July 9, 2010: Things I Shouldn't Tell You

After all the complaining I did about the cold, I'm not going to say a word about the heatwave we are experiencing right now. I'm not going to tell you it was 100F yesterday, and Mr. Granny and I had to dig up and replace a broken irrigation line. I don't know how long the PVC had been shattered, but I'd been complaining about the front sprinklers not reaching, and brown spots developing in the yard, for nearly a week. Yesterday morning, I noticed the south end of my garden paths were flooded. Upon further inspection, we discovered a crater at the east side of the house, a spot we never see unless we're mowing back there. Digging out the line, we saw it had absolutely shattered back from the sprinkler by at least four feet. It took two days in this heat to repair. One day to dig it out and replace it, the next day to fill the trench and clean up the mess. But I'm not going to tell you it was too hot to get it all done in one day.

I shouldn't tell you it's supposed to get up to 104F today, so about an hour's work was all I managed in the garden this morning. I won't mention the beans didn't get picked because I was sweating too hard, and I couldn't see the beans with all the sweat running in my eyes. I did pick a few raspberries. Very few. So few, it's not worth picking them any more this year. The raspberry harvest has come to an end for my summer berries. I grabbed the clippers and cut out the old canes on the west side of the bed, where it was cool and shady. I'll do the east side tonight, when that side is cool and shady.


Half of the raspberry bed was cleaned out. More of the large new canes will have to be removed, but they will be dug out and given to DaBeardedOne so he can get a bed of them started for next year.


I shouldn't tell you I cut a red cabbage too far down on the stalk, and missed the opportunity for it to give me four more heads of cabbage.


This beauty was ready to cut. I wasn't taking chances it would split if I waited much longer.


If I had cut it farther up, it would have grown four more small heads of cabbage. The arrows point to two of them, there were two more on the other side.


I shouldn't tell you I already missed a zucchini, which will be made into bread this week. The plant isn't all that large, that I should have missed a big one. It must be the bifocals.


See that big zuke I tried to hide behind the others? Tonight's dinner will consist of barbecued chicken breasts, fried zucchini, steamed broccoli and carrots, red cabbage slaw and the last of the raspberries over vanilla ice cream.


OK, enough of what I shouldn't tell you. I can tell you we had the best garden dinner last night. Unfortunately I didn't take photos of it. I did use, fresh from the garden, carrots, potatoes, onions and cabbage. I also used tomato juice, canned from my 2009 garden. I made a turkey kielbasa stew. I put a bit of oil in the electric fry pan, then added 1" chunks of turkey kielbasa, whole baby new potatoes, quartered sweet onions, 1" chunks of carrots, and 1" chunks of celery. I tossed it around and let it brown a bit, then I poured tomato juice over it, added salt & pepper to taste, covered the pan, then turned the heat down to 325 and just let it simmer away, turning everything occasionally with a large spatula, so as not to break up the potatoes. I had to add a bit of water to it twice, but I let it cook down to gravy consistency toward the end. About ten minutes before it was done, I placed wedges of cabbage over the top, covered it again, and cooked just until the cabbage was tender-crisp. I served it with garlic sour dough bread, and an old fashioned Jell-O salad of orange gelatin with shredded carrot and crushed pineapple. I don't know why we were both so hungry for a Jell-O salad, it must have been the heat! I must say, it really hit the spot.


Freshly dug potatoes and carrots, straight from the garden to the pot.


Wednesday night's dinner was equally heavy on the garden produce. We had fried chicken breasts with boiled new potatoes and chicken gravy, Harvard beets, fried zucchini and green beans with bacon and shallots. Our plates were too full to want a salad, but I ate the cherry tomatoes as an after dinner snack.

29 comments:

  1. you captured beautifully what I have been ranting about in one sentence, "the sweat dripping into your eyes"! I am so sick of trying to get anything done in triple digit temps, go ahead and complain, it looks like we are all in the same boat, and misery loves company! Glad you were able to end the day with a lovely garden dinner!

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  2. You had me until the Jello with shredded carrots. For some reason I like plain Jello or orange jello with mandarin oranges in it, but anything else just seems so wrong to me. Even those Jello parfaits with Cool Whip are just wrong too. I swear I would never eat them. And you certainly won't find me licking the spoon to get the last little bits off.

    I got two zukes that were a bit large too, but not nearly the size of yours. I wonder if I let all my zukes grow huge this year, will I get any where to your harvest levels? Nah I like the little ones better.

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  3. Erin, it doesn't take a lot for me to work up a sweat, LOL! Today, with the AC on in the house, I'll at least get some zuke bread made, and the green beans that are sitting in the fridge might actually make it to the freezer. I might even get the kitchen floor mopped!

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    But Daphne, you aren't a child of the fifties. We children of the fifties were raised on Jell-O salads and casseroles made with Campbell's soups. Mr. Granny still likes to eat that stuff!

    If my zukes get any bigger than that one, they don't get weighed, they get composted. This one really isn't a bad size, it could be stuffed and baked or even grilled, and it is a perfect size for zucchini relish or bread.

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  4. you guys have me giggling over the Jell-O! I was hoping if I ignored that part, everything would be okay in my world, but Daphne had to mention it LOL! Gran, I can't be down with the jello, either! Plain jello, ok - anything else and I run for the hills! I still remember my mom making plain jello at holidays because my great aunt just couldn't leave well enough alone with her jello! Although now, it sure does bring back happy memories and I would love to dissect that jello as an adult!

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  5. Erin (and Daphne), you just wait until I thrill you with the Watergate Salad! And yes, I still like it to this day!

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  6. Green beans with bacon & shallots, that sounds amazing! I just picked a big colander of beans and have been looking for ideas, think I found one :-)

    I had no idea cabbage would grow more heads. Pretty interesting how you got the heat just as it left here. Today is much cooler, very rainy but still to humid for my liking. Never satisfied, ha.

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  7. Dan, I just cook the bacon until crisp, then remove it and soften the diced shallots in the bacon grease. Cook the beans until tender or tender crisp,however you like them, then toss with the shallots and crumble the bacon over the top. Later when you get tomatoes, try softening diced onion or shallots in a bit of olive oil, then adding diced fresh tomatoes, a splash of balsamic vinegar and a pinch or two of sugar, heat, then toss it in with your cooked green beans. We love them fixed this way. Salt & pepper to taste for both dishes, of course.

    Yes, we sure did get your heat! at least our humidity isn't too high.

    Yes, the cabbage will usually grow small heads if you cut the main head in the right place.

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  8. You had me chuckling before I even read your post, I spied the title and just knew it would be entertaining.

    Holy zucchini, must be the bi-foculs cause that sucker is HUGE! The heat wave is making for garden misery from coast to coast....sorry to hear the raspberries are closed for the season.

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  9. Okay. I think we really are twins separted at birth. We're getting freaky veggies at the same time and harvesting the last of the raspberries at the same time. I got the very last berries off the canes yesterday and cut out all of the old canes.

    If only we were having twin harvests I'd be sooooooo happy!

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  10. Kelly, knock on wood, but all the heat has done so far is to make things grow even more! I did cut the last of the broccoli, but it wasn't doing much anyway. And I'm eating it as we speak.

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    Cheryl, tell me you like shredded carrots and crushed pineapple in Jell-O, and I'll know we are twins separated at birth!

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  11. Oy! I so feel your pain about the sweat in your eyes. Absolutely hate it when it drips down the glasses and you have to go clean them in order to be able to see. Been contending with that for a good month now, in between hurricanes and tropical waves and hordes of vicious mosquitoes...

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  12. I'm feeling you on the heat. It's absurd.

    Your carrots always look so beautiful!

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  13. Ribbit, the carrots were especially good this year. I'm trying to get more to grow, but I suspect it will be difficult in this heat. I had to take the boards off of them yesterday, and they got baked with 104 degree temp today.

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  14. Well Granny, I wasn't going to tell you that our high on Saturday is supposed to be 80 :)

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  15. Jello? Never heard of it!

    104F? Never heard of it!

    Zucchini? Courgettes, surely!

    Loads of crops? Nonsense; it just doesn't happen.

    Jealous? Me? Not a bit.

    Well, maybe just a little bit...

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  16. I smiled--I had forgotten about orange jello with shredded carrots. My mom ALWAYS made it that way. I'm going to have to make it and see if it's still as good as I remembered..........

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  17. Oh not casseroles with soup. I read so many recipes with cream of mushroom soup in them. I get so annoyed when I'm looking for new recipes. Though my most hated recipe search is for baked beans. I want to make some that don't used canned baked beans. Most of the recipes for baked beans require canned baked beans as the base. That doesn't help me at all when I'm harvesting dried beans from the garden.

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  18. Well, maybe we're fraternal twins. I like my Jello plain. The most I'll do is cut two different flavors into cubes and mix the two.

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  19. Robin, we'll be cooling down into the 90s soon. At least we don't have a lot of humidity, and the mornings and evenings are lovely.

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    TIG, I love you!

    Even though you are a bit odd ;-)

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    Sue, FINALLY! someone who likes orange (or lemon) Jell-O with carrots and pineapple! It's sweet and crunchy and refreshing...it's good stuff.

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    Oh, Daphne, I'm afraid I'm going to have to unadopt you. You must eat fruited Jell-O and steak cubes baked in mushroom/dry onion soups at my house. Raspberry Jell-O with sliced bananas and whipped cream is a real treat here. And my favorite bean casserole, that is getting made this very week, uses three kinds of canned beans!

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    Cheryl, *sniffle*, here I thought we were real, bonded, identical twins. Have you ever even tried it with grated carrots and crushed pineapple? You might be surprised!

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  20. Granny, I think Blogger is eating my comments again. I swear I've left you a few this week and they are not all showing up. :( Anyway, I was going to say (or rather, not say), that since you didn't complain about the hot weather, I'm not going to tell you to stay out of the heat. It just saps all my energy out of me!

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  21. Thyme2garden, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if blogger ate a bunch, it certainly was flaky this week.

    OK, you don't tell me to stay out of the heat, and I won't listen ;-)

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  22. Oh, and there was something else that I asked you in my previous (now-gone) comment. Regarding raspberries, when you said you cleaned out the beds, do you mean that you pruned the plant, or that you pulled them out? You mentioned needing to dig out the bigger canes for DaBeardedOne - can you always propagate raspberry plants like that, by dividing the existing canes?

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  23. Oh, Granny, beautiful pictures. Now excuse me while I run to the kitchen and make some jello!
    ~~Lori

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  24. Thyme2garden, it depends on which type raspberries you have, summer bearing (mine) or everbearing. Summer bearing fruit on 1-year-old canes, so once they finish fruiting, I cut all those canes back to the ground. In the meantime, they've been growing the suckers that will bear next year's crop. If those wander too close to the edge of the bed, I cut them to the ground, too. Next spring, I will chose the strongest 6-8 canes from each plant, and remove all the others. I began with only four plants, so I will leave 24-32 strong canes in that bed each spring. Early in the spring, the tops of those canes will be cut back to about 6" from the top wire, so that I can reach them, and so they will grow some lateral fruit bearing branches.

    I left a few good strong canes near the edge for DBO. I'll cut them back to a couple of feet high, and dig them out with good roots for him to plant. He may get lucky and grow some suckers for next year, otherwise, those four will be the only ones to fruit, as they grow suckers for the next year.

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  25. Dirt Lover, be sure to grate a few carrots into it! LOL!

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  26. Bifocals? Yeah, I gotta use that excuse the next time I miss a zuke! I'm making zucchini bread this week too. ;-)

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  27. Villager, it seems like I make more zucchini bread each year :-0

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  28. You are now the official Pied Piper of Jello. As soon as I read your response I went and started boiling some hot water for Jello and I see Dirt Lover is making some too. Ahhh, the power you have.

    I'm glad you wrote how you trimmed your raspberry canes. I thought you were supposed to cut the tops of the one-year-old cane to get the lateral growth, which is what I did last year for one of the plants. Now I see you're supposed to cut the tops off the two-year-old canes early in the spring to get the lateral growth. I've already cut some of my tops, but I'll leave any others that grow for comparison next year.

    Now I'm off to finish my Jello (with carrots and pineapples).

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  29. Cheryl, I didn't cut mine back this spring, either. I wrapped them around wires, which held them horizontal and also forced laterals to form. Not the best thing to do, but those early canes weren't as thick and strong as these new ones are, and they wouldn't hold up in the wind. The new growth this year has huge, thick canes. I'm looking forward to a really nice crop of berries next year.

    Yay on the Jell-O! I don't fix it often, but when I do we make pigs of ourselves!

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