Archive | August, 2008

Don’t eat the apple in the Garden of Eatin’

Bad stuff’ll happen….weeds will take over so badly you can’t catch up and all you can hope for it to clear little areas around the still producing plants so they aren’t choked out. Tomatoes will grow so insanely big they’ll all fall over and you were dumb and planted them so close together you can’t untangle them (I’ll be canning tomatoes here soon though!). Cucumbers will be so thick and thorny that is a risk of death to pick anything. One squash plant will completely take over the onions.

Yeah, I’m keeping Earth Juice around :thumb But laying down better weed control next time! It’s really bad, I’m not kidding. Maybe I’ll take a picture if I think I can deal with the embarrassment :lol

Contests and give-aways

I’ve thought about doing a contest for months but can’t seem to come up with anything good. I thought about something with photos – maybe best garden photo involving kids? No, that would leave kidless out (or anyone not willing to put their kids photo on the net)…..Maybe have entrants send me their strangest gardening photos? That might work. Someone give me a better idea?

But then, what to offer as incentive? I thought about food – cookies, bread, jam? Would any of that survive shipping? A magazine subscription? A book? A gift certificate to Territorial Seed? Whatcha think?

And dude! I’ve got 29 readers! Thank you :love

Phat gardener lewts

Click on this link to check out my CafePress Shop. I’ve had it for some time, but recently added some gardener items and am working on adding lots more!!

Nevermind, CafePress decided to bill me for 2 years of a premium shop even though I downgraded it 2 years ago…it didn’t actually downgrade apparently and even though I made no money during that time, I have to close the shop to get my money back. I’ll be on the lookout for a smarter company.

What a bounty! Woohoo!

Wow. I haven’t even set foot in the garden in 3-4 days because of the heat then rain and I was thrilled by what I found. Our first red roma tomatoes, crooknecks and zucchini, lots of corn and more. Check it all out :thumb

And the crookneck squash siamese twin that wants to be a porn star:

Rain

So much for planning on weeding today. A big storm came in last night and will last all week. With the amount of rain we’re going to get, I think the weeds might just take over :lol

I did manage to get the zucchini shredded and frozen, and got a bunch of peaches and have started freezing them. I got some from the store and some from a local orchard and am doing half of each in fruit juice and the other half in very light sugar syrup. I thought about canning some, but just can’t get the ambition up. Freezing is incredibly easy!

General growy-ness

Just a general update on how things are going in the Garden of Eatin’ today.

The weeds are taking over. I need to get out there and attack with the weed whacker, it’s that bad. It’s not stopping things from growing, so that much is good! But it won’t happen in the next few days…yesterday we had 100F+ temps, today we’re due for 105F and tomorrow is supposed to be 100F, and Sunday 90F…temps should be back in the mid 70s on Monday, so I’ll plan on going lots of work in the garden then, with before after after pics.

The tomato stake experiement has literally been a giant FLOP. As soon as the tomatoes started getting big, the plants got so heavy and thick they’ve tipped over, breaking the stakes and I have lots of tomatoes on the ground at risk from bugs…trying to keep them UP but they just keep growing and falling more :help

The corn is nearly 7′ high with lots of ears. I think we might have some grilled steak and corn for dinner tonight.

The lemon cucumbers are finally growing, well….like taking over their corner of the garden. I definitely planted too many. And the little vines have built in protection to keep me from picking too early, their thorns leave me bleeding when I try.

The strawberries stopped producing fruit all together after giving us hardly anything and are producing runners like crazy. I tried stopped that to see if it would encourage fruit, but it didn’t.

I’ve gotten 6 gigantic zucchini now and there’s lots more growing. I’ll be shredding and freezing it this weekend. Those suckers grow fast!

The crookneck is finally starting to grow fruit, but only after the plant grew to “Little Shop of Horrors” porportions.

Out one pumpkin is about basketball sized and just starting to turn orange.

Potatoes will finish being harvested tonight, there’s 3 plants left and I want to make potato salad. I forgot to write down the ingredients I used last time, I’ll do that this weekend and post the recipe :D

Mama squirrel

My brothers would cringe at this, they’re scared of boobs  :shake (yeah, you, J, I know you read this sometimes ) but it’s just so neat I gotta share. That squirrel from the other day is a mama :treehugger

I wonder where her babies are :love

Quiche

I usually make quiche with spinach, but the kids hate it and since the husband isn’t here anymore, I wasn’t going to bother. I used grated zucchini instead and not only did it taste better, the kids gobbled it up :D

You’ll have to excuse my measurements, this is one of those homemade things that I eyeball for part of it.

For each pie:

Oven at 350F

Use a refrigerator pie crust (or homemade, I’m lazy) and lay it out in your pie plate.

Whisk together 2 eggs and 1 cup heavy whipping cream or half & half.

Mix 1 baked chicken breast, cubed small, with some cheddar and mozzerella cheese, and shredded zucchini, enough to fill the pie plate 3/4 full, then very slowly pour the egg mixture around. Slow is necessary so the mixture gets down to the bottom.

Bake for 45 minutes, or until it “shakes like jello”. Let set for 10 minutes to let the cheese solidify a little and keep the mess down. Slice, and try not to scarf too fast.

Things are gettin’ a little squirrely around here

I was moving the sprinkler around the garden today… I was under the walnut tree turning off the water and something hit the top of my head. Scowling up into the limbs, I figured it was a cat, but couldn’t see anything. Backing way up, I finally saw this guy, chucking walnut chunks at me. Little bastard.

It’s the great pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Or, it will be! I sure wish I could watch this little guy grow up.

Then

Now:

I love squash flowers!

Zucchini treats

My parents didn’t teach me to cook, I had to teach myself and there were no family recipes that I grew up on (we never had christmas or thanksgiving or easter dinner), so I abuse the internet recipe websites frequently. I figure any recipe that almost 1000 people give 4 or 5 stars for, has to be good.

So, thanks to allrecipes.com, I’m making these today:

Zucchini Bread

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 1/4 cups white sugar
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups grated zucchini
1 cup chopped walnuts

DIRECTIONS

  1. Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
  2. Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl.
  3. Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in a large bowl. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well. Stir in zucchini and nuts until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pans.
  4. Bake for 40 to 60 minutes, or until tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes. Remove bread from pan, and completely cool.

And these cookies (which another member of mothering.com posted on the forums):

Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies

(Makes about two dozen)

1 egg, beaten
½ cup butter, softened
½ cup brown sugar
1/3 cup honey
1 tbsp. vanilla extract

Combine in large bowl.

1 cup white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp nutmeg

Combine in a separate, small bowl and blend into liquid mixture

1 cup finely shredded zucchini
12 oz chocolate chips

Stir these into other ingredients, mix well. Drop by spoonful onto greased baking sheet, and flatten with the back of a spoon. Bake at 350°, 10 to 15 minutes.

Stir Fry

I’m making stir fry tonight, for me, the kids won’t eat it. Normally I use frozen stir fry veggies, but tonight I’ll keep it simple and use zucchini, some crookneck squash, some green beans and maybe a little celery and onion from the store (the garden onions are still tiny).. I use a simple recipe for the flavoring: cubed chicken breast in a gallon baggie, 1/3c corn starch, 3-4T soy sauce and a bunch of ginger and garlic powder. Make sure the baggies is sealed tight, mix and let sit for 30 minutes. Fry in a little oil, remove from pan, fry veggies in a tiny bit of oil, add the meat back in, and season with more ginger, garlic and soy sauce if desired. Serve over rice. Before I started watching my calories and weight, I could easily eat 3 Corelle plate fulls of this stuff. Sooo good :drool Tonight I’ll eat a normal portion with more veggies then rice or meat :lol

Almost baseball bats

I couldn’t stand it any longer, I had to pick the 3 big zucchini :lol Going to make some zucchini bread and maybe a treat for the kids and shred and freeze the rest.

Mmmm crookneck!