Pumpkin carving, painting & Fall food dinners

For the last two nights, Ashley and I have been decorating and carving pumpkins. We got 10 pumpkins for 10 dollars. We saved 3 of those for painting a Frankenstein's monster, witch legs and a black rose with thorns. 

The rest were different carvings of a little man face and puzzle pieces on the back side, cat and a pumpkin face on the back, "Boo" and "Yas", house with a moon and cat, cauldron, and vampire face.

In the above picture, we have our house plants nestled together over top a vent for cool or warmth and displayed my Halloween painting I made years ago. These were the little pumpkins I used for carving and painting.

The colors this year seem brighter, more vibrant, than in the last several years. The quantity of leaves I see in piles skirting trees are more plentiful this year than previous years it seems. Of course, that's my own opinion. 

To further enjoy, and celebrate the Fall you could say, I have been sipping vegan hot chocolate and baking vegan peanut butter cookies, eating lots of seasonal crops like radishes, tomato, kale, and herbs from the garden, and lots of squash and potatoes. And baking pumpkin seeds!

Vegan stuffed peppers with rice

Vegan stuffed squash with vegan cheez

Produce box

Kale harvested to fry over rice

On Sundays, I've been visiting family to check in on them and my gardens, and on these nights, I've been having little fires to roast vegan hot dogs, watching scary movies, and sitting outside.

What are you doing to enjoy Fall this year? What is keeping you motivated to stay hopeful, positive, and active in your life or community?

Garden greens, radish harvest & other garden prepping

Lately I have been cleaning up the gardens to prep for tilling, hoeing and sowing seeds.

At my grandparent's, I cleaned the garden of weeds, raked, hoed and made a burn pile of the weeds. I haven't been able to till and sow seeds because the garden has been sopping wet.

At my garden, I have been laying ceramic tile to make pathways. My garden is also sopping wet, which is why I want to have tile pathways for me and anyone to be able to walk casually throughout the garden with ease. And the tile helps suppress weeds.

I have continually been harvesting greens and radishes everyday. I have arugula, kale, spinach, green and red leaf lettuce, and radishes. Also, in between these plants and the strawberry plants, I have sown carrot, spinach, and basil seed.

With the garden food, I have been delivering to some people. But of course I have been making many meals for myself, green salad, vegan potato salad, pasta salad, sandwiches, green wraps, and much more.

Ramen with fresh garden radish & last years
 pickled radish, lettuce, seasoned with garlic salt,
Black pepper, & nutritional yeast

Potato salad with garden arugula, onion , & radish
With vegan mayo, mustard, salt pepper

Arugula in pasta 

The tulips have all faded away, but it's May, and the Alluims and Irises are blooming. I have strawberry plants too, that are growing beautiful dark red blooms, which I had never seen before. Although I may not update often, I'll keep y'all posted on the happenings in the garden. It's May, so there are many more veggies to plant, the tomatoes, peppers, squash, corn and beans.

Garden harvest dinner

Broccoli, squash, tomato harvest for dinner

Foraging Chanterelle and blueberry/BlackBerry

Harvested blueberries 

Anne raspberry

Aronia berry

Growing microgreens indoors with plastic recyclables

I have been eating on the microgreens. And I have more to chew on growing under the indoor lights.

It's nice to have some greenery indoors when its 0 degrees outside. The pipes have froze but lets hope they don't bust.

Microgreens under grow lights & tropical plants on shelf

Microgreens to eat from indoor growing, plus produce I buy as a
supplement until I have food growing in the gardens 

Here, I have garnished the ramen with microgreens. And I have used the microgreens in other soups, salads, and sandwiches. They're quicky, easy, and nutritious, so I encourage you to grow what you can, too.

Hoemeade Vegan ramen with kimchi and microgreens.

And not surprisingly, the tulips, crocuses, irises, ferns, and daffodils are emerging up from the soil. I cleaned up around the spring flowers, grubbing the weeds out, and I spread peat moss over them. Tomorrow, I'm going to cover them with sheets of plastic and cloth until March.

I transplanted some of the crocuses to ceramic pots, because I thought that looked better than growing around my yard for two weeks. Crocuses don't bloom long, and I would rather dedicate yard space to something else that blooms longer. I have many more crocuses to transplant though.

There's so much to do, so little time. But with these warm days in the forecast, I'm taking advantage of it, and mulching/composting and cleaning up the vegetable and flower gardens and the fruit trees.