What is That Beast in the Garden? (Hint: It's related to a pumpkin)

I call it "The Beast", "The Monster", and "The Dinosaur", but really it is just a really big squash. I have yet to find out the name of the variety of this squash. Anyone who has any guesses, please comment below. It might be from one of the seeds I got from the Florida Organic Growers. I have yet to ask. I have not seen this particular variety mentioned anywhere online.

This is what it would look like if squashes were used instead of bouquets for beauty pageants.


Here's the monster in his natural habitat.


This is what it would look like if Ahanu's left arm mutated into a squash.

"The change hurts!"


"Ahhh! The transformation is finally complete!...Success!"


If kids could have squash as pets...We'd call this one "Lumpy".


This is what a younger cousin of "The Beast" looked like after we had eaten half of it.


The squash fruit grows quite large, but the plants themselves are actually trying to take over the entire yard (and soon the neighbor's. I have had to redirect them so they will not start growing into the street. (Remember: All the photos in the blog entries are linked to bigger versions. Just click to view larger!)









Well, if you are wondering. The squash tasted really good. We boiled big slices in water and ate them with butter and salt and sometimes rice as well. Dee-lish!

Water Kefir: A Simple Description

I started making water kefir recently for a friend of mine who need the probiotics and didn't want her family to have dairy right now.
This the jar with water kefir grains at the bottom and a mixture of water, sugar, molasses, and lime. The kefir eat the sugar and add a fizziness to the liquid.
This is the jar with its cloth cover to allow the kefir to breathe and not explode and at the same time keeping bugs out.I then place the jar in a cupboard for about 48 hours.

Finally I strain the kefir grains from the liquid and then refrigerate it for something at tastes a bit like flat lime soda. I save the kefir grains for another batch and repeat the process.

When I get my milk kefir grains and kombucha starters, I will tell you more about that.

Here is a great website all about fermented foods: http://www.culturesforhealth.com

John and Ahanu and Sonic and the Garden

Today Ahanu wanted to go to his friend, John's, house. Well, his mom was going out shopping soon and instead we decided that John would come over to our house. John brought some Game Cube games to play on our Wii.

John played a Sonic game while Ahanu watched and ate a big lunch, of cheese casadia, green beans, broccoli, and asparagus. He ate a couple helpings of that, some cherries, and a sugar-free chocolate that he shared with John. Then he had some water kefir and some garden-fresh cooked lima beans, just before he left to go with John to his house when his mom came to pick him up.

I went out on my bike to Ward's soon after John came to our house in order to go get more sugar to feed our water kefir grains. I got some discounted organic sweet potato, organic apples, and organic blueberries, as well.

Today, I also ordered some a milk kefir and kombucha starter, so I will blog about all three of those at some point. If anyone would like to start their own homemade fermented beverage at their house I would be happy to send you a starter, when I have enough. I am hoping to sell them to folks, so maybe you could even pay me what you think it is worth to you. I got the water kefir for about $12, but some places sell it for about $16 plus shipping. If you are local, I can also sell you just the drink already made.

I thought I could share with you a video I just made of our garden as it looked today. I had the camera on the low quality setting, so I will redo it when I get a chance. We have many of the eggplants in the fridge that we harvested and a few more have already been digested. The lima beans we had today from the garden were excellent!



Thanks for clicking on a few ads to support this blog while you are here!