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.

It's A Jungle Out There

When July is upon us and muggy heat and torrential rain rear their ugly heads, the plants seem to reach up to the sky as if rejoicing in what we consider miserable conditions.  In the peak sun blazing hours of the day, the kids and I are inside somewhere, sitting in front of the fan playing with Legos.  Or if things are really bad we retreat to the air conditioning leaving all thoughts of the outdoors behind.  Meanwhile, the garden grows and the weeds (snickering all the while) put in place their master plan to take over the yard.  At dinner time new weeds have already grown since the lunch hour when I went out to pick vegetables.  It keeps me busy, but if kept under slight control, it can look pretty neat (if you like the wild look).  We are definitely not neat and tidy gardeners.  Here's some proof.

Full View

Gourds and Zucchini growing out of compost bins

Beans, cucumbers and gourds growing together

Leeks!

Volunteer fennel  popping up between the tomatoes

First Tomato of the Season

Oh happy day!  Our first large tomato has been plucked and it was so worth the wait.  Pictured below is a modest sized "Early Girl" grown from seed started back in February. 

Eliot came running through the back door early yesterday morning with prize in hand yelling, "mom! mom! The first tomato!"  I was almost happier to see my kid's enthusiasm for the tomato than to see the actual tomato.  Almost...

Oh Parsley!

I used to think parsley was a pretty dull and useless herb until I started growing it myself.  Now I have such an abundance of the stuff I feel obligated to find ways to use it and not feed it directly to the compost heap.  This weekend we harvested our first batch of parsley and have decided to do two things first.  1.  Make a heap of Tabouleh.  2.  Grind up some parsley pesto.  Just use your favorite pesto recipe and make parsley the main leafy green.  I had a pistachio pesto that worked very well. 

Because we have so much parsley we are choosing to freeze the pesto.  We found that spooning the pesto into ice cube trays was a great way to initially freeze the stuff and then store the pesto cubes in freezer safe containers.  We can then thaw individual cubes as needed for pasta recipes, spreads, etc. 

I used this same method for freezing fresh ground vegetables and fruits for my children when they first started solid foods as babies.  It's a great way to preserve the food without loosing too much of the nutrients. 

Beets and Arugula

Last week Jason pulled up quite a few beautiful yellow and red beets from the garden.  Here's what we did with them.

I wrapped the whole beets in foil along with a dash of olive oil and roasted them for about an hour and a half.  Their peels practically fell off and then I diced them up and threw them together with gorgonzola cheese and pistachios.  Add a dash of salt and pepper and you have a very simple and tasty fresh beet salad. 

Our arugula patch had also reached the end of it's season so we gathered it all up and whipped up some arugula pesto.  You can really take any pesto recipe and substitute arugula for whatever leafy green is used in the recipe.  A portobello mushroom topped with this pesto and fresh grated parmesan makes for a great sandwich. 

Shoo Whitefly

When we returned from a trip to Kentucky for a week I went to my strawberries to give a hello, since it had been so long, and was greeted with a white cloud of, well, I didn't know what it was.  When I back off, the cloud disappeared.  I bent over slowly and saw tiny white bugs on the leaves.  They looked a little like aphids, only white and they could fly.  Well, I went directly to the mighty Oracle (the internet) and learned that we had a whitefly infestation.  Apparently these little suckers can really do some damage.  My mission now is to take out those whiteflies and figure out why my strawberries are stressed.  Maybe they don't like being in pots, or maybe they just don't have enough companion plants. Here is a link to one of the many informational pages I found on whiteflies and how to get rid of them.   www.getridofthings.com/get-rid-of-whiteflies.htm

What To Do With Those Jalapeno Peppers

If you haven't discovered the genius of Chef Rick Bayless yet, and you have peppers in your garden, now is the time to pick up one of his books and make some fabulous authentic Mexican food.  At the very least, you have to make this salsa that is so simple yet packs quite the wallop in every bite.  Here's what you need. 

-2 Jalapeno or Serrano chiles
-3 garlic cloves, unpeeled
roast these in a skillet for about 10 minutes until their skins blacken a bit

Meanwhile, place 2 large tomatoes on a baking sheet covered with foil and broil for 10 mins (flipping after 5 mins)

When cool, peel skin off tomatoes and garlic.  Now crush the garlic and jalapenos with a mortar and pestle first and then slowly add pieces of the tomatoes until they are all crushed together.  Then add:
-1/3cup chopped cilantro
-1/2 small onion, finely chopped and rinsed
-1/4 tsp sea salt

That's it!  Now if you want to get crazy you can make guacamole just by mashing 3 avocados with 1 tsp salt and add the salsa to taste. 

We had this wonderful meal of Tamales and spicy guacamole plus a summer cucumber margarita for the grown ups.  We were a happy group at dinner tonight. 

You can find recipes for these yummy tamales in Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen

Daily Chore

Yesterday we :
-weeded crab grass
-dug out all the old broccoli plants
-harvested the last of the cabbage heads (3)
-transplanted some peppers
-planted new round of carrots
-planted beans in empty bed

site for the parmex carrots (tiny round carrots-great for containers)

site for large carrots and dragon tongue beans

Tomatoes

Happy to report that the tomatoes are looking much better this year than last year.  We had such horrible blight by this time last year, but (knock on wood) we don't see a sign of it yet.  I'm pretty excited about the "jelly bean" variety we planted this year. 

Rhubarb!!

I took our first cuttings of fresh rhubarb from the garden today.  The result was 4 fabulous quarts.  

I like to chop them at about 1/4 inch thick and put them in freezer safe containers.  We should get another round of stalks to cut before the season is over.