Harvest After a Vacation

written by Yvonne

The story goes something like this...

We were in St. Augustine from Wed-Sun last week for our nephew Matt's wedding. Brought the dogs, visited with family, ate lots of fried food, drank, played on the beach and at the pool, your standard great beach vacation. The wedding was fantastic too.

As we approach Charlotte on our drive home, I ask Tom, "What do you want to do for dinner? There's really nothing at home to eat." As I say this, I'm thinking 'We have to drive right by our favorite sushi place so I hope he's on the same page with me and wants to pick up sushi.'

He says "It's been raining ever since we left so I be the garden is chock full of veg needing to be harvested. And since very few vegetables have passed our lips since we left home, I know my body could certainly use it."

On the one hand, I was disappointed 'cause I wanted sushi. On the other hand, I hadn't even thought that our back yard would be full of dinner fixin's. And he was right; I needed a good shot of nutrients so a big ol' vegetable salad would be just right.

After unpacking the car and getting the dogs situated, we headed to the garden to scavenge for dinner.  This is what we came up with...

There were actually more cucumbers and tomatoes than this but it started to rain so we left the remainder for another day. I threw together a nice big cucumber, tomato, and pepper salad with a few olives scattered on top. It was exactly what we needed. How great to come home to a yard full of food!  :)

General Update

written by Yvonne

We could have pulled the beets up a while ago, but they're still hanging in there. Good recipe? Beet hummus. Bad recipe?  Beet and avocado smoothie.

Out of all the pepper plants that were started from seed, the only ones that took were the banana peppers.  :(  Big time bummer 'cause we had a lot of varieties and really wanted lots of peppers this year.

I guess some peppers is (are?) better than none (and none is what we had the last two years).

Tomatoes are gettin' big!!!

The small ones are really taking off.

There are little clumps of them all over the place.

Is that a blush of red I see on that tomato?!?!? Won't be long now.

Cucumber flowers are everywhere...

as are the cucumbers. I can't get enough of cucumber, tomato and pepper salads.

Bug.

This is actually a weed of some sort or another.

The kale and chard are kicking in one last time before they bolt.

Lots and Lots of Work to Be Done

written by Yvonne

We are woefully behind in writing about our garden adventures so this post will be brief so we can get current.

I was in Asheville for a Yoga weekend workshop several weekends ago and Tom was left to get LOTS of work done in the garden. The biggest job was to pull up the lettuce in bed #1....

and the garlic...

and to lay out a layer of hay. And that's just what he did.

The beans started coming in. They are hard to see because they are long and green, just like the vines. But they're there.

Volunteer squash has been producing (of course).

The zucchini hasn't been producing a ton, but certainly enough to give us a few meals here and there. The one pictured on the left was FAR too big to eat so I decided to make zucchini bread with it. I shredded it in the food processor and that one zucchini yielded SIX CUPS!! The bread recipe only called for one cup so I kept digging through recipes to see if I could find something that would use more.

A dozen zucchini muffins used three cups so I opted for two batches of muffins. We each ate one and sent the rest to Tom's work to share with his co-workers.

Finally enough blackberries ripened to make two small mixed fruits salads for dessert. Yum!

After harvesting the garlic, Tom several together in bunches and hung them all around the porch to dry.