I have a million pictures to post from the garden but I need to get to bed tonight so hopefully I can resize them and get them up tomorrow.
It’s of course the millions of zuchini month but I’m not sick of them yet. Tonight I sauteed them in garlic then added fresh tomatoes, basil & parmeson over angel hair. Another favorite meal (with Azure Standard pasta, organically grown & made in Durham, OR) is sauteed or grilled zuchini with our preserved lemon, basil & parmeson. We’ve also had zuchini scrambled eggs and zuchini morning glory muffins. Somewhere I have an old casserole that calls for zuchini sauteed with onion, canned green chilies then mixed with egg, cottage cheese and monterey jack and baked with a bread crumb topping. Always a crowd pleaser but I have yet to make a good monterey jack or try cottage cheese…
Fresh beets from the garden in the form of radicchio/arrugula salad with Wynoochie blue cheese from Estrella and Holmquist hazelnuts. Harvard beets are great to have in the fridge as well and I plan to pull out the last of the beets when we get back to pickle them for my sour patch kid.
Chicken Little ate the first marketmore cucumber from the garden tonight and a good helping of carrots and the we are harvesting the second round of salad greens grown in the shade of the corn. I pulled most of the last of the blueberries off tonight and new round of strawberries is ripening, although the chickens are making short work of them. The artichokes are ready but we haven’t had time to cook them.
One new discovery for me that will certainly keep until our return – I haven’t yet pulled out the bolted mustard and they have formed seed pods. I tried them green and they are like a mild wasabi, in the way that green peppercorns have a distinct flavor that is not the same as dried peppercorns. I’m trying to decide if I should save them to make a sauce for Loki salmon or let them dry and grind them into mustard (or save to plant more next year.) So many choices for the extremely curious…
I have some pictures of monster pumpkins, both pie & jack-o-lantern, the little heads of cauliflower that finally made an appearance deep inside the plants just as I was about to give up and tear them out, and the scarlet runner bean pods finally starting on the vines. The narsurtiums finally decided to check in as well. These are a beautiful red variety with dark green leaves. I started a black narsturtium variety in the backyard but the chickens have been pecking at them – and I thought they were also behind the ragged popcorn plants until I saw the dog eating those the other day. It looks like we may get one or two ears from them which will be plenty to try and see if they pop. They were free seeds from Pleasant Valley so I had nothing to lose.
I finally fought the aphids off the cardoons and then got a new round of them before I had a chance to harvest them. By now the stalks are getting old and tough but I’ll fry them anyway just for grins. I harvested some green garlic that is curing out front and need to finish digging up the rest of the potatoes since the plants are dying back now and the testers I dug up look fully grown to me.
My Meyer lemon tree just arrived (finally!) from One Green World so I can put it in the waiting pot. I’ll move it indoors this winter and hopefully we’ll get some fruit off it year round if the description is accurate. I’m also looking forward to moving the basil indoors and seeing how long it lasts. Why I’ve never thought to do that before I have no idea. I’ve been keeping useless houseplants alive for years but this year I’m getting rid of anything we can’t eat and using that space for sprouting and tender herbs.
And did I mention the apricots? I still have 3 bowls of them in the fridge hoping to eek out time for one last batch of jam, one last cobbler or fruit leather if we don’t get too tired of tripping over the dehydrator. When we get back I’m hoping to see the first of the summer apples at the market – and then I’ll really be busy! I put up 40 pounds of applesauce in December and we’ve run out.
First thing upon our return though – buy another freezer!
The menu sounds good! On the potatoes, let them stay in the ground until the tops have completely died down. Just before you are ready to harvest, avoid watering them for several days (up to a week). Both things ensure that the skins on the potatoes toughen up and that they are then ready for storage. I often just let them stay in the ground for several weeks before pulling them up and storing them because a day longer in the ground is several days longer of good keeping. They like the dark, cool soil as a storage medium.
This is so exciting! I love reading about your adventures! Someday I hope to have a similar garden. Right now I live in the city and I’m just getting started with farmers markets.
KitsapFG – thanks for the tips on the potatoes. I’ve been kicking myself for not getting them out yet so I’ll leave them in until after our vacation. One less thing to deal with!
Gillian – I love your monkey toe shoes! I’ve never heard of those but they sound awesome for running and I love to run. I kinda miss the farmer’s market days since it’s an hour a week instead of say 10 hours a week of my time. But it’s nice not to have to go shopping, and to pick whatever I want to eat for lunch or dinner.
And my kids just love to give the garden tour to anyone walking by, which always ends up with the chickens in the backyard. Have you ever read the book “Fresh Food from Small Spaces”? That really got my mind reeling last winter. The author lives in an apartment and grows quite a bit of food, including sprouts indoors. There is always a way – unless you are busy producing a movie that is.
Thanks for the book recommendation! I’ve added it to my Amazon wish list.