Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

July 9, 2011 By Leanne Vogel July 16, 2015

Holy dirt. It’s 6pm on a Saturday and I’m absolutely pooped. But hey, look at the progress we’ve made in just over 24 hours!

Friday

My goal on Friday was to get most of our front garden sorted out. What I quickly learned is that gardening isn’t exactly thrilling. That is until you blare some DeadMau5, The Prodigy, and a bit of AWOLNATION on your iPod. I may or may not have been spotted dancing on my driveway. No shame, no shame.

Purple = salvia | Behind bench = dwarf arctic blue willow | Beside bench = Variegated feather reed grass | Right corner = Ohlendorffi Spruce| In front of bench = Peachleaf Bellflower

Saturday

We started the day off with a hearty breakfast. I made Kevin an egg + bacon breakfast sandwich and I had a huge bowl of steel cut oats. I loved the flavor of last weeks Peaches n’ cream Overnight Oats that I just had to make a porridge version.

Peaches n Protein Porridge

Bring to a boil:

1/2 cup steel cut oats
1 1/2 cup reverse osmosis water

Blend:

1/2 banana
1 peach
1 organic egg
1/4 cup organic soy milk
1 tablespoon chia seed
2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon extra virgin coconut oil

Once oats are boiling, add in banana mixture. Cover and cook on low for 15 minutes. Whisk every 2-3 minutes. Serve with 1 tablespoon unpasteurized honey. Once breakfast was done and the dogs were walked, we started digging the hole for our tree while we waited for our neighbors to help us with the sod.

Kevin looked oddly happy for being up at 6am digging tree holes. I think it was the breakfast. Just sayin’ ;)

Shortly after the tree was in it’s spot and our neighbors were ready for the action, we started laying sod for our 2 houses. After pushing at least 20 of these back and forth [they must have weighed over 80lbs], laying over 3500 sq. ft of sod;

and stopping for a nibble,

our houses were finally starting to come together!

Our bellies were screaming for food about 5 hours in, so we stopped for lunch. Thankfully, I’d froze a batch of Garden Patch Burgers last weekend for this very occasion, so they were ready to be eaten with little preparation.

I whipped up a batch of fries to increase our lunch carbohydrates to make sure we didn’t crash and burn in the afternoon. Kevin had his burger on white [AH! But you have to have a treat sometimes] buns and I had mine with a rice tortilla. He got more burger, I got more fries. Sounds fair to me ;)

Garden Patch Burgers and Fresh Oven Fries

You can use any type of meat you like for these burgers [for this batch I used extra lean beef + a couple handfuls of mashed chickpeas]. Check out the original recipe here. Fries:

Preheat oven to 425F
Slice 3 potatoes [with the skins on] and place on a baking sheet. Cover with 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil and 1/2 teaspoon Herbamare or other salt.
Cook for 30 minutes, rotating once.

The plan tomorrow includes:

… and napping. I will definitely be writing a post on how I planned the garden, the resources I used, and what I’ve learned, just not tonight. Bath, salad, bed.