Making Apple Crumble with my Lodi Apples

I'm a much better gardener than I am a cook! I tried to make Apple Crumble today with my very own Lodi summer apples, but I mixed up the steps in the recipe. I accidentally added the flour and chopped pecans that were supposed to be for the topping into the apple slices instead.

I didn't want to peel, core and chop more apples, so I put the apples/pecan/flour mix into a strainer and rinsed with water to get the flour off. Then I picked out as many of the pecan pieces as I could without going too crazy. I like pecans so the remaining pecan pieces in with the apples will probably be fine. I've never had apple crumble before! This is going to be so good. :) 

I used this recipe from Delish.com: 

https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/a21581233/easy-apple-crumble-recipe/

Building a Permaculture Fruit Tree Guild

It Began in the Summer of 2018...

Before I moved to this home in Colorado Springs, the yard had been constantly walked over, driven on, and even parked on, so it was very, very compressed. A few years back, I had made a lazy girl's compost pile in the middle there, and a flower border along the driveway.

When I decided to make more flower beds in 2018, I first had to remove the layer of weeds that had surrounded the compost pile. I also discarded the un-decomposed layer of garden debris from the top of the compost pile. Then I turned the dirt over with a shovel and spread out and mixed in the compost that had been created over the years...

I took a trip to my sister's home in Florissant and collected piles of rocks that I brought back to use as borders around the garden and paths.

I used rocks to mark out the flower beds and the pathways, then I dug the path areas down a bit so they would hold water better. (As I went, I tossed the dirt I dug from the paths onto the new garden bed.) 

I hauled in bags and bags of mulch for the paths. The sandy gravel in the new garden contained almost no organic matter, so I mixed in several bags of my favorite soil amendment, Sheep & Peat compost mix, which I get from Home Depot.

I bought a plum tree, so I decided to enlarge the garden area even more and to make it into a permaculture fruit tree guild. I planted my tree, removed more weeds, mixed in more Sheep & Peat compost mix and added more mulch. Then I was finally ready to start planting...

Unfortunately, it was almost October of 2018 by the time I finished all this. Most of the planting would have to wait until Spring.



In the meantime, I'd had to content myself with planting some pansies, daffodil bulbs and a couple of small evergreen trees.

Photos from 2019

By June of 2019 I had planted oregano, garlic, sage, chives, dill, wormwood, comfrey,  echinacea, feverfew, chamomile, nasturtium, tomato 'patio princess', melon 'tigger', melon 'MN midget', and pumpkin 'neon'.

The wormwood was not happy and died by the next year.

By July I had expanded the garden even more and had made several sub-irrigated planters. The tomatoes absolutely loved these planters.

By August everything was really taking off. By this time I had added Goji berry, sweet William, calendula, a few turtle bean plants, and a pretty ground cover. A larkspur volunteer popped up, too.