaves that were yellow, it was only a few leaves. I cut the stem 1-2 inches from the soil, and harvested the whole plant. I rinsed the plants thoroughly.
I cut the plant into pieces, the stem in tiny pieces and the leaves slightly bigger. After cutting them into pieces I parboiled everything lightly in a big pot for a few minutes, with some herbs and salt. I drained the water.
I used some of it to make a vegetable soup, and still had two containers for the freezer. Even if I didn’t succeed with my broccoli in the traditional sense, it gave my family some nutritious and delicious food. Next year I am going to plant my broccoli earlier 🙂
This left me with ten empty, big pots. I added some bokashi compost to the pots and planted Jerusalem artichokes in them. A co-worker gave me some Jerusalem artichokes ten days ago. I had plans to plant them at my garden plot last Sunday, but then I woke up not feeling so well that day, so it didn’t happen. When I realised I might not be planting them this weekend either I decided to plant a few of them in pots, something I’ve never done before. I did some research and found out that a lot of other people had done it successfully, so why not try? I only planted one in each pot, after reading about that most people plant two or more and wish that they hadn’t done that. One Jerusalem artichoke can grow 6-10 new ones. I’m excited to see how this experiment turns out. We’ve eaten some of the artichokes my co-worker gave me, and they were delicious. I still have some left, and I’m hoping to plant them at my garden plot some time next week. I already have a spot in mind where I believe they would thrive. Jerusalem artichokes is a perennial, you leave a few in the ground and they will produce new artichokes next year. If you plant them once in a good spot, you’ll likely have Jerusalem artichokes for the rest of your life. I want to find more crops like that! Is there something exciting growing in your garden at the moment?
Thank you Natalie for hosting the Weekend Coffee Share. How is your week? What are you up to this weekend?
Love,
Maria
GreenDreams 
Sorry you’re still battling that cold. It must be a doozy as you are generally in good health with strong immunity. I liked reading about your garden activity. Even as the days grow shorter, you are busy.
Frost came last weekend and killed the annuals in the garden, which I spent a couple hours yesterday cutting back and throwing in the compost. I felt like I should have been playing a funeral dirge, it was rather sad, hehe. I remembered planting them, tending them, putting up supports, watching the pollinators come to visit and harvesting beautiful bouquets for the house. All things must come to pass, the circle of life. I love the growing season and feel bereft when it is over. The consolation is that the fall foliage this year is outstanding and everywhere I look, there is great beauty.
Hope you beat your cold for good and have a pleasant week ahead.
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Thank you Eliza! I agree with you that the end of the season is somewhat sad, but perhaps a lesson in letting go? The amazing fall foliage certainly helps to ease the pain of burying the garden for now. I hope you are well and are able to enjoy the coming week on every possible way. I haven’t asked you about your visit to Tahoe. I hope you had a good time?
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Thanks for asking…Tahoe was wonderful, so great to see my eldest, it had been TOO long! And as you know, there is something special about CA. We’re going back in early Dec. 😀
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It makes me so happy to hear that!
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We are almost over our colds that we caught while on a road trip. After 35 days on the road we were quite happy to hang out at home this week.
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Home sweet home ❤ In my opinion every road trip gets better if you know that you have a home that you love to come back to. It's fun to anticipate a road trip, its certainly fun to go on one, but coming home is a wonderful thing in a different way.
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Sorry to hear that you still aren’t feeling the best Maria. Have you ever tried the honey and ginger drink? My kids and I like to drink as soon as we feel a bit under the weather. It can be consumed hot or cold. I send it in the kid’s water bottles during flu season. Anyway, it is water with honey melted in, a bit of lemon juice and fresh ginger.
I like your blog title, Green Dreams.
Great photos.
Thanks for the virtual coffee.
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Thank you! I do often drink it hot with fresh ginger, honey, and sometimes lemon. I haven’t this time around, the ginger I had didn’t look nice at all. Perhaps I should go to the store today and get some new one. I think I’ll do that. Thanks for the reminder! Have a greta rest of your weekend, and a fabulous new week.
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Wow, Maria, I hope you and your daughter feel much better very soon! That’s a terrible cold.
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Thank you so much!
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I’m sorry you have been so sick! I hope you feel better soon and can get back to work on Monday. I don’t know if I’ve missed an entire week of work. Yikes. Anyway, feel better soon and I hope you have a much better week coming up and can get out to enjoy the autumn weather!
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Thank you so much Trent! It’s probably slightly more common to miss a week of work when you’re a kindergarten teacher, but not fun..Have a wonderful new week.
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You are welcome. ☺️🇸🇪
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Maria, Thank you for your weekend coffee share and beautiful pictures of your green plants. You’re doing a wonderful gardening job. I’m sorry to hear your cold lasted so long. I hope you’re feeling much better this weekend. Have a great week ahead!
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Thank you so much Natalie. In the middle of the day yesterday I did feel pretty good for a couple of hours, so hopefully its going in the right direction ❤
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Hi Maria,
So sorry that you’re still fussing with this cold. I used to never miss a day of work.
Then I got old and now I’ve collected a handful of times where I’ve missed enough work to need my short-term sick leave insurance. Both my back surgery and covid took me out for multiple weeks and my company was okay with me coming back a few hours at a time, I’ve had great supportive managers who encouraged me to put my health first and helped my not stress about work. But it was so weird being off work for so long.
I hope you’re back to normal quickly.
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Thank you for your kindness Gary 🙂 I very rarely miss more than a day or so, usually if my youngest isn’t feeling well and needs me. This is unusual for me. I am however starting to feel slightly better. I wish you a wonderful new week.
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It’s impressive how many vegetable types you grow! How lovely you were able to use parts of the broccoli for something.
I’d love to try to grow what is possible in the window but will wait until my assignments are done so that I feel I have free time again. I had to interrupt everything about the garden when I got my knee injury so lots of autumn prep had to be left undone.. Now the real autumn is here, my knee is much better but I want to be very careful for some time yet to walk in uneven areas such as my garden.
For next year I need to do some reading about common pests here because I’ve had some unknown entity eating basically everything I’ve tried to grow. Very disappointing. The radishes were ok because they were in the soil.
I hope you recover soon from your cold and that you’ll have a good week.
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Thank you so much Susanne! I feel so much better now. My voice haven’t been as strong as usual this week, but it is slowly coming back. (Which is a very good thing since I use it a lot at work…)
I hope your knee is fully recovered soon so that you can enjoy the outdoors again. Have a wonderful weekend!
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Ugh, so sorry about the illness your household is battling! Praying it’s over soon. Nutrition is key and I don’t think you could do better in that department! 🙂 I miss growing basil on my windowsill over the winter. I should try that again. I still have a few green tomatoes on the vine and I’ll need to bring in everything very soon. Feel better!
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Thank you so much Kathleen. I am a lot better now. Have a wonderful weekend.
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So sorry your cold lingers. (Mine also…) Best wishes! Love the gardening!
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I hope you feel better by now. I do feel much better. Have a wonderful weekend.
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Sorry you’re still sick! I miss growing more of my own food, but the heat and critters have made it a bad gardening year. I have basil, sage, and mint, and that’s about it.
The miner’s lettuce is so pretty. It grew wild where we lived in Portland, spreading under trees in early spring.
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Thank you for your kind comment, I do feel much better now.
Basil, sage, and mint can be very refreshing to have in your kitchen garden. I use a lot of basil in the kitchen. What type of sage do you have? Have a wonderful weekend.
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Maria, I grow a lot of veg in containers and this year I’m experimenting by growing various veg out of what is considered the normal season
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I love your sustainable initiatives. I am just talking about some of these like a balcony garden and growing in small garden spaces on my latest post. What a difference if we all did this. Well done to you. Perennials are a great idea to add to the garden. I have never grown Jerusalem artichokes but I do like eating them. Love the idea of adding broccoli stems and leaves. I add them to stir fry dishes all the time. Have a great week!
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