Lots of Activity in the Kitchen This Weekend

We have squash, squash, and more squash.  To date we've harvested about 18lbs of squash.  How do we know it's been 18 lbs?  We were weighing it on a kitchen scale until it accidentally got knocked onto the floor and broke.  Oh dear... how will we ever keep a record of our bounty without a kitchen scale?  Resourceful Tom figured it out.  First he weighed himself on the bathroom scale with an empty basked.  Then Rebecca filled up the basked with the squash and VOLIA! we have vegetable weight.

Maizie wanted to do her part and participate.

Rebecca and I spent all day Saturday in the kitchen doing the following:

• Made two Tex-Mex Squash casseroles - one to freeze, one to eat this week.
• Made Squash Croquettes for dinner Saturday night - YUMMY!!
• Cut, blanched, and froze about 9lbs of squash - we will use it in the fall and winter for soups.
• Made Bourbon Backed Beans from scratch - let the dried beans soak overnight, mixed up the sauce, let them bake in the oven for three hours on Saturday and ate them with the Squash Croquettes.
• Made Energy Bars - homemade, soft, granola bars.
• Made a batch of Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies.

(see remainder of list after next picture.....)

After harvesting 8 cups of basil and 4 cups of cilantro, we also made:

• One large batch of Basil Pesto and
• A medium batch of Cilantro Pesto - we'll have this on pasta this week for dinner.
• We also cut more beet greens and chard to eat this week as well.

This is what it's all about!

~Y

It's a Real Garden!

We have blooms, veggies, herbs, and more potential veggies.  Here's a rundown of how things are looking this week.

The marigolds are in full swing.

The soybeans plants are doing well and...

they've started to flower. (Who knew soybeans have purple flowers?)

The basil has kicked into high gear. Clipped some this week to throw on our salads and made a pesto mayonnaise for a tuna sandwich last weekend.

The okra is doing it's thing.

This is either thyme or rosemary... can't remember which one I took a picture of.  Think it's the rosemary.

Peppers.  Wish these guys would hurry up.  I want me some peppers!

Tomatoes.

More tomatoes...

which have now flowered which means tomatoes are on the way!

Lost of flowers on this cucumber plant and yes, that's right, one cucumber right in the front!  We ate that in our salads this past week.

Cilantro heaven!  Tom made kitchen sink omelets this morning and threw in some fresh cilantro. YUM!

Now that's a pretty picture, ain't it.  That's what I call a garden!

We've already eaten one dish with beet greens.  Looks like we'll cook up another one this week...

followed soon by roasted beets and goat cheese salad!

I think it's safe to say that we can grow us some squash!  Look at the size of these two plants!!

To date we've harvested about 5 lbs of squash.  We made one squash casserole which was yummy. This weekend we'll have squash croquettes (patties), I'll make two more casseroles to freeze, we'll cut some up and freeze for use in winter soups, and we'll still have enough coming up next week to throw on the grill next weekend.

This is two transplanted squash plants, and our mystery plants.  The mystery plants have turned out to be cucumbers, a tomato plant, and a sunflower.  We'll transplant the tomato plant to one of the tee pees and get some more posts for the cucumbers.

Green beans doing well.

Black tomato plants coming along and JUST about to flower.

Transplanted tomatoes moving slow, but hanging in there.

Potato patch growing.

This is rose bush that was here when we moved in. Have never done a THING to it and it's blooming like mad.  It's nice to look out the kitchen window and see so many beautiful blooms.

~Y

Successful Squash

Freshly picked squash this morning. Two or three more will be ready for pickin' tomorrow. Now it's decision time: fried, roasted or casseroled?
(Update from T -- twice-baked squash is a MUST this season!!)

It's Time, it's Time!

For those of you who have keept up with our "farming" blog these last two years, you may remember that we had great squash plants at Flynwood.  They produced flowers, but they never produced squash.  By the looks of all the blooms on this squash plant, I think we may successfully have squash.

The limas are coming along.  Aren't they cute?

Took the following two pictures of beets and Swiss chard Sunday.  Looks like "It's time, it's time!" to harvest some leaves!

Looks like we can cut some cilantro soon too.

The cucumbers have started to flower as well, but a lot of the leaves have big holes in them so the bugs may get to these before we do.

We found this critter crawling on leaves.  He resembles a lady bug, but we don't think it is one.  The body shape is different.  I wasn't willing to accuse this guy of eating anything, because we really didn't see him chomping away.  Tom, however, felt he was guilty simply by being in the wrong place at the right time.

A view of bed #3.

Tom took a water reading in all the beds to see how different soils hold onto water.

Potato patch growing like crazy.

Pumpkin seeds all sprouting.

Our fist marigold bloom.

So Memorial Monday rolled around and it was time to take some cuttings and EAT!

I cut about 2 bunchs worth of Swiss char and about 6 or 8 beet greens.

Here they are, ready for dinner.  I sauted them with onions, garlic and a can of tomatoes.  Cooked some whole wheat spaghetti then tossed the spaghetti into the greens mixture.  Served and topped with chopped olives, pecans and a little freshly grated Parmesican cheese.  YUM!  I also trimmed a bit of dill from the garden to add to a horesrasish salmon spread I made on Monday for lunch.  Tonight I'll be cutting some cilantro to go on our fish tacos.

 YEAH GARDEN!

~Y

Stuff's a growin'

Things are movin' and shakin' so it's now time to do some thinnin' and steakin'. (The "g" on the keyboard must be stuck or somethin').

We have lots of successful tomato plants at this point so we moved a few that were clumped together from box #4 to #2. We also created a bamboo tee pee for them to grow on.

The lima beans (clump of green in the middle with pointed leaves) are taking off so we put up two steaks with string so we can tie them up as they get bigger.

We added the same support system here for the Blue Lake green beans.

Last year we bought three of these green growing spirals to use in the Flynwood garden. We never got to plant a Spring/Summer garden last year so we held on to them until now. We took three more tomato plants from box #4 and transplanted them into box #1 and set up the growing spirals. We now have three different types of vertical growing assistants for tomatoes: growing spirals, tee pees, and a tomato cage. We'll evaluate at the end of the season to see which one(s) worked best.

A bit of water for the transplants...

and we officially have four boxes in use.

An overview of all four boxes.

The potato patch is growing like crazy! We are excited to see what is happening under ground with these things.

Here is one of over two DOZEN pumpkin plants that Rebecca and I planted last week. In one week's time, they have broken ground. Our front yard is going to be one big pumpkin patch.

~T