Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Work (and Play) Weekend

Saturday was all play. It was gorgeous weather, sunny with clouds and not too hot, maybe low 70s. We got up early for us on a weekend and met our friend Angie for breakfast and catching up at the French bistro in Gettysburg. Crepes with strawberries and cream, crepes with bananas and nutella. Brioche French toast with breakfast potatoes. Oh, my, theirs are the best breakfast potatoes I’ve ever had.

After, we walked around the farmers market on the square. Purchases were made, including 2 pepper plants, some rhubarb and strawberries (both destined for jam this week), a few celery plants, and a bar of great soap.

Then, Matt and I drove around a bit of the battlefield before heading home the back way, over hill and dale and avoiding the main interstate.

I can’t remember what all we did for the rest of the morning and the early part of the afternoon.

Around 3 we collected Matt’s parents and headed down to Baltimore for an early dinner. It was a celebratory dinner for my FIL’s retirement, his birthday, both Matt & my birthdays, our anniversary, their anniversary, etc. We went to Fogo de Chao, which is an Brazilian steakhouse. Matt and I have been there once before. It is by far hands down the best cooked and seasoned beef I have ever had. I can’t rave about it enough. I would happily go there more often, but at $50/head you kinda need a really GOOD reason.

I wrote about Fogo here, go read about it. The only thing I can add to that is 1) I had a cocktail this time, the Brazilian national drink Caipirinha. Very strong, quite good. I don’t think I’d make one at home, but it was nice. 2) I also had a dessert, I had the crème brule. I’ve made crème brule, but it was never like this. SO creamy. JoAnn ordered a slice of cheesecake. It was mislabeled on the menu, it should have said ‘A Slice of Cheesecake the Size of the Rock of Gibraltar.’ Ray laughed really hard when they brought it out.

Then we went home and lay around like bloated whales. Eventually we slept.

Sunday was a work day. We went out for a quick breakfast, then hit Lowes and got some garden-related hardware that we needed: big plastic tubs, smaller tubs, a couple hanging baskets, potting soil, some stone.

When we got home, Matt spent a few hours on lawn care and lawn mowing.

I planted 19 tomatoes: 12 Super Marzano paste, 1 Principe Borghese drying, and one each of Sungold, Brandywine, Japanese Black Trifele, Henderson’s Ponderosa Pink, Kellogg’s Breakfast, and Cherokee Purple. I still have some others to plant.

Last year, I used a technique I’d read about for tomato planting and that was putting them in horizontally, as in parallel to the ground, with only the top greenery above the ground. The thinking behind this was that as the roots grow along the planted stem you will have a root system that is close to the surface, therefore close to the water when you water it. The downside to this is the plant will also dry out that much faster, and when it does rain/you do water the plant, the dirt will tend to wash away and the plant will pop out of the ground. So, this year I’m planting them the normal way again. We’ll see.

I also put in the 3 celery plants (never grown celery before), and 4 peppers. Haven’t planted beans yet, way behind there. But the ground is mud. MUD! I was worried about the tomatoes drowning, and now they’re saying 3 more days of rain on top of all that MUD!! If I put in beans now they’d just rot anyway. So. Waiting. But I can get the poles in the ground now while it’s wet. MUD. Ugh.

After a lunch break, Matt was back at it with the lawn, and I started in on some self-watering tubs for large plants. I took the plans from the Frugal Life blog on these, I thought they were great. I made three, one for my fig and two for Matt’s parents, who weren’t going to do a garden this year. I also made last year’s hanging tomato baskets into potato pots. We gave three of those to Matt’s parents, too, and kept 4 for us.

Making the pots, mixing the soil, etc, was hard work! My back was killing me. Matt said I was walking like an old lady. I need to figure out some exercises to help strengthen my back a bit, this just won’t do.

After we got cleaned up, we wound up doing some much-needed grocery shopping and getting a Papa John’s pizza with accompanying garlic sauces, which makes 4 meals out in 2 days. Not good, and we’ll try to do better this week.

6 comments:

YD, sometimes with ♥June and ♥Angel Samantha said...

Oh, I love those Brazilian steakhouses! I've never been to the one you went. We went to Texas De Brazil and it was awesome! The only thing we would chance next time is not to order the salad as well.

Me voici ∞ Here I am said...

is a Caipirinha fan himself.

Me voici ∞ Here I am said...

... though, I would prefer a "caipirinho" myself... ::lol::

Mama Pea said...

Gak. Whadda weekend. Good thing you went back to work to rest!

I've planted my tomatoes "horizontally" for years . . . but mine get planted what sounds like deeper than yours. I dig a little trench maybe 4-6" deep, take off all the leaves that are on the stem that I lay in the trench, and plant the tomato with just the last several inches sticking above the soil. Having the root system that far below the soil, I've never had trouble with them drying out. I do think this method makes for a much stronger tomato plant. And, for some reason, I don't think they suffer as much from transplant shock.

Jody M said...

Maybe I'll do the rest of them that way, a little deeper. Hmmm.

Stacy (Little Blue Hen) said...

Mmm, I love caipirinhas! We make them at home all the time. I would even go so far as to say it's one of the main reasons we bought a lime tree when we moved to warmer climes.