Blackberry Peach Crisp Recipe

I picked these peaches today off of my tree to make some Blackberry Peach Crisp. Yum! 

Blackberry Peach Crisp with toasted pecans....what a great summer dessert using fruits from your garden! 

RECIPE FOR FRESH BLACKBERRY-PEACH CRISP 

1 cup of quick cooking oatmeal
1 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup butter of room temperature butter
6 to 8 medium fresh peaches sliced  (enough to cover bottom of 9 x 9 or larger casserole dish) 
1/2 cup fresh blackberries (or raspberries)
1/2 cup pecan halves or pieces
3 teaspoons cinnamon
3/4 teaspoons salt 

Always use REAL BUTTER for your Peach Crisp...it will taste better! 

Combine oats, sugar, flour, cinnamon and salt. Add butter and mix. Cut butter into oats mixture. Arrange sliced peaches in a 8 x 8 or 10 x 6 inch, oiled baking dish. 

Fresh Blackberries from my bushes! I am getting a good crop this year. Thanks to Barbara Butler for sharing her thinned out blackberries with me.  This yield is just todays, picked from only 2 plants. 

Here are the peaches from my tree right before I peeled them and sliced them for my Blackberry Peach Crisp. 

I peeled my peaches but you do not have to. I've done it both ways, skin off and skin on and it's always good no matter what. . My tree peaches are just VERY fuzzy, so I like to remove the skins and slice them up. 

You can see my blackberries added! Yum!  This is right before I added the pecans and popped it into the oven! 

Cover peaches with a few squirts of lemon juice so they don't turn brown, and a few teaspoons sugar. Spread the blackberries around.  Mix up all the rest of the ingredients in your mixer and then sprinkle the crumb mixture evenly over the fruit. Top with pecan halves or pieces. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes at 350. Let set for 15 minutes before serving. Top with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

You can see those yummy toasted pecans. I just lay them all over the top and they toast so nicely! 

This is right before I took a giant bite. mmm.....

Lavender Gifts from the Garden

Love this little idea from Celebrations at Home.

I LOVE this idea. What a great party favor for a shower or hostess gift.  My lavender bushes are so HUGE now I think taking a little piece of the lavender off and putting it into pots is something I'm going to try. Let's see if it works.  The little garden "stake" is also cute. It has Thank You rubber stamped on the little ruler of wood.  Gotta love a homemade gift. 

 

How to Split Lavender Plants  (according to eHow)

• Water your lavender one to two days before division. To divide, use a shovel or spade to dig around your clump of lavender. Dig around all four sides, about 4 to 6 inches deep, and cut in under the main section of your plant . Pull down on your spade or shovel's handle to lift the lavender out of the soil. If the clump is too big, dig down in the middle of the clump to make smaller, more manageable sections. 

  I'm going to try this in the fall for the best plant splitting results.  I hope there are still some blooms in September! I can give some lavender as a gift to my neighbors and friends! 

How to Plant BULBS like Hostas Daylillies and Iris Bulbs

I just LOVE this Daylilly. It's one of my favorites in the garden this past summer. I had planted it just last year, so it's the first time I'd seen it come up. What a beauty!  

As Rudyard Kipling was known to observe:

"Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
By singing:--"Oh, how beautiful!" and sitting in the shade,
While better men than we go out and start their working lives
At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner-knives"


                                     Hostas
Hostas are some of the best bulb perennials of the garden. I love them. They will add a beautiful green mound to every flower bed. They are great shade plants, so they don't do so well  in full sun. They also have flowers, which are a great feature in some of the varieties. If you have any partly sunny /partly shady spot at all, you should try some hasta bulbs. They are hardy, and they also work well as groundcovers. I love their little mounds in my front flower beds and under my deck by the pond.

This  neat photo of Hostas growing well is from the Garden Park of Oak Park, River Forest

IRIS
These bulb plants  bring beauty to a garden in the sun or shade. They will bloom in the early summer or late spring, and have beautiful foliage too. I've always loved this plant and there are some exciting new varieties to grow, Most are purple and blue in color. But I have quite a few varieties, even bearded iris and some white iris. All are very special, as you can see. 
  Beautiful IRIS from South Texas Gardening. 
 
DAYLILLIES 
Photo from Perennials Made Easy. Here are many varieties to choose from at Nature Hills website.

My favorite bulbs are daylillies. They come in so many colors and are sooooo easy to plant and have flourish in the garden. I find them at Farmer's Markets where there are flower growers there. They will always give me a good deal for some unusual varieties. And I don't have to pay shipping!  

Here are just a few I planted last year and they came up so pretty! 

Here's How to Plant Bulbs

1. Plant your iris 2" deep and 3"-4" apart for the most brilliant display. The bulbs look like small pointed onions; plant with the point facing up.

2. After planting, water well soaking the area. 

3. If you are putting them in pots or containers here is a good guide:

                For 12-15" pots - plant 9

                For 10" pots - plant 7

                For 8" pots - plant 5  

4. Most iris love full sun, hostas like partial shade, so be sure to check your bulb's recommendations before choosing a spot to plant.

I love this garden photo from VW Garden. Check it out HERE.  

I've been enjoying the perennials in our flower gardens a lot this summer. I think planting a few more sets of bulbs in different areas will be a great goal this fall. I'll be looking for some unique varieties this week. Some good deals can be found at Costco and Home Depot soon too.

My Berry Gardens

Our berry bushes are doing pretty good this year....I've added a few new fun things to the garden too. 

I love these copper end caps we put on our oldly moldy deck. They are solar so they come on at night all by themselves. It is really pretty to go stand out on the deck now. They let off this neato glow, automatically!

My concord grape vines are doing well.  I'm going to learn how to make grape juice this year if it kills me! My son-in-law grew up on the stuff. So maybe his mom can teach me how to do it.  It should be a fun kitchen event....me learning how to make grape juice from smashed grapes.  What next? 

We added some green gRaPeS last year too!  I hope they taste sweet and that these birdies don't get at them first! 

Blackberries are lookin REAL GOOD!  

But the raspberries are dyin on the vine!  It's that Utah July heat, 106 the other day! 

My hummingbird feeder is hanging here empty!  THAT's why the birds are flying around my glass door looking in at me....they are wondering when we are going to refill their juice!  So sweet!  

I thought this was cute so I got it for a particularly hot part of my deck and I'm adding it to a flower pot. 

Cute deck chairs I got from Walmart for only $10 each! Such a DEAL! 

I got these chairs and pillows at Walmart last weekend. They will match my patio umbrella.  The deck is looking a LOT better since the deck paint and the additional furniture!  Check out the deck paint to see my Restore Deck Paint.

Here are 2 more I went and bought.  Now I have a cute seating arrangement.  I want to go look for a cute table now to add to the little trio of chairs.  

Well my raspberries are not doing anything in this terrible Utah heat, so I went and bought some at the store. I made some yummy cupcakes instead of doing the garden weeds......snicker.....

And wouldn't you like a bite of this? Doesn't it look yummy?  Check them out at The Weekday Chef.
This is what I do when I've got stacks of stuff to do.  I play with food.  :D

Vegetable Gardening

I am trying to ignore the weeding in my garden I need to do today. I'm still in my jammies reading a dieting book while watching "The Doctors" on T.V. talk about how we need to stop eating sweets and diet soda. Gosh, I thought diet soda was better than drinking sugary regular soda. But THE DOCTORS said it makes you crave sugary sweets. THAT must be my PROBLEM!! Stupid diet soda!!  

Cute gardening stuff...the hubs is working on a potting table for me.

So.....I guess I'll go pick something HEALTHY out of my little vegetable garden.  I have squash, zuchini, tomatoes, peppers, herbs and a pumpkin. That's all I did this year.  Other years I have done green beans and corn, but this year it's just the two of us, so I'm going easy on myself! 

Picking stuff from the garden the hubs snapped this very bad pic of me. :D

Tomatoes growing in the cages...looks like a good crop this year. 

I cut a bunch up and made a 7 Layer Dip! 

It's so rewarding to use stuff from your own veggie garden to make something for your own family, isn't it? Yeah! IT IS! 

tOmAtOeS

   I always start the tomatoes out in a tomato cage.   We've already gotten a few delicious tomatoes. Gotta have a BLT very soon!                          

yEllOw sQuAsH...very HEALTHY! 

GREEN zucchini - who doesn't LOVE Zuchini Bread? 

This year I also planted some cucumbers. They really look alot like a zuchini plant. I usually can't really tell one squash from the other plant till I get some of the veggies growing on them. Even the flowers looks similar to me!

cHiVeS - I love going to pick a few of these when I need them.  They would be GREAT for an indoor garden....Hey!  Great Idea!  

First Fruits (and veggies) of the harvest...

My cucumbers are pretty good this year! I put one in a salad last night and it was delicious! Aren't they so chubby and cute? 

 We planted tomatoes, squash, zucchini, bell peppers in green and yellow, onions, and beans.  Oh and the radishes my class did, I brought one home and replanted it.  John got out all his tomato cages from the garage. And of course we had to fix like a GAZILLION sprinklers! What is up with those constantly breaking sprinkler heads? Don't love those things.

We planted about 4 varieties and I think I still like "BETTER BOY" the very best. 

They always come in fast, they don't split open like some varieties, and they are delicious too. 

 We are lazy weeders.  I just want it to look good and I want to have fresh veggies...... and beautiful things everywhere....but I don't want to worry about it! I don't ask for much do I?

The garden looks a WHOLE lot better here in the after picture... we've got tomatoes finally ripening too!

It's fun to see pay dirt on all our hard work....now it's fun to go outside again!
I think we figured out the secret....just to do a little bit every few days...it was discouraging at first....but seeing it get better over time...(and still a ways to go) has been very rewarding.  And maybe...just maybe I'm not such a black thumb after all!

Fruit Trees in the Garden

I love fruit trees. We have lived here 12 years and we planted our first fruit tree that first year. We added a new one every year for the first 5 years. The last year we did berry bushes and grapes.  Now they are a lot of fun to watch them grow and bear fruit.

We don't have a lot of apples this year....but the ones we have are always tasty. 

Here is when my aPpLeS  were just starting to grow from the flower buds....

Here's the APPLE TREE, (and my little Boston Terrier, Bruce) 

We had put in lots of years of care on the fruit trees years ago,  and they are finally FINALLY, starting to produce....not lots of stuff mind you...maybe a FEW BOWLS of fruits per tree....but it's yummy and very fascinating to watch those trees just do their "thang".

Concord gRaPeS....I'll do a post on how to make grape jelly SOON!  Or how about Grape Juice?  Yum! 

Grape gardens are getting bigger and they look pretty yummy too! 

I have green grapes and concord grapes and they grow organically every year without me doing too much with them! 

Nectarine tree....looking almost ripe! 

The lone nectarine...I hope birds don't get it before I do! 

Well, it's my own fault I waited too long for these nectarines and some birdies got the top one! Darn! 

My peaches did the best of all the fruit trees this year.  I have about 6 bags frozen so far and have made peach crisp twice already! 

We  have an apple , a peach and nectarine, and an apricot tree.  None of them ever have done really fantastic,  except the apple.  I think our soil is kinda sandy. The yard needs constant care with veggie gardens and 2 ponds, flower beds and all.  And I'm getting so lazy. But today I picked peaches! 

Peaches on the peach tree....really nice this year!

I made some yummy peach crisp at Weekday Chef. my other blog. Check it out! 

No black thumb here.  I love this tree. It is my favorite fruit tree in the whole garden. The Peach tree a great shade tree too.

Ya gotta have some wind chimes.....

 We are lazy weeders.  I just want it to look good and I want to have fresh fruits...... and beautiful things everywhere....but I don't want to worry about it! I don't ask for much do I?

It's been fun to pick the apricots too...we eat these right up. I never have to make jam out of them... (I let my mom-in-law do that....sneaky me).

Wow, do you think the hubs got my good side in this awful picture? I think I'm gonna fire as my photog. 

aPrIcOtS and cute little granddaughters in the hammock! 

Marissa and Megan make the cutest addition to the garden, don't they? Love those girls! They are the "apples" of my eye!

 Let's go eat some apricots grandma!  I just LOVE these.  Maybe we could do fruit leather?

I'll have to look into getting a fruit dehydrator.

And my lillies all came up. They turned out beautiful too! 

My berry bushes....just starting to ripen! 

 We fixed up a place down by the jacuzzi for seating too.  It's suddenly become a fun place to hang out again!

Under the deck by the jacuzzi...brightly colored, motion-detection
lighting at night made it more inviting!

My friend Paula, in California, is growing a Mango tree. How fun is THAT! I used to have oranges and lemons in my yard in California. Man I so didn't appreciate my weather and growing season back then.

I would LOVE it! But in the meantime, I'll take my apricots, peaches, nectarines, apples and grapes. And I planted blackberry bushes this year. They are already sprouting too. Let's see what tomorrow brings! Ain't nature grand? In spite of my failings as a gardener, I have plants that give back to me. And that makes me so happy.