Detox Program from First Magazine

I am trying the detox program featured in the First magazine and it worked. I have lost 7 lbs in one day just by drinking the lemonade and eat lots of fruits and vegetables the whole day.
However, by dinner time, I was too weak. I ate 1/2 cup rice with fried egg and the next day I still lost some weight.
I think this detox formula is making me lose water from my body. I notice I had to go to ladies to pee every 10 minutes.
Anyway, the formula is to make a concentrate juice from 12 tablespoons lemon juice and 12 tablespoons maple syrup. Please make sure you are using the real maple syrup and not the imitation syrup. Every 2 hours, mix 3 tablespoon of this concentrate juice with 8 oz. of water and 1/10 tablespoon of cayenne pepper. Drink it.
Repeat this drink for 4 days.
You can eat fruits and leafy vegetables all day.

Crops again!

Yesterday, on the 4th of July, I stayed home. Honey and I were busy playing with our own toys. Don't get me wrong. It has nothing to do with any of the body part. The toy I am talking about is our mini laptop. I had a good experience so far with my Acer that make honey went out and order one for himself. But he did not buy Acer. It was one of those no-brand mini laptop. So, while I was busy watching youtube, honey was configuring his mini laptop. If you already read my other post I did yesterday, then you know that I am a big fan of Jehan Miskin. I even called my niece to ask her if she likes Jehan Miskin too. She said she was. But now she likes someone else. Urgh! I said to her that I will still like him. I was disappointed that he broke off with Jue Aziz. I think they both are sweet couple.

Anyway, I went to the garden this morning and look at what I've got. Syukur alhamdulillah!(Praise to God) that my garden is doing so well. Here is the sugar snap peas. OMG! It is super sweet. The pea pod is tender and the peas inside is really sweet like candy.
All of these vegetables are from plot A. The corn is growing bigger and stronger. These past few days we received some rain. Not much but enough to quench the thirst of the plants.
The crookneck yellow summer squash is poking out too. I gave one to Murphy's aunt. She said she like squashes. This yellow summer squash is very tender. I can just pan fry it and seasoned it with salt and pepper. Yummy!The whole look of the garden. The romaine lettuce is bolting and so does the loose leaves lettuce. As the weather gets warmer, lettuces will bolt, producing tall stalk in the middle and if I let it longer in the garden it will turn into flowers and later produce seeds.
Beets are in nice size. I like beets when it is still small and sweet. I like to roast them in the oven. But watch out to the red urine if consume a lot. :-)
Look at these zucchini. I already told my co-worker to pick some of the zucchini but she thought she would let it grow bigger. Here they are a week later, almost twice the size of my foot! Actually I already gave 2 zucchini about this big to Murphy's aunt. The one in the picture are what I took home with me. I am scrathing my head on what I should do with these zucchinis.
I am washing by soaking the romaine lettuce, peas and beets in the sink. I could use baking soda mix in the water. But this time, I decided to just used plain cold water.
This is the first time I grow purple beans. They loook pretty in purple. The gardening book says that the beans will turn green when cook. We shall experiment on that later.
Turnips! Turnips! Turnips! I grow them but I don't really eat them. Jim will get this turnips as I have promised him. He said he will cook them the same way mashed potatoes is cooked. I chopped the greens part off of the turnips and gave them to Murphy's aunt. This turnips is also giant in size.
Last but not least, 5 ripe cherry tomato from my garden. They are sweet and I just popped them in my mouth.

The Other Plot

As promise, here are the pictures from my other plot that I took today.
A row of tomato and corn.
Above is a row of turnips. They are huge.
Above is a row of sun flowers. They are the Mammoth edible seed sun flowers. Next to the sun flowers are rows of corn. They are the Silver Queen and hopefully will be sweet.
Zucchini. They are beautiful.
A row of zucchini.
Above is a row of beets, carrot, a row of black seeded simpson loose leaves lettuce, and a row of onion. Oh! Dear, the lettuce is so sweet. My friend and I were busy picking the lettuces, turnip tops, and romaine lettuces. Emm...yummy. Unfortunately I don't know how to cook the turnip tops so I gave all of them to my friend. She said she cook the turnip tops with some ham.
The overall look on Plot A. The area of this plot is only 30 by 30 feet. The order of the rows for the plants are as follows:
Sun flowers
Spinach
Onion
Lettuces (black seeded simpson and romaine)
Carrot
Beet
Peas
String Beans
Zucchini
Pepper and Tomato
Turnips
Corn (2 rows)
Sun Flowers

Daisies, Vegetables, Fruits

I bought a few packets of daisies seeds early spring. I thought it was white daisies but instead yellow daisies came up. Anyway, they are a beautiful flowers that add some colors to my vegetables garden. I started to sprout their seeds in the seed starter kit indoor during early spring. They took the transplanting into the garden nicely. I like to see the butterflies hovering over them.
I spent the whole Sunday morning cleaning this side of my garden( as shown in the picture above). On the left side of the strings, the plot belongs to another gardener. I don't think that gardener ever work in his/her plot. I removed all of the weeds by hand using my trowel. I think my skin had sun burned pretty badly. I regret not wearing a long sleeve shirt. At least I did remember to spray myself with lots of insect repellent aerosol spray before I leave the house.

I planted acorn squash next to the second peas's row, after the butercrunch lettuces and in between sunflowers. I was at K-Mart on Saturday and bought 12 plants of acorn squash. They are sold at 6 pack plants for $1.99. Acorn will take the whole summer to mature. I can only harvest them early fall. They can stay good all winter on my kitchen counter. I like my acorn squash roasted in the oven. I just sprinkled them with salt and pepper and they are sweet and tasty.
I also planted Cayenne pepper this morning. I bought this plant at the flea market for 50 cents. There is one tiny cayenne on the plant. The white flowers will turn into a pepper.
Cantaloupe was also sold at 50 cents a pot at the flea market. I planted this plant right away and soak them well with lots of treated water. I had to treat my garden now after I found lots of potato beetles chewing up my tomato plants on Wednesday. I didn't know that potato beetles will eat the tomato plants. Couple of years ago when I first saw the potato beetles, I used sevin, or baking soda or soapy water to kill them but hey, they probably were just laughed at me for trying. This time, I am using Bayer brand. I even waited to see if they will die. Ah! Yes, in a few minutes they all dropped from the leaves. I will stick to this brand then.

Sue, a gardener I have known for years told me about the Captain's Jack, a natural and organic insect killer she just bought. I told her to let me know if that will work. As of now, I am sticking to Bayer brand.
Last but not least, I planted watermelon. I bought this plant from the flea market for 50 cents a pot too. I planted them together with the other watermelon plants I already have in the garden. I don't know what variety this is. It will be interesting to see them grow. I will remember to harvest the watermelon earlier before the animal or human come and get them. :-)
Here is the overall look at the garden, plot B when standing in the middle of one end.
This is the overall look at the garden, plot B when standing at one corner. This plot is 60 by 60 feet wide.
Plot A which is 30 by 30 feet wide is doing very well too. I didn't take any picture of it today. Perhaps tomorrow if I am not tired, I will take some pictures of plot A.

Lotta Peas

I grow 2 types of peas. They are the wando peas(shelling) and Sugar Daddy(Sugar snap).
This is wando peas. They are heat tolerance and the peas is very sweet.
Sugar daddy peas. I can eat the pea pod raw. This type of peas is very tender and sweet. The pod is broader and longer. The peas inside will not grow any bigger than this.
Look at what the rain did to my peas. They are growing beautifully and abundant. I cannot wait until they are mature and can get my hands on them. Yummy!
Here is my spinach. I am so proud of myself. Finally, I have some spinach to taste after failing to grow them for so many years.
Corn. Yes, I grow corn too but not much. I still have some seeds in my collection.
Here is the overall look at my garden. The romaine lettuces is growing nicely too. Next to the romaine is another patch of young spinach. And of course, the long row of peas with lotta peas.

Bachelor Button

When the planting season begin, that is in the spring, I bought a packet of bachelor button - Blue Boy flower. It cost me only $0.10 per packet. I sprinkled all of the seeds on my triangle patch in front of the house.
Here they are after two months showing off their blue flowers. This bush is as high as 3 feet. Everyday I have to answer to my husband because he thought this is wild flowers. He is excited to pull this plant off as usual.
But I will fight the battle for my bachelor button. I have no idea why it is call bachelor button but I surely love the blue color.

In the garden today

The rain we received couple of weeks ago had moisten the soil at my garden. I don't have to water the plants for a few days. The rain is suppose to be here tomorrow. If they do not pouring down by 4 pm tomorrow, then I will have to water the plants. I have been spending as much time as I could on weeding. Maintaining 90 by 90 feet of garden area is not easy but with the right tool, it seems possible.
On Sunday, I spent almost 6 hours working at the garden. Because of too much rain, the weeds grow faster than anything else. The picture above shows a row of my sunflowers on the far right. They are doing very well and will be a nice border to my plot. They are the Mammoth sunflowers and their seeds are edible. Next to the sunflowers, is the row of corns, then turnips, tomato, bell peppers, squash, peas, beans, and beets. I have to put in more seeds in between the gap in the row.

Above is another patch of my onions. On this patch, I have white onions, yellow onions, red onions and shallots ( next to the marigold). Next to the onions are my Wando peas. Wando peas are heat tolerant. They are shell peas. I cannot wait to harvest them. So far, they are flowering and the flowers are white.
In the above picture, I have a row of sunflowers, yellow onions, black seeded simpson loose leaves lettuces plus romaine lettuces in the same row, carrots(underneath the string), beets, and peas (near the fence). The last row with a ring of grass clipping as the mulch is my summer squash.
The last picture here is another patch of romaine lettuces. I have weeded the patch and removed the weeds. Those white flowers in between the romaine are weeds. They are easily pulled out from the ground. Their roots have been soften by the heavy rain.