June 13 - Wednesday's Walk Around the Garden

Jackpot Zucchini on the left, Early Yellow Crookneck squash on the right.  I've picked my first zucchini, and at least four others are coming on fast.  There are a couple of baby crooknecks, so it won't be long before they are ready to harvest.

I decided to dig the last of the garlic.  It didn't take well to being  transplanted this spring, and the tops were beginning to die and flop over.  I didn't get a great crop this year, but considering the way they were uprooted, it was better than I expected.  Lettuce, caged to protect it from the birds, is nearly ready to harvest.

 The lilies have finished blooming, and are ready to be cut back.  I'll miss their cheerful blossoms and their heavenly aroma.  Earwigs chewed up the zinnias. I tried cutting them back to a healthy leaf....wherever I could find a healthy leaf.

 And here they are, with all but a few late blossoms removed.  I took the wheelbarrow full of blossoms into the garden shed, and it smells delightful in there!  I think I'll just leave them where they are until the aroma fades.

 The lower leaves of the hollyhocks have also been ravaged by insects.  I think it's earwigs doing all the damage.  I'll have to cut off the bad leaves, they're sure not pretty to look at, and the flowers are beginning to blossom.

 Pretty little Johnny Jump Ups, from seed sent by Debbie Clegg.

 The garden shed tomatoes are growing beautifully.

 This is what leaf miners do to my beets if they aren't covered by tulle.  These were planted about the same time as the beautiful, protected ones I've been harvesting, but they are just a fraction of the size.  I'm tempted to just pull them up and throw them away, they are such an ugly spot in the garden.

 The first shelling peas were picked Tuesday afternoon, and eaten for dinner.  Most of the pods still have a few days to go.  I wish they would hurry, as there is a Cherokee Purple tomato volunteer right in the middle of them.  I'm sure it would like a bit of sunlight!  The Carpet of Snow alyssum is also from volunteers.

 Bush beans are blossoming, and the peppers are finally getting some leaves.  It's been a rough, cold, windy spring for them.

 Honey Bear squash from Ed.

 The same lettuce bed as in the earlier photo, sans the cage.  The morning glories along the fence are beginning their climb.  There is one flower on them already, right down at ground level!

 The North Garden is filling in fast.  Most of the bare spots have been planted with carrots, beets and cabbages, and the entire center area (the grass clippings around the half-barrel) will soon be covered by butternut squash vines.  Most of the corn is as high as my legs are long.

 Tomato Alley is a very happy place.  Two of the seven plants are fruiting.

The tomatoes along the West fence aren't as lush looking as the others, but all are blossoming.  The rhubarb is looking rather scraggly, but it was just picked.  The strawberry plants look big and healthy, but no decent berries yet.

June 12, 2012 - Jeff (EG) Blogged!

In case you're one of the many who have missed EG, of Our Engineered Garden, he has blogged!

http://engineeredgarden.blogspot.com/2012/06/new-beginning-new-life.html

I'm sure you'll all want to welcome him back and wish him well.

June 12, 2012 - A Promise of Good Things to Come

June 11, 2012 - Harvest Monday

Harvest for the week of 6/4 through 6/10 

(in ounces) 

Beets - 28.4 

Carrots - 18.8 

Celery - 9.2 

Garlic - 4.2 

Herbs - 3. 

Lettuce - 14.4. 

Onions - 36.7 

Potatoes - 67.5 

Radishes - 4.9 

Rhubarb - 19.1 

Snap Peas - 22.6 

Spinach - 4.2 

Strawberries - 1.4 

Tomatoes - 3.6 

Zucchini - 12.5 

 Total for week: 250.8 oz (15.68 lb.) 

 Total for year: 661.7 oz (41.36lb.) 

 Daphne's Dandelions is the host for Harvest Monday, where everyone can share links to their harvest for the week. Please visit her blog and leave a link, so we can enjoy your harvest photos!

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June 8, 2012 - Carrot Failure

One side of the bed of carrots is producing pretty, long, slender carrots.  The other side of the same bed, planted with the same variety of seed, watered and treated identically, has given me only three good carrots.  I pulled all the rest of them out this morning, and it looks like the culprit may be root knot nematodes, which can also infect lettuce and onions.

Perfect carrots on one side of the bed.

All of the carrots in the other half of the bed were ripped out and thrown away.

I have carrot seedlings coming up in several other areas of the garden.  I hope they aren't affected too.  According to the link, I'll need to plant next year's carrots in this year's corn bed.  

June 7, 2012 - Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard

Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard

AKA

Granny's Garden Meals

 Salads for the week contained mixed lettuces, celery, onion, tomatoes and radishes, fresh from the garden.

Saturday's chicken stir fry contained onion, celery, carrots and sugar snap peas, straight from the garden, along with sweet peppers and broccoli from the freezer (2011 garden).  Stir fry sauce and noodles finished the dish.  The vegetables were tender-crisp and delicious.

On Sunday, I found a pint of home made pizza sauce in the freezer.  The sauce was made with tomatoes, basil, oregano, onions and garlic from last year's garden, and just the thing for a "from scratch" sausage pizza.  I made the crust in the morning, using my food processor, and refrigerated the dough all day.  I removed it 20 minutes before making the pizza.  It was nice and crispy-tender.  I served it with a lovely fresh lettuce salad, with a sweet and sour balsamic vinaigrette.

The first new potatoes, from the garden, were served for brunch on Monday.  The flavor of the fried baby potatoes was good, fresh and earthy, not a bit like old store bought storage potatoes.  Buttered cracked wheat toast, bacon, scrambled eggs (whole eggs plus leftover egg whites from making ice cream) and chilled mixed fruit completed the meal.

Two days of cold, rainy weather kept me from working in the garden, so we ran away for the day on Tuesday, and ate a big buffet lunch at a restaurant.  We returned home in time for dinner, but since we weren't terribly hungry, Mr. Granny had some grilled tilapia and a baked potato and we shared a huge (that's a mixing bowl full!) fresh garden lettuce and green onion salad with hot bacon dressing.  I added a few craisins and walnut pieces to mine.  I usually pour off the bacon grease and substitute canola oil in the dressing, but I was in an adventurous mood so, to the dismay of our arteries, bacon drippings were used.

Wednesday's dinner came straight from the garden to the kitchen.  Fried chicken breast strips were accompanied by buttered baby carrots and beets, and the new potatoes with onions were oven roasted in a foil packet.  Not shown is the salad of fresh garden lettuce, radishes and celery, topped with home made ranch dressing made from fresh picked garden herbs; parsley, dill, chives and garlic.  The fresh vegetables were so delicious, I didn't even eat the chicken!  I did have seconds of everything else, but left room for dessert of home made strawberry ice cream (frozen strawberries from my 2011 garden).

Home made strawberry ice cream.

Mr. Granny said the home made ranch dressing was the best.  

Ranch Dressing

1 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup buttermilk

Chives  (about 1 Tbsp fresh, snipped)

Parsley  (about 1 Tbsp fresh, chopped)

Dill weed  (about 1 Tbsp fresh, chopped)

Garlic (1 clove, chopped)

1/4 teaspoon onion powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

The amounts of fresh herbs I used are approximate, I just chopped and didn't measure.  The flavor was more pronounced after the dressing chilled for a few hours, so don't overdo the herbs!  I combined everything in the blender and processed it until it was smooth.  

Our hostess for Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard is Robin, from The Gardener of Eden.  Be sure to check out her blog to see what others have been using from their gardens, pantries and freezers.

June 6, 2012 - Have I Toad You Lately That I Love You?

Last week I said I wished I had a toad in my garden.  Well, wishes do come true!  Today my daughter called and said there was a toad in the swimming pool, did I want it?  Of course I wanted it!

 Is he adorable, or what?  He's a tiny thing, about the size of a golf ball with legs.

I made him a little toad house, and tucked it back under the flowers in the veggie garden.  I'll probably never see him again, but his chances of survival in my garden are much better than in a mobile home park swimming pool.  I hope he stays here and eats my bad garden bugs.

June 4, 2012 - Harvest Monday

This past week, I harvested the last of the spring spinach, and had my first harvest of snap peas, carrots and potatoes. The carrots, planted in the same bed and from the same packet, but two weeks apart, were stunted and forked from the second planting, yet perfect and straight from the first planting.  The six potatoes were "stolen" from under a single plant, and I didn't dig around for more than we would consume in one meal.  They are perfect!  If this is an indication of what the future potato crop will produce, I will be one happy Granny!

I'm beginning to pull some of my third planting of radishes, and so far they've been much nicer than my earlier ones.    The Walla Walla sweet onions are sizing up nicely, the last one I pulled weighed 5.9 ounces after removing the green top and the long roots.  Three nice green onions, from the seeds that were started inside, were pulled.  The wind had knocked the tops over onto the newly seeded rows in that bed, so the decision was made to use them in the green stage, rather than wait for them to mature.

I pulled the few heads of garlic that had been transplanted into the triangle gardens.   They weren't growing well at all, and can be used now, rather than left to rot in the garden.

The lettuce continues to be the star of the garden, but I pulled the last of the mature heads on Sunday.  There are many more young plants growing, while we try to consume the three large bags that are chilling in the refrigerator.

All but one of the January planted Minigold tomatoes have been moved into the garden.  I've left the prettiest of the four on the patio, where it continues to blossom freely but be the slowest bearing fruit.  The other three have given me a dozen nice little tomatoes this week.

Harvest for the week of 5/28 through 6/03 

Lettuce - 42.4 ounces

Garlic - 3.2 ounces

Tomatoes - 4 ounces

Spinach - 26.5 ounces

Onions - 16.7 ounces

Snap Peas - 3.4 ounces

Celery - 4 ounces

Radishes - 2.6 ounces

Carrots - 3.7 ounces

Potatoes - 10.3 ounces

Total for week: 116.8 oz (7.3 lb.) 

Total for year: 410.9 oz (25.68lb.) 

Daphne's Dandelions is the host for Harvest Monday, where everyone can share links to their harvest for the week. Please visit her blog and leave a link, so we can enjoy your harvest photos!