My Helping Hands

It has been the best year so far for garden/kid interaction.  One of my favorite things in the summer is to see their tiny little heads bobbing up and down in the garden looking for treasured sugar snap peas or hearing them grunt as they pull up a gigantic carrot and then come running to me with such pride for what they have found.  I feel so lucky to be able to teach the kids about where their food comes from and hopefully they will respect it more when they eat it. 

Bounty

 
So we've been a little distracted with the starting of school for the kids and heavier work loads and now I'm behind on updating this little blogspot.  It's a good thing the garden pretty much takes care of itself at this point in the season.  Sure, we still have to weed and salvage plants that have fallen prey to the pesky squirrels and possibly raccoons, but since the rain has started up again at a nice steady pace all we have to really do is reap the benefits.

The tomato gods have been really good to us this year, obviously, because the plants are literally falling over with fruit.  Everyday I have to pick a few in fear that they will just snap in two from the weight of them.  We probably picked two quarts of cherry tomatoes a day and at least 6 to 8 early girls and valencias.  Until just this week (with the cold spell) we could barely keep up.  We've canned a few, eaten a ton and plan on "salsafying" the rest for canning purposes as well.   

The peppers come in at a close second for bounty.  We did plant quite a few jalapenos and its a good thing because I love'em!  We pickled a bunch and I can't wait to dig into them this winter.  They have so much more kick than the store bought ones.  The one pepper I'm disappointed in this year is our Bell.  The plants  suffered near suffocation from being planted too close to the leeks (which went nuts this year!) and being surrounded by too many tall tomato plants.

You say potato...

Made good use of some of those fingerling potatoes this week.  The in-laws came up from Ky for a visit and we made garlic roasted potatoes two nights in a row.  Guess that says it all.  No pic of the dish but here is how we do it.
-cut lots-o-fingerling potatoes into 1inch pieces
-peel even more cloves of garlic
-melt butter and olive oil in skillet over medium heat and throw in potatoes.  cook 10 mins uncovered
-now throw in whole garlic cloves, cover and cook 15 mins.
-turn off heat, uncover, add crumbled dried sage, and salt to taste.
-EAT!

I made potato leek soup tonight (usually a winter staple in our house, but I had the potatoes and I had the leeks).  It must have been sorely missed because the 6 year old went back for thirds.

-chop 1 leek
-cut lots-o-fingerlings into 1 inch pieces
-melt butter in soup pot and throw in leeks.  Cook 5 mins
-throw in potatoes.  cook 5 mins
-add your choice of stock to cover potatoes.  Cover and cook until tender.
-add salt and pepper to taste.
-top with Parmesan cheese

Served with grilled cheese sandwiches and a side of dragon beans (cause we got' em coming out the wahoo).

This weeks' rundown

This week we:
-weeded
-harvested more dragon beans
-harvested last of carrots
-sewed salad greens, spinach, and swiss chard seeds
-pruned tomato plants
-sprayed strawberries with safe soap for white fly problem (still there, but dwindling)
-treated cukes with seaweed
-harvested another section of potatoes
-picked jalapenos ready for canning
-blanching celery

Pretty good week for harvesting.  The garden is looking lush and I enjoyed a walk through snapping pictures.

Bean row

Early Girl and Valencia

Ky Pole Beans

Happy Jalapenos 

Site for new seed plantings

My view of the garden from the deck as I sit and drink the morning coffee and watch the babies run. 

Cucumber Beetles

We officially have cucumber beetles.  Some would say we should have expected it.  We planted cucumbers and the bugs ARE called CUCUMBER beetles for goodness sakes.  We should have expected that they go hand in hand.  So here we are, picking off the buggers and squashing them every chance we get, but now they are doing real damage and it was time to get serious.  So Jason bought some kind of beetle lure and some yellow sticky tape.  We'll be checking in daily to see if it actually works.  I don't know what is in the lure, but man does it stink.  Why would any bug in their right mind be lured in by that smell... then again, there are dung beetles.
We've also purchased some concentrated seaweed concoction that is supposed to give a boost to the cucumbers.  You can find it at Johnny's.  Make sure it has a cytokinin level over 300 ppm.  That's the stuff that is doing all the boosting. 

What We've Pulled Out of the Garden Lately

This week the tomatoes are starting to show their colors.  We've been enjoying the jelly bean sized tomatoes for about a week and now we are getting quite a few large tomatoes.  The dragon tongue beans are still producing quite a bit and now the pepper plants (mostly the hot variety) have dozens of peppers for us to start plucking and pickling.  When they turn red I like to pick them, sew them together, and hang them to dry. The shallots are in the garage drying next to the garlic and the leeks are ripe for picking.  I also dug up a small row of potatoes and found some tasty looking banana varieties ready for harvest. At the bottom is a picture of our first cucumber!  Can't wait to pluck that one and make more tabouleh!  In between all the harvesting I've weeded, planted more beans, weeded, squashed cucumber beetles, weeded, mulched, and, oh yeah,  weeded. 

 

Dragon Tongue Beans

We have so many Dragon Tongue Beans producing right now.  Our favorite way to serve them up is stir fried in olive oil and a teaspoon of chili garlic sauce.  It's nice and spicy.  Keep your handkerchiefs close.