My 2011 Garden and a Recipe

The garden went in pretty easily this fall and I am hoping I can harvest some great produce. My neighbor was sweet enough to give me 4 cucumber plants (love yah!) that he started from seed. Unfortunately one of them did not survive a tropical downpour that we had a few weeks back. But the remaining three look just fine.

I also planted some marigolds as a border, they remind me of my Grandma and Grandpa that are no longer with us--memories flood back each time I look at the beautiful flowers--you'll see those down below in the updated pics.

I decided to plant the majority of the garden from seed. As you can see, the plants planted are tomato and peppers. And as I said the cucumbers against the fence were grown from seed, thanks Bubba!!!

In the front row I planted seeds for Chinese Cabbage;  the second row is all Romaine; the third row is Collards; the fourth row is Kale.

One of my cutie pies is in the backround modeling our banana trees. We have 3 hands on the trees right now!! That has never happened before, usually we only have one growing at a time. I hope these ripen nicely because we love these small sweet organic bananas!!

This year I once again am growing potted plants up on our second story deck. I will be growing tomato, aloe and a full herb garden as well as micro greens and some lettuce.
So far I have the aloe and tomato planted.

Now let's look at how everything has grown over the past 20 days:

I forgot to mention that I am also growing a pineapple.

Here is a super easy recipe for Raw Cranberry Sauce. It takes about 3 minutes to make and is packed with fresh flavors. I will be having it as part of my Raw Thanksgiving Feast that we will be preparing early this year. I am making a turkey for our oldest son because he LOVES turkey. The rest of the menu is entirely plant based and a large portion of it will be raw so I can indulge also.
Here is the cranberry recipe:

Raw Cranberry Sauce
by Elizabeth @ rawlivingandlearning.blogspot.com

1 large Florida navel orange
1 bag of fresh organic cranberries
1 organic red apple
2 T date fluff (paste)
fresh lemon juice
Using a food processor, process the cranberries into small pieces. Place into a mixing bowl. Next pulse the apple into small pieces, add that to the bowl. Lastly pulse the orange and mix with the apples and cranberries. Gently fold in the date fluff. Drizzle with some fresh lemon juice and gently stir. Chill.

+JMJ+ Today I am grateful for an unexpected gift from the hubby. Thanks sweetie!!