Veg, veg, veg

written by Yvonne

We've been very busy lately. Unfortunately, our busy-e-ness has not been garden related. As you can see by some of the dates on these photos, some were taken a while ago and I haven't had a chance to post them until now.

Stuff pulled from the garden for a nutritious dinner one night.

Because of a bout of good rain, the pea pods got kinda' big so they weren't great to eat as pods. So I opened them up...

took the peas out, and threw them into a pot of something or other I was making.

The color has not been adjusted on this - the beets were really this color.  Used the food processor to slice them real thin and made beet chips.  YUM!

The fig tree (right) is doing very well, as are the sunflowers.

Won't be long before the sunflowers burst open with lots of bright yellow!

Been using the basil and oregano frequently in dishes.

Tomatoes are stabilized.

Overview of all the tomatoes.

Slight accident here with the zucchinis. They were overtaking the small squash on the left and the tomatoes on the right.  So I cut back some of the large leaves and things seemed fine. Next day I came out and... oops. Maybe you can't really "trim" a zucchini plant.

Funny thing - although both plants are in distress and dying out, they are still putting out veggies.  This past weekend I took one of the baseball-bat sized zucchinis and shredded it in the food processor.  That one zucchini yielded 8 cups which was enough to make 4 loafs of zucchini bread!

Bees doing their job in the garden.

This is the squash that was being overtaken by the zucchini.  One plant didn't make it but this small one is hanging on.

Beans are taking off!  These are borlotto beans - we had them last year as well.

The borlottos grow super fast.  They are already budding up.

These are the burgundy beans, which we also grew last year.  Oh.. and Olive.

These beans are budding up as well.

A few cucumber flowers have some out.  I hope those bees get to work pollinating them 'cause I'm ready for some cucs!

Parsley hedge, a cucumber plant, small tomato plants, and kale all doing well.

Carrots are super yummy.  Going to plant more of them now that we have the hang of it.

Cow peas.

And here are the cow pea pods. Kinda looks like a praying mantis.

These next two pictures might not be suitable for younger audience members. June bugs are out and apparently havin' a good ol' time on our one, tiny okra plant.

Since this okra plant got stunted by the cold and wasn't producing anyway, I'm glad some creature can enjoy it since we won't.

The potatoes that Tom planted are doing fantastic.  It won't be too much longer before we can harvest them!

This one blackberry bush is bizarre. It was the first one to flower, the first one to produce fruit, the first one to turn red, and yet the berries are not ripening.  All of the other bushes we've picked clean.  This one just is kind of hanging out in this state.

It's time to harvest this year's supply of garlic!!!!  Once the tops start turning brown and fall over, it's time to pull them up.

So pull them up I did!

Two big batches of yummy (although dirty right now) garlic.

These will dry out for a week or so, then I'll clip the tops off and we're set!