Produce Flaunting

We have been accused of produce flaunting because of this impressive display of butternut squash in our windowsill. There are several more in our pantry (ones with blemishes that won't store well) and more than a dozen still out there. If you had this much butternut squash wouldn't you flaunt it too? Of course, the only thing better than this much butternut squash would be this much of several varieties of squash because then it'd be even prettier. :)

Garden of Eden

A month ago our garden looked impressive, but we weren't actually doing a lot of eating from it. The bounty arrived a couple weeks ago, and we are striving to keep up. Austin is an amazing, devoted gardener and Tucker is his little apprentice. Tucker can't help himself but spend his days in the garden. Every opportunity he is out there checking for raspberries and corn and cucumbers.
Amazing corn...

Next year we'll do bush beans so it's easier for Tucker to pick

Raspberries and blackberries are threatening to take over the world!

We planted lettuce in a pot on the north side of the house this year so we can have some even when it is really hot--we need to do more next year because it worked!

I love winter squash!

Good thing we have a whole field of it!!!

These are our cukes starting to climb a trellis (we succession planted them after the sugar snap peas).

LOTS of tomatoes. I think I have some canning to do! We are especially loving the Roma tomatoes.

We actually have peppers this year!

Tomatoes and blackberries from today...


Tomatoes from yesterday (plus the pot of tomato soup I made in the fridge!)


Carrots galore!


My gardening efforts with the flowers are so sad compared to Austin's green thumb in the vegetable garden. But then again, my "efforts" are just about nonexistent!

Garden update

Our garden weathered our long vacation much better this year than in years past because we had house sitters this year. In fact, Ben the dog weathered the long vacation better than in years past as well--he always is hyped up and neurotic when we pick him up from the kennel, but I think he might have liked the house sitters better than he does us (more treats?). His welcome home to us was more like "Oh, you guys again?" (Okay, slight exaggeration.)

Tonight we were doing our mid-year garden review and here's how things stand:
-Great corn (looks like we'll be in business for a long time due to Austin's strategic successive plantings)
-Bumper crop of cherry tomatoes
-Regular tomatoes are bouncing back nicely from some rot issues and look like it will be our best crop yet
-Beans are a much better variety than last year, but we could easily eat double what we've planted
-Malabar spinach is a new type of heat-resistant green that is working out really well and is tasty
-The pepper plants we grew from seed turned out to all be weeds and so we have no peppers
-Our basil has been slower than hoped for--next year we'll jump start things with starters rather than growing this from seed--we haven't been able to make any pesto yet (and my boys can't eat the store kind because of nut contamination issues)
-Not nearly enough okra
-All of our squash (winter and summer) shriveled up and died--this is the same thing that happened to all but the earliest squash that we planted last year. Next year we'll have to do early squash, and the hardiest types available (zucchini and butternut)

As for the fall, we're set to plant four old stand-bys: mesclun, spinach, kale and brussel sprouts and we'll try three new things: rutabaga, turnip and fennel. We've also decided to switch back to buying all our seeds from a local mail-order seed company rather than scrounging packets together from the hardware store and big box stores. I think some of our lackluster garden performers may be due to seed quality and choice.

Fruitivore

Tucker is a fruitivore. One of the most common things I hear in the kitchen now is, "Does Tucker want a mango?" (Tucker likes posing rhetorical questions.) One day last week I went to the store solo and bought some mangoes unbeknownst to Tucker. Tucker woke up from his rest time, came downstairs and he was like a bloodhound, he instantly knew there were mangoes in the house, even though they were completely out of sight (waiting to get ripe). We finally convinced him that they were not ripe and that we would have to wait for them to ripen... he ceased and desisted from his militant campaigning for one, but magically sensed the exact day (several days later) when they would be just barely soft enough to be able to convince us to give him one.

Recently Tucker went missing outside for a couple of minutes while Austin was working out. Austin found him behind the garden, picking raspberries on the outside of the garden fence. He has a knack for picking a berry and then holding it up to ask if it's ripe (by then, of course, the only answer we can give is "sure, why don't you eat it?"). Not that Tucker is super concerned with whether something is ripe or not. He definitely would eat all of the (still green) blueberries on the bushes in our garden if given the opportunity.

The lesson behind all this is that it's not possible to grow too much fruit, especially berries. The raspberries are on their way out, but the blackberries are about to start and it looks like it's a bumper crop. Unfortunately, Ben has learned that he has access to some of the berries if he peruses the garden fence near the berry patch... he may not be the smartest dog in the gene pool, but he is very committed to his causes.

Interesting Volunteer Garden Specimen

I know this kind of looks like a carrot we buried upside down in the soil just for kicks (except for the fact that it's hollow in the center). In actuality, we don't go burying hollow carrots upside down in our garden for fun, and it turns out that our garden is host to a really weird type of fungus called the stinkhorn (or at least that's my best guess as to what it is).

Last year we noticed these pinkish orange fingers growing randomly here and there in our garden beds. They are kind of disturbing, and very noticeable--the kind of thing that makes you raise your eyebrows and ask if that kind of thing can really grow in nature. They get bigger than the one I've taken a picture of which is already at least three or four inches tall. So far this year, this seems to be our lone random pointing finger but there's still time.

34 Tomato Plants in the Ground

Since we've been married, we've never quite had enough tomatoes. Usually tomatoes are the epitome of garden bumper crops, but they've been disappointing for us, especially the past two years since moving to our new house. Last year all the ones we planted from seed died and we had to replace them with ones from Lowe's which apparently all carried a tomato blight which in turn killed all the new plants before the fruit ripened.

This year will be different.

Austin got an early start and planted the seeds about 5 weeks ago, aiming to have respectable seedlings by beginning of May. Instead, these seeds decided to outdo themselves, and became monster tomato plants within a few weeks. They became so tall we had to put them in a cardboard box so that they wouldn't topple over before they could be safely planted and staked in the garden.

Our last frost here is about May 1st, so we really didn't want to set them out until then, but by the beginning of last week the tomato situation in our sunroom was getting ridiculous. Finally, this weekend, with no frosts on the long term weather forecast, Austin took the plunge and put them out.

He filled up a whole garden bed with them, and still has 6 plants reserved in case a few die. I thought he should plant the remaining 6 anyway; I mean, what's there to lose? He thinks I'm insane. 34 tomato plants should be an amazing amount of tomatoes if all goes well. You can see by the picture below it really is a lot of tomato plants.

And this is Austin protecting the plants tonight from an impending frost.

This is Tucker helping Austin water the tomato plants (yes, Tucker's trying to poke a screwdriver into the stream of water).

Betrayed, again, by the squash

It is time for our squash to die. It is WAAAY past time for them to die, actually. What summer squash is still looking chipper into August in Virginia? I've been telling myself that it is dying, but the problem is that when I go into the garden it is still there, and it seems so wasteful not to harvest what's there.

There were 11 squash sitting on my counter from a few days ago until today when I gave a bunch to the chickens (that had gotten past their prime from their counter-sitting), and shredded the rest (14 cups worth) for muffins and more frozen squash.

But then, I went to the garden, and what was there? Nine more summer squash. Argh!!!

I refuse to freeze any more squash, absolutely refuse. Austin refuses to take the squash with him to a men's group meeting tomorrow morning at church (he claims no one will want them... I'm not sure I care). I think the only option now is a box at the end of our road and a "FREE SQUASH" sign.

Volunteerism

We have three volunteer pumpkin plants that randomly sprouted in different parts of our garden. I think they're from seeds from our pumpkin last year that didn't compost thoroughly. Our planned pumpkins have just gotten in the ground, but our volunteers are almost ripe (the one in the pic is the first one we picked). Not sure it feels like pumpkin weather to me, but I appreciate their enthusiasm.

In other gardening news, I am really sick of summer squash. This past week I took six grated squash (14 cups!) and sauteed them with garlic and onion and olive oil and herbs, white beans, and then pureed it and added some sausage. It was decent; a good use for squash, but not so good that it all got eaten up before it needed to be frozen. That is on top of the five or so I pawned off on Helen and David for a Michigan BBQ, and another 6+ that I brought to church (and left, before I could see if they were all claimed).

A surprise

I had forgotten that hosta can flower because the deer nibble our hosta to the ground. Maybe the deer are being nice to me this year, or maybe their quality control is going down, but they forgot to decimate one of the hostas this year, and even let it flower.

Bad hospitality

First I made zucchini muffins for my Book Group. But then, my hospitality sunk even lower, as I begged and pleaded with everyone to take some squash home with them.

I managed to pawn off 15 summer squash on friends last night, not counting what I slipped in the muffins.

It was a great night.

If you have two summer squash plants...

...pull one up.

This is the wisdom about summer squash in the latest Eating Well magazine. The point is avoiding the dreadful bounty of summer squash that quickly overwhelms a person, a family and a freezer.

We sort of took this advice in that we decided not to plant any zucchini this year, which would cut our summer squash yield in half right off the bat. However, we did plant yellow summer squash, we planted more than two seeds, didn't pull any up, and we are paying for it now.

I spent yesterday afternoon processing about 15 summer squash to get things taken care of before we leave on vacation. That yielded 30 cups of densely packed shredded squash. 30 cups????!!! I wouldn't wish that on my best friend.

What did I do with 30 cups of summer squash? I made zucchini muffins (a triple batch that doubled the amount of squash the recipe called for), summer squash soup, and squash hashbrowns with onion and potato. I still had at least a third of the squash left over that I froze, shredded, in ziplock bags.

The muffins are definitely good... but then again, it would be hard to make a bad sweet bread.

Austin thought the soup was good, and my brother in law Matt liked the hashbrowns. By the time dinner rolled around all of it looked terrible to me. After being elbow-deep in squash all afternoon the last thing I wanted to do was eat it! But there are lots of leftovers for lunch....

Our garden

Nancy wanted to know what we have in our garden this year besides bumper crops of snap peas and lettuce.

Let's see...

*We're trying corn for the first time, and have staggered two plantings so we'll have a lot of corn, for a long time.
*Tomatoes (cherry and regular)--this is the first time we've grown them exclusively from seed and didn't cheat with seedlings
*Green peppers--these are not looking very good, but then again peppers haven't ever really worked well for us
*Winter squash
*Cucumbers--we had to get some seedlings as our seeds were wiped out
*Okra--this is supposed to be easy to grow, but our plants aren't looking great
*Pole beans
*NO Zucchini!!!
*lots of herbs, including a bunch of basil to dry and to freeze in pesto

It looks like some of the blueberries we planted will yield a little bit of fruit this year and maybe some blackberries or raspberries, but I think that will be about it for our fruit until things mature for at least another year or two (we planted a bunch of different fruit trees last fall).

Later on in the summer we'll be planting pumpkins, fennel, and then starting in on our cool season crops (cabbage, broccoli, kale, collards, brussel sprouts, spinach, arugala etc.). We missed planting potatoes and onions but next year we'll get those in the ground in the spring.

Austin gave me a pressure canner for Christmas, so it will be interesting to try my hand at preserving things later in the season. I'm especially hoping for a bumper crop of tomatoes!

Projects

These are pictures from last week, of the projects I did when Helen and David were watching Tucker. Most of my time went to overhauling our guest bathroom. Instead of ripping out our old, ugly, dilapidated medicine cabinet, vanity and light, I sanded them down and primed and painted them a bright white. I also put a fresh coat of paint on the floor, found some fun knobs to paint, and voila, a new bathroom. (Of course, we also got a new counter for the vanity... if you saw our old one you'd know why!)




I also learned how to refinish old furniture, and fixed up my nightstand and dresser that were marred and crackling after many years of love (we have Austin's grandma's furniture!).



And in the time left over, I weeded and mulched this garden bed, which was just about going feral it was so overgrown. I'm halfway through moving the railroad ties to define the bed more neatly--in the pic, the bottom is done but the top is not. Next on the agenda: what to plant? I'm looking for easy and inexpensive. Any suggestions would be welcome....

True wealth is...

... a thriving fence-full of sugar snap peas. (Incidentally, I'm not saying this is my exclusive definition of wealth, but you know, it is a good one.)

I remember when I was little, one of our neighbors, Mr. Nagle, grew snap peas and taught us how to pick them. What a life, I thought.

The romance with snap peas is that you get to eat them right off the vine, nothing else required. The only other veggies I put in that category are cherry tomatoes. Other than that, there are lots of things to eat raw, but most are better cooked or in a salad, or chopped and washed or whatever.

Added to the mystique of the snap pea, is that it's a crop you have to hit just right, especially down South where it gets hot fast and they wither. Another few weeks, and they'll be in revolt. But now, look at that beauty!

Good gardening books

Anybody who knows both Austin and I, knows that Austin is the real gardener. He's the one who plants things, and it just works. I plant things and... well, it's getting better. :)

My friend Halvey wants to know what a good gardening book is, so I did the natural thing, and asked Austin. Here are his recommendations:

*Four Season Harvest by Elliot Coleman
*Ruth Stout's No-Work Gardening Book
*Weedless Gardening by Lee Reich (according to Austin, this one is the best)

As soon as Austin suggested these two books, I realized he's trying to make converts into our way of gardening. Of course, these books are good how-to manuals, but they also have a lot to say about the philosophy behind a certain way to do gardening (no tilling, few inputs other than compost/mulch, etc.). I'm not sure there IS an unbiased gardening book, because at some point one book is going to say "now you go and dig up a bed": and our book is going to say "now you're NOT going to dig up the bed."

What is our gardening system? Last year we established a dozen fixed, permanent, semi-raised beds, with paths in between. From now on, no human foot is going to step on those beds and compact them. From now on, we're not going to unnecessarily mess with the soil structure in those beds (apart from the specific act of planting/harvesting) and adding lots of good compost on top. We won't till our garden every season. We plant in beds, not rows, so we don't follow all the spacing requirements on little seed packages. And we suppress weeds by thick mulch/compost layer, not by chemicals.

Regardless of what you decide a good system is, the above books are good reads. It is pretty amazing what Elliot Coleman does for eating fresh out of his garden throughout the four seasons, even in Maine.

Oh, and good luck, Halvey!

Why I love Virginia

...For shorts and flowers in March (actually, most years our crocuses appear in February!).

Grow, little veggies

Snow is on the ground, but our first seeds are already in our garden (sugar snap peas), and we have four flats of starts in sunny spots indoors. Maybe not everyone keeps flats of starters in their upstairs bathroom, but it seems to be working well. Tucker goes in there regularly and points at them.

I'm excited for our garden. It has been two years since we really had a great garden, and I've missed it. Austin wants to plant corn for the first time. We're also trying to establish a berry patch. We even are thinking about reusing old windows that are in the basement to make a greenhouse and seriously extend our growing season. A couple years ago we had fresh greens through January, and that was just with a cold frame!

This year will be a bit rough, though, in terms of the garden's soil quality. Last year we choked the grass out with newspaper and cardboard and mulch to establish the permanent no-till beds. This year we'll plant right into those beds, which will at places entail planting through a layer of still-present newspaper. But it works really well at suppressing the weeds, and we will build up the beds with our compost, and if this garden is like our last one, by next year the soil will be looking pretty good. I love thinking that (God willing) we hope to be here 10 years from now... what will the soil be like then? More importantly, what will our fruit trees be like then?

So far Tucker likes the garden, too. When we're outside he goes down to it so he can swing the gate. (The only problem with this is that the dog takes advantage of the baby and goes into the garden when Tucker's manning the gate.)