VEG: A very long post

written by Yvonne

This is a fairly long post because it spans two weeks.  I'll try to keep it short and to the point.

June 25-26, 2011

No one informed this batch of kale that it's supposed to be a cool-weather crop. It is growing like crazy and enjoying all of this summer heat. Further down you'll see one of the things I did with the kale.

A few basil plants doing well. Not enough for the amount of pesto our household requires, but it's on its way.

The red okra is coming along - as are the weeds and grass. (Embarrassing.)

These are rainbow peppers which we are excited about. However we are not as excited about the weeds and grass. (Further embarrassment.)

Oregano and more grass.

Lots of new squash blossoms but I think the majority of squash is done. We trimmed these way back and we'll see if the flowers produce anything more.

Pretty marigolds next to the cucumbers.

Do you see all of these cucumber flowers?  Do you?  Well each one is turning into a lovely, refreshing cucumber. Yvonne is very happy.

This is the amount that we picked just in the last two days.

We also harvested a few more squash (no surprise there), some carrots, and burgundy beans...

and a bunch of kale.

The Borlotto beans were big and plump so we felt it was time to harvest them.

We pulled everything off the vine, not knowing if more will take their place or not. Something tells us these will not keep producing (like the burgundy beans do).

We poured some adult beverages and sat around the table and shelled the entire basket-full of beans. Tom said he did this with his family as a kid, and I've heard others talk about sitting on the porch, shelling beans in the warm summer. Now that I've done it for the first time, I can see why people have fond memories of this activity. Yes, it may be hot (although we were in the nice air conditioning), and yes it can be a tedious task, but it also makes you slow down and just talk with the person you're with. We both found it very enjoyable!

We ended up with about 6-cups of beans. Once we had them all shelled, we discovered that we probably pulled them a bit early.  The ones that had a lot of red on the shell produced beans that were white with a bit of red. The shells that were more green had beans that were also green. But that's OK. It was a learning experience and we certainly ate them anyway.  To cook them, I had to find a recipe that used fresh beans. Recipes with canned beans and/or dried beans are everywhere. But I've never cooked fresh beans before so I wasn't sure how. The source I found said to put just enough water to cover the fresh beans and cook for about 45 minutes. At the end of the cooking time I added basil, tomatoes, s&p, and topped with Parmesan cheese. HOLY COW were they good! You would have thought I'd thrown a ham hock in them because they were so flavorful, but there was nothing of the kind involved.

July 3-4, 2011

This weekend we did a LOT harvesting, a LOT of weeding, and some planting. After a week we decided that the Borlotto beans were not going to put out any more beans so we ripped those plants out.

We harvested the remainder of the garlic, more squash , burgundy beans, carrots, and a BUNCH of cucumbers. How many cucumbers, you ask?

A sink full! And how many is a sink full? 47! Mind you, this is what we harvested this weekend, not what has been harvest to date. I went from being the happiest cucumber lover on the planet to a gal with a problem. What are we going to do with all these? We can't even fit them into the refrigerator! One way I've been using them is by making cucumber water - like they do at spas. Just a sliced-up cucumber in the water pitcher in the fridge. It's SO refreshing - and it uses up one cucumber a day. But geez, even at that rate it will be two months before we get through all these, and they certainly won't last that long. What to do, what to do....

I know! I'll make refrigerator pickles. Have I made them before? Of course not. But going by the name 'refrigerator pickles' one could deduce that you don't actually "can" the pickles, you just stick them in jars with flavorings and park them in the fridge. And that sounded like a fairly simple thing to do. So that's what I did. I consulted several recipes and triangulated among them to come up with a recipe that looked good.  I used some of our own, homegrown garlic.  The garlic wasn't completely dried which might be the reason for its pinkish color. Either that or it's a fungus of some kind that we'll die from, but I'm using them regardless.

After sterilizing the jars I cut up the cukes and boiled water, salt, sugar, and vinegar. I added a combination of spices (peppercorns, allspice, celery seed, mustard seed, garlic and fresh dill) to the jars, along with the cukes and then topped the jars with the liquid.

Volia! Refrigerator pickles. I made enough for four quarts which used about 10 cukes (only 37 more to go!). In about a week, I'll pull them out and give them a try.  The reviews for the main recipe I used said you couldn't tell a difference between these and Claussen. We'll see.

As far as the kale, I sprinkled them with olive oil and salt and put them in the oven at 250 for about an hour to make kale chips. Luckily we harvested enough for two batches because we've been eating them like crazy for two days. They are crunchy and salty just really darn good.

Since the tomato seeds we planted weeks ago never came up (bummer), Tom started some tomato seeds in peat pots.  This allowed us to keep the seeds moist until they germinated (half were up in 5 days, the others in 8). They have been in these pots for a few weeks now and they are ready to plant in the garden.

Tom put up stakes and growing spirals...

and then planted one tomato plant in the center of each. Although our friends Erin, Jennifer and Jill have 14 tomato plants that are bursting with fruit, which they assure us they will share.... well, it's just a matter of pride that we have successful tomatoes.

It was very hot and much sweat was produced. Nevertheless we got all of the beds weeded....

and planted carrots, cabbage, lima beans, marjoram, cilantro, parsley, and chives. Hopefully there is time left in the summer growing season for the herbs to produce.