VEG: General update

written by Yvonne

(Still a little behind in updates. This really should have been posted last week but I forgot I had it ready to go.)

We are very happy with this variety of okra. Not only is the red color gorgeous, the plants aren't as huge as the variety we grew last year. I pruned the leaves on top and around the sides in order to keep the plants to their current size. (We didn't find out until after we pulled up the plants last year that it is OK to prune them back to control their size.)

I used my pressure cooker to make a black-eyed pea soup with okra. (To Rebecca - another fantastic recipe from the pressure cooker cookbook!) Then I made a recipe that used Indian spices (cumin, coriander, turmeric) okra, and onions. It was out of this world, and I'm not even that fond of okra!

Haven't cooked anything more with the peppers since the fajitas.  We did give some to a friend as a birthday gift. We forgot to put our name on the gift bag. Tom said, "I think she'll know it was from us."  :)

This is some cabbage we planted that we didn't think was going to do anything. All of a sudden, it poked up through the pine needles.

And this is the broccoli Tom had stared in peat pots. He moved the pine needles out of the way and just planted the whole pot into the bed.

We finally got to put our newspaper pots to the test. It was time to get seeds started for spinach, winter squash, cauliflower, limas....

lettuces, and collards. So far so good. They held the dirt and even when fully wet, they kept their shape.  We'll see if they last through germination and planting.  If they do, we've just saved ourselves a ton of money on buying peat pots AND we get to recycle our newspapers. Hooray!