Pretty in pink....

I'm not sure why, but our garden is predominately pink this year... well it was until the rain flattened everything yesterday!

Name that plant....

I think that you know by now that my fingers are not green, when I plant things in the garden they have to be pretty hardy, survival of the fittest! I did put beer out for the slugs that were eating the strawberries but that just resulted in drunken slugs in the garden, I discovered that some slugs can swim! Plus hubby wasn't too chuffed that I was feeding the local wildlife his beer.

Anyway, I need some help identifying a couple of plants, yes, I know I should have put the labels on them but these are both plants that were coming through in the spring and the markers had got lost somehow, this one is in a pot and is about 4 foot tall, any ideas?

And this one, when you rub the leaves is smells like basil but it doesn't look like the basil I planted this year, the new basil has shinier leaves. I did plant some sweet gevonese basil seeds last year, possibly in the same spot, or maybe not. I am hoping it is basil so I can use it in the kitchen but I am a bit worried it is something else and will poison us all.

The garden...

It was beautiful weather at the weekend so we decided to get the garden sorted out. We have a square foot garden set up and in the past tried to grow veg with varying success. Ebi-kun picked out yellow pepper, okra and water melon plants! and we have a strawberry plant that is doing well , except last year the ants ate all the strawberries. Any anti-ant advice welcome. This year we we got more herbs and planted more flowers.

 The pots we refilled and planted lots of seeds, I hope we will have lots of flowers this year but it still looks a bit dull just now.

A new pet...

Firstly, I would like to thank everyone who has voted for Di, she is still needing votes, so if you haven't already done so, please pop over and vote for her!

Also, thank you for adding Montessori links, I will have this as an on-going post so please feel free to add more when you find them.

Our neighbour came home with a big box full of beetles the other day and asked if we wanted a couple, hubby of course said yes! Kabutomushi are THE thing to have if you are a kid in japan, it goes hand in hand with summer foods like watermelon and shaved ice! Ebi-kun was a bit squimish at first but that lasted about 5 seconds. I am not such a bug fanatic so as long as it stays in the box it is OK. Usually you buy these beetles for a a few hundred yen, a couple of dollars but some types can go for as much as ¥100,000, about $100. Can you imagine paying that amount of money for a BUG?

We also got our first decent cucumber this season, this looks quite small for an English cucumber but compared to Japanese cucumbers it is quite a whopper.

Yesterday we had Ebi-kun birthday picnic/paddle/party in the park, I haven't got round to loading up the photos yet but the weather was good to us and we had a great time. Will share with you tomorrow - my cousin is also up for a couple of days so I am hoping to get a load of sewing done whilst she distracts the monkey :o)

Of Snowmen and Spuds

We actually made these the other day but I forgot to post about them. When I was a kid, this was one thing we always did with my gran. She would make meringue snowmen and we would decorate them with liquorice allsorts, it is a fond memory and I had hoped to do it with Ebi-kun as a Christmas activity but we never got round to it. Now I am glad we waited since there is that after Christmas lull in the air. It is the first time I have made meringue and it wasn't very successful, they were a bit flat, more like half melted snowmen :0) And I can't get allsorts her so we just used sweeties from the supermarket and a strawberry as a hat.

To make the snowmen whisk 2 egg whites (that are at room temp - found this out afterwards!) and 100g of sugar, add the sugar slowly. The mix should be thick and stiff, dollop or pipe onto grease-proof paper and bake at 110 deg C for about 2 hours (until dried through). Decorate with sweeties, use some icing sugar and water to make 'glue'.

And on a completely different note, we dug up the potatoes yesterday. Daddy-ebi researched about when to pull the up and apparently if they look like this they are ready...
To grow the spuds we drilled holes in the bottom of the tub for drainage then put in a layer of Mel's Mix (the stuff used in square foot gardening) and some sprouting spuds (don't use supermarket spuds, you need to by some from the home-centre) and more Mel's mix. When that lot started to sprout we did another layer of sprouting spuds etc. I think we ended up with 3 layers in the end.

To get them out we tipped the whole lot onto a tarp and sorted through it. Ebi-kun really enjoyed looking for the spuds and was really interested on how they had grow, the cool thing was finding an old spud with the new ones still attached to the shoot, I should have taken a photo but didn't.

Here is the final bootie, not loads but enough for a few meals and since spuds are expensive here - usually you get 4 or 5 medium sized spuds in a bag - honest! I am a happy bunny. We had some last night with home made quiche, delicious.

What Calendars?

So, hubby was having a video chat with his parents and gran on Saturday and mentioned that I had been busy making everyone's Christmas presents when his mom says 'ohh good, I am looking forward to this years calendar'. Hub and I exchange looks with panic in our eyes, gran pipes in too, 'yes, I love getting Ebi-kuns calendar'. Trouble is, this year I hadn't made any! Then, when I was relaying the story to my mom, I had the same reaction, then she added than my nana was looking forward to hers too. It seems that I accidently started a tradition a couple of year back, by making a 12 month calendar of Ebi-kuns pictures. 

Part of the reason I hadn't made them this year was that the prices had gone up dramatically at the company I usually use and partly because I thought it must be a bit boring getting the same present. Obviously not, I didn't have much time to check companies so this time I used Aldi's online service, they don't ship abroad though so my mom will have to send on the ones for the Japanese side of the family.

And, look what we got, yes our first harvest from the SFG, it is a turnip and is supposed to be round, but who cares? The spouts are doing well and we had our first frost this morning, I hope they will have a bit of a growing spurt between now and Christmas.

I have also been trying to cut down on wrapping paper this year, I have wrapped a couple of gifts but many of them have ben sent in these little cloth bags from Muji, they are just ¥50, then I tied on a ribbon - not very well, I am just not good at fancy ribbons, and a recycling-from-last-years-cards tag. I did have big plans for hand stamping the bags but that didn't happen, maybe next time!
I had to show you this, Ebi-kuns shopping list, he wrote it himself but I had to help with the spelling a bit. It says.... 

velcro

blocks

clock

elastic

rik-rak

He was funny, walking round the shop, all important with his list - so cute!

When he isn't making lists he is drawing robots, this chap is one of my favourites, he is apparently a food tasting robot. I have the urge to make this into a T-shirt or something....

The park, a BBQ and the SFG

We took Nana and Papie to our local park on Sunday, it is a lovely little park, we looked for acorns in 'Totoro's forest', tried out all the equipment in the play area then moved onto the assult course, Ebi-kun likes to call this the ninja thing...

Daddy-ebi also got in on the action, heaven knows what he is trying to do.

After a good run around at the park we went home for a BBQ and I must say Daddy-ebi did much better that the last time we go the BBQ out. We had japanese style, so no burgers, sauasages or chunks of steak, it was small pieces of beef, chicken and veg followed by yaki-soba all washed down with a beer or too, a great Sunday afternoon.

Of course, Ebi-kun had to get in on the BBQ making groove, this is what he rustled up for lunch...

The SFG is doing well, it has been two weeks since we planted the seeds, the square at the front are Ebi-kuns carrots which are doing well. The ones at the back are brussel sprouts, I bought them as plants.
These are the turnips, also planted from seed, we also have broccoli, chives, cauliflower and spinach all sprouting well. I ordered some swede and parsnips, I'm not sure if they will survive but I am really hoping they will be ready for Christmas. 

Last night I made a couple of felt brooches but I haven't had chance to photograph them yet. Today we are off for a crafters lunch which I am really looking forward to despite the fact that I have lost my voice and have been coughing like I smoke 60 a day (I don't smoke at all!). At least I have got Nana here to keep Ebi-kun in line since I can't do any shouting :o)

A long weekend

In more than one way, I was feeling off most of the weekend so we didn't get as much done as I hoped, oh well! We did go to a home centre recommended by a friend, she had forewarned me that it has a great craft section which I had a look around, but this is how ill I felt, I didn't buy ANYTHING, I think that is the first time I have ever entered a place of craftiness and not found anything I HAD to have LOL. When we finished up there we bought a few bits and bobs from the house section before heading to the garden centre part to stock up on peat moss and carrot seeds. I also fell for a lovely black plant, my inner goth said I must have it, so into the basket it went, I looked it up when I got home and it is a Black Pearl Pepper plant. When we finished with the garden stuff we went to the pet section - no we don't have a pet, unless you include Ebi-kun but he likes to look at the dogs and fish.

Just look at these meals and cakes - not for humans but our little doggy friends

and then there is the doggy pick and mix!

but this is what really made me laugh, it is an automatic dog washing machine, sadly there was no dog in it :o(

So, here is the finished SFG, I forgot to take pictures after we planted the black pepper plant and Brussel spouts, I am really hoping they will be ready for picking at Christmas. We also planted carrots, red carrots, chives, turnips, cauliflower, broccoli and spinach all of which, according to the packets were OK to plant at this time of year - here's hoping.
This little box of 4 has been claimed by Ebi-kun as his garden, here he is watering his red carrots. Of course The Carrot Seed has been a favourite bedtime book this weekend.
I wasn't organised to make a muffin tin dinner this weekend so instead I did a 'construct your own robot' dinner. Using leftover pasta I made pasta omlette in my Japanese rectangular pan then cut it up so I had a body, head and legs, the arms were made from scraps from the body. Then I added some bits to make buttons, eyes etc. And left him to it....
One yummy looking robot :o)  This would be easy to do with toast too, it was a big hit so I think we will be doing it again some time.

My parents arrive on Friday (mom told me it was Thursday but only after double checking the tickets did she realise she lands the day after take off - phew!) It is the first time they have seen the house so I want to get it in some kind of order. My 'stash' has taken over the upstairs cupboard which means I have no where to shove the winter blankets and the pantry seems to have a life of its own, the boxes in there seem to be reproducing quicker than mice! We still have 2 boxes under the computer desk that have never been unpacked - we moved in a year ago, so this week will be the week of sorting!

On another note, I found some more cute things to go in the shop but I think I will do one big update probably later in the week, hopefully the weather will clear up so I can take some nice photos. 

and now for something completely different....

Saturday we went for a big shop at the home centre, they are refurbishing soon so there was 20% off everything - super! So, we got everything we needed to start our SFG (square foot garden). Now, when we planned the back yard I knew nothing of SFG, in fact it was on of my blog readers who put me on to it, thank you! So we don't have the space to do the traditional 4x4 garden, not to be put off I designed it so in  the back yard we would have a 2x5 box, 3x3 box, 2x2 box and a single box which would give us room to get to all the squares too. 

So this is what it looked like at 8.30am yesterday

Daddy Ebi cut the wood and build the boxes whilst I dug over the soil to remove any weeds and flatten it all out, Then, I put the anti weed growing stuff down (the black stuff you can see) and painted the boxes, with the help of Ebi-kun (don't be fooled, he only did about one third of the side of that box then gave up). My painting skills were rather Jackson Pollock like, mainly due to it being SO hot and I just wanted to get it done.
Then, daddy ebi carried on making the boxes for the front garden - erm, patch is more accurate, so I started to mix up Mel's mix, which, I can tell you was back breaking work. I was so happy when daddy ebi had finished the boxes and offered to take over so I could go and paint the front boxes.
By 4.00pm the weather had changed and the biggest blackest cloud was hovering above us so we went into 'super fast mode' to try and get it all done, I tipped out most of the stone bags - another back killing job then I gave up  but daddy ebi kept mixing up the compost mix until the last second, which is when he had to finish because he ran out of peat moss.

Is is a little boy or is it a sunflower in the front garden?

So, by the end of the day we were almost done, we have some more of Mel's mix to make and then need to put the grids on top of the boxes and the we are ready to plant seeds - yippee. The home centre had autumn seeds out so we got carrots, both red and orange, turnips, spinach, chives, pansies, violas and erm something else!

Today my back is killing me, the reason why I don't do gardening LOL. At least we only have to do the hard stuff once - according to the book anyway.

If I manage to get all the housework done today I plan to do a bit of sewing, a new idea for my shop and I hope to add some more bento bags sometime today too...

****UPDATE****

new bento supply bags and bento kits in the shop plus cute, cute, cute appliques :o)