It's been awhile!!! Whew...

So it has been awhile and the gardener has been busy!

The garden seems to be doing well. But the lots and lots of rain we received was good and bad. It did flood the left back side of the garden and the Sweet Corn suffered and the Sugar Snap Peas suffered a bit too. It is hot and humid to welcome in July along with more rain. Seems like the jungle rather than WI!

Here are a few photos:

Zucchini

Sugar Snap Peas

Lettuce mix

Red Onions & Candy Onions

Acorn Squash

Beans

Potatoes

Cantaloupe

Sweet Corn

Jalapeno Peppers

Broccoli

Early Girl Tomatoes

Banana Peppers

Oh Happy Day in the Garden!!!

Here is our smiley face we made! We sure did pick a ton of veggies on Friday! Look at all our treasures...

1 bucket of Broccoli.

1 bucket of Sugar Snap Peas.

We dug out all our red potatoes. The plants were pretty much dead and they were ready.

Not too bad considering we had about 3 meals already with them.

Here is the big one! We dug out our carrots. As you can see they are quite big and I think were totally ready. I still have a row of baby carrots yet. Our purple Kohlrabi's are almost done too. I got some more tomatoes and cucumbers and a 3 gallon bucket of Green Beans. LOTS and LOTS of Beans. It seems half of the garden is almost done already. I can hardly believe it. I guess it is a good thing since school starts in 10 days.

Have a good one!

Shell

Tuesday Picking's - Holy Cow!!!

Hi- I haven't been able to pick really since last Thursday. We did the rummage sale at my SIL's house. It turned out pretty good, even knowing it was going to rain this past weekend. I know my Hubby Joe and Lucas picked some beans Saturday and I pulled out a few Kohlrabi Sunday but with our major showers and few T-Storms I knew there would be tons of stuff out in the garden. Monday Lucas had a test and we did back to school shopping for new duds so there wasn't time on Monday.

On Tuesday morning I rounded up the troops, Em, Luke and Nick and we started out a little after 8 AM. We were finished around 11:30AM. The kids picked four gallon buckets of Green Beans, I was re-staking the Cherry tomato TREES. The wet ground and wind had almost knocked them over and at nearly 7ft tall that was no easy task. I picked some cherry tomatoes. Nick and I picked the Broccoli, 5 Cucumbers, 3 Green Bell peppers (one was enormous), and some really nice Banana peppers. We all picked over a gallon of Sugar Snap Peas. I pulled out 4 MORE Huge Kohlrabi's, and I pulled out some Spanish Onions and a few of the Red Ones. The red onions didn't get as big as my sweet Spanish. But who cares they are still good. Oops I almost forgot 3 more zucchini's too.

Here are some pictures:

above are my onions!! I diced & froze all but 2. I am going to try curing those.

Here are my green bell peppers, the one on the right is the huge one.

Above are my nice Banana peppers. I diced some for my turkey sandwich yesterday for lunch.

Here are some cherry tomatoes. I have some yellow pear and sweet 100 cherry plants. And 1 more early girl regular tomato. How could I forget that.

It is supposed to be hot this week so I am hoping to get those tomatoes ripening.

Happy Gardening!!(now I just need to squeek in some scrap time.)

"Mock" Apple (Zucchini) Cobbler

I survived the rummage sale. We did have rain but for the most part we all did pretty well. Before we had the rummage sale I needed to pick the garden since I would be too busy over the weekend. I picked Thursday this week and ended up with 2 buckets of beans and a bucket of sugar snap peas and cherry tomatoes and lots of zucchini.

I remembered that my SIL gave me a recipe for Mock Apple Cobbler made with 8 cups of zucchini. It really tastes like apple and the kids don't have a clue! (and you can use up some zucchini) Seriously it is so good I had to make 2 right away and I brought 1 to the rummage sale for family and friends to eat. No one knew any better. (until I told them)

Here is the recipe:

"Mock" Apple Cobbler preheat oven to 350

Filling:

8 C of Zucchini peeled and sliced

3/4 C of lemon juice

Cook lemon juice and zucchini in large pan that you can cover until zucchini is tender about 15 min or so.

1 C Sugar

1 tsp. of Cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

Mix altogether in pan.

Do not drain liquid off at all.

Cool. ( I put my whole pan in the refrigerator)

Crust and Topping:

4 C Flour

1 C Brown Sugar

1/2 C Sugar

3 Sticks of Butter softened

Mix until crumbly.

In a 9x13" pan put half of crust mixture in bottom of pan; press together lightly to form a crust on the bottom. When zucchini is cooled dump in and spread evenly. Crumble remaining crust mixture on top.

Bake at 350 for 1 Hour

Let me know what you think!!!

The First Hallowed Tomato!!!!

The enormous cherry tomato plant is hovering at 6 feet! WOWZERS.

Here is my picking recruits. They are hot today.

Today I picked our 1st Early Girl tomato. Now it probably could have been on 1 day or so longer but who can wait!!! We picked Sugar Snap Peas, Green Beans, Green Bell Peppers, Banana Peppers, and a Cucumber and more Broccoli, along with some more Zucchini. What a day. I need to soak the Broccoli in salt water to get rid of the cutworms that seem to be relentless. I heard that is supposed to work. I am going to soak for about 1/2 hour to make sure they are gone and then blanch them.

I made an awesome zucchini lasagna last night for supper using my swiss chard, zucchini, tomatoes all fresh basil and parsley, and oregano. It sure was good. Look for it on Allrecipies.com

Now off to freeze the veggies.

Green Beans and Bell Peppers!!

Hello, We had some rain the last few days. They were on and off sprinkles, but enough to get things growing super in the garden.

I have uploaded a few pictures to compare to when I first posted some. I swear the Cherry tomato plants are getting close to 6 feet high. There is quite the competition between the sweet corn and cherry tomatoes.

Above is Brandi our 11 month old Golden Retriever. She is catching some shade under the cherry tomato plants. I guess they are tall as trees.

Here is my 7 yr old son Lucas again standing so you can see the height of my tomatoes. They have sprung at least a foot over the cages already. Not much getting ripe yet; I did steal 3 red cherry and 1 yellow pear tomato but nothing to go nuts over yet...

My 1st official picking of beans. I think I might have enough for supper tonight. Yes!

LOOK at the size of this pepper! I can't believe it. YUM, YUM YUM...

This is what I harvested today, Green Bell Peppers, Banana Peppers, Broccoli, Zucchini, Green Beans, and Sugar Snap Peas. (yesterday we did pull out 2 purple kohlrabi too.)

Happy Gardening!