Harvest Monday 5.11.15

Good Morning. It's Monday again, Harvest report time! As usual I am linking into Daphne's Dandelions. Make sure you stop by her place to check out what's being harvested all over the world.

This weeks main harvest has been green beans. Each day I've been able to get a nice handful of them. Enough that on Mothers Day I was able to not only serve the 7 of us, but I have left overs that will be good for dinner tonight as well. I also harvested a few more blueberries (Only enough for us to eat off the bushes each day) and a few cherry tomatoes for salad toppings. I really love this time of year. I wish the variety stayed through the summer, but around here not much does well in the humidity.

Since I'll be pummeling the main crops this year I've decided to try to net at least part of the main bed and try to grow pumpkins in there. The kids will get a kick out of it as it's been a couple years since we've had a good crop. Maybe I'll put some up the trellis and try some gold nuggets as well. YUM! This is something to look forward to, even if I won't have my usual things to eat from the garden meanwhile. What else will grow really fast in the summer? Maybe some black eyed peas. They do reasonably well in the humidity. I've gotten my husband and son to eat greens in small quantities finally so maybe black eyed peas will be the next thing I force on them. ;-)

The extension piece of the main bed has begun. The new blueberry plants are here and they need a lot of TLC, so I'm trying to get that section completed first. The plan is to work each night this week for an hour on it. Last night I got the outline figured out and the foundation set up. Unfortunately It runs uphill a bit so I need to go back and level it out again. Trial and error and all that. Only good news is that once I've decided I like the way the foundation is laid it will be easy to stack them and make a wall. The foundation brick is completely under the ground and the second layer will be about 1-2" under as well totaling roughly 6". I'm hoping this barrier will help keep the invading grasses OUT of my garden and if all goes well the additional height of the wall will help to control the weeds as well.

Today I am absolutely exhausted. After getting those bricks out of the ground  last weekend, and loading them, hauling them and unloading this weekend I also went out to the blueberry farm (on Mothers Day) to buy 5 mature plants. That turned out to be more work than I realized. We got them loaded but had to get help to unload them when we got home. It was just too much. My muscles are just plain wore out. Only I'm not terribly sore. Just mildly achy. That's great news because had I pushed my back too hard I'd be in trouble today. It helped that I spent an hour or so in the pool yesterday as well...

All right back to work with me, though it will be hard not to spend the entire day dreaming of the garden and trying to figure out what I want to do with it. :-D

See you soon!

Barbie~

Harvest Monday 7.1.13

July! July? JULY!!!!!!



 

I'm SO excited! It's J~U~L~Y!

 

Know what that means?

 

 

Sweat. LOTS of it. But, it also means. Ice tea, lemonade, grilling, broken air conditioners (in Alabama FUN!) Lots of work outside, and lots of cooling of in the shade.

 

This week the work was clearing out the rest of the broken corn. I got a few more ears of corn, but a lot of it hadn't matured right. It simply wasn't able to fertilize being mashed down.

 

Some of the corn did better than others.

 It seems that even the ears that got fertilized was stunted in other ways. Some of it had rows missing, and other ears were stunted in length.

But, all in all it only took another 3 weeks out of that part of the garden it's the time of year that I can't grown much anyway so I don't feel that I've lost anything by trying. We actually had enough corn to throw on the grill for all of us with some left over and we each ate an ear or two of the decrepit corn with only a few kernels while we were plundering through the garden. There is just nothing like fresh veggies in the world and this is one of my favorites. All told we had 4 pounds of edible corn. More went to the hens that was demolished by the caterpillars. Because the corn was laying down it was hard to keep it treated with BT and soap. I don't normally treat with anything else so I did lose a bit to that. Luckily those ears were also quite small.

 

Also in the mix this week a couple of choice blackberries and some tomatoes.

The tomatoes are a bit sun burnt I was trying to keep the dang stink bugs off of them, but apparently that didn't work out so well. I can see the little points of color change on the skins where the bugs damaged them. I was thinking sun burnt might be better than stink bugged, and I didn't see any signs of the bugs when I went out tot he garden.  However, apparently not having the leaves cover the tomatoes must have simply given the stupid bugs a better lookout and not so much less of a place to hide. :-( It just didn't work. Bad thing is the bugs aren't even that bad this year - yet.

 

Ah- so that is my report for Harvest Monday. I'm hoping the blackberries will be strong in Alabama. I'll report back next week! I'd like some black berry syrup and some blackberry jam and just black berries! Wish me luck!

Oh, and don't forget to check out Daphne's for more Harvest reports from all over the world.

 

See you soon!

 

Barbie~

 



Harvest Monday 6.17.13

It's Harvest Monday.

It is. I promise! I may be slacking lately, but it's not on purpose. The sickies are still hanging around my house. Hopefully a bucket of Lysol and another week will set things right again.

Meanwhile, the garden has taken a real beating. I pulled out all the bush green beans, and the Holstein beans, the zucchini and the cucumbers. It's looking a little barren in one of the new raised beds. I'll need to get around to replanting it this week. I'm thinking about covering it with some netting and trying for another batch of cucumbers there and maybe some determinate salad tomatoes. Things that will stay low enough under the cover and behave. LOL.

Meanwhile my corn fell in the last massive wind/rain storm we had and it was really bad timing. The tassels and silks are already out and some of the stalks broke - at least half. Bad news for the remainder of the corn that still need pollinating. I guess I'm just not meant to have a decent crop of corn. But, I'll try again in the fall like always. I'll leave the stalks where they are because the lone cantaloupe is still developing in the stalks and I'm not losing it! The netting is almost 1/2 developed and I can't WAIT to taste that baby!

What I did harvest is a pound of the Holstein beans (dry), 7 huge cucumbers. The last for a long while. :-(

 

 The last zucchini on the plant. A monster no doubt. It was good and will be missed. I couldn't believe that the plant had shot out several new plants from the underside. I had never grown this variety before and will be trying to look through my seeds to see which one it is because even after it was completely attacked by bugs it just kept on going. The plant this baseball bat came off of had split in half from a cucumber worm burrowing and was still trying to produce. Unfortunately the gnats that the frass was attracting coupled with the fact that I was only getting 1 fruit a week now? Eh- not worth keeping in the garden. I don't need a bug attractant.

I also got another good couple of piles of tomatoes, a butternut (The only one! This plant is gone now, too)

 

 

And my girls constant working to keep me in eggs. Bless there little souls. Love my girls.

 

The garden is no longer being very productive. There are a few tomatoes left and of course the sweet potatoes as I need them for meals. The okra are tiny yet, but growing. They should be producing by July 15th. When we get back from our next trip to Alabama in July I'll be starting my Fall tomatoes and getting ready for the fall garden. I can't wait. Something to look forward to while the garden is going into stasis!

 

Linking in to Daphne's Dandelions. Make sure you check out her place to see all the great things being harvested all over the world!

 

See you soon!

 

Barbie~

Harvest Monday 6.3.13

Wowsa! What a whirlwind! This Harvest Monday will span the last 2 weeks. Because I'm a ditz and didn't post last week.
Last week was Memorial Day, but that is no excuse. I simply was busier than a Groundhog on, well... Groundhogs Day.

Here's the recap of what i thought to take pictures of...

Beans, cukes and tomatoes are the star of the show this week. 7pounds of tomatoes, 4 pounds of cukes, and just as much for beans. Amazing harvests have graced my tables and my cooking pots and I am humbled by it all. I only wish I was able to store more of it. I have only a single jar of pickles to show for this. BUT! We have enjoyed the heck out of it. Eating most of our meals straight from the garden has been refreshing and the kids have been just as thankful.

 

After all these harvest I decided to go get the last of those potatoes. I just wanted to get rid of any problems for the tomatoes that they were growing next to. Not that the tomatoes were having problems yet, but I couldn't imagine the bugs that the potatoes had would be good for the tomato plants. So I set about my chore, and gathered another few pounds of spuds...

Unfortunately I broke one of the main stems of the super roma. :-(
 

Now I have another 6 pounds of green Roma's sitting on my counter. Hopefully they will ripen. These all seemed to be ready to turn soon. I tossed any that were terribly small or damaged in any way.

 

Needless to say I was in a small tomato glut this week. It didn't last long. The first tomato glut is always met with a serious intensity from all of us here. It's taken very seriously that those first 'maters are eaten with abandon. This years first seem to be very thick skinned for some reason. It may be what has saved them so far from the bugs. I'd be OK with that. I'm willing to trade a little less bug damage and gardener worrying for a thicker skinned tomato.

 

We also had an incident with our sprinklers again this last little while. Thankfully we had a wonderful harvest right before our problem or I would have been crying huge crocodile tears. Most of the plants are doing fine now, but the green beans seem likely not to recover. It looks like there is an issue with our electrical panel that carries the sprinklers and pool pump. I don't have money any time soon to have an electrician out so I guess we will just have to keep a closer eye on it. Good thing it just pops the breaker. Bad thing if I don't notice it in time.

 

Oh, and can I just give a shout out to those sweet potatoes? Oh sakes alive! Hubby won't usually eat the suckers, but I put them in a stir fry and he ate them right up. YUM! OK, I didn't put all of them in there. I just love a good sweet tater. (especially fried with a raspberry sauce. WOOWEE!)

 

See you soon!

 

Barbie~

What would you do? (zucchini)

I know that a whole lot of you are just gearing up for your warm weather. I, on the other hand, have had enough warm weather that my garden is beginning the end of the Spring glut. This means that all that extra zucchini that I've had around the house is starting to fade away now. This is something that a lot of people can't quite fathom.

But, I have a saving grace. Gardening in Florida may mean a very short Spring season, but it means I get to do it all over again in the Fall! Whoohooo!  I don't normally get completely sick of the amount of zucchini that I get from my garden. (Remember, I've got a very small garden space so I don't have a lot of plants) But, I do get an abundance of it when my plants are at their peak. I know a lot of people don't know what to do with all of their extra squash when it comes at them so fast, so I thought I'd throw this out there.

This is not an exact recipe as much as it is a cooking suggestion. This is because like almost everything that I make... I just can't seem to follow an exact recipe. Try as I might - I just can't. I'm forever changing things or just winging it. I can't help it. I even intentionally set out to measure everything I did so I could post it as this is a  constantly requested favorite. Go figure.

 

If you have a picky zucchini eater, or a lot of company, or just a glut of zucchini... THIS is just the thing for you!

 

Roasted Zucchini w/ Mozzarella & Tomato

Ingredients (roughly):

Zucchini - 1/2 pound (whatever you have on hand)

Your favorite seasoning mix

Sea salt in grinder

Grape seed oil or Olive oil

Mozzarella Cheese (shortcut alert! If you have young kids grab the cheese sticks!)

Fresh tomato - sliced

 

Directions:

Preheat oven to 420*

Line baking pan with foil and spray with cooking oil

Slice zucchini ends of and slice in half lengthwise, if zucchini is very large slice again so that all zucchini is uniform thickness roughly for even cooking.

Score with a fork like so:







 Rub the grape seed oil or olive oil over the grooved side of the zucchini... yes the grooves are very important. DO NOT forget the grooves. They do two things. They help hold on to the ingredients AND they hold all those wonderful spices in. YUMMO! You don't want to miss out on all that wonderfulness!
OK, Now that you have the grooves all oiled you need to sprinkle generously your favorite seasonings and pop that sucker into the oven for a good 20 minutes. You may even need a few minutes longer depending on the size of the squash. DO NOT BE AFRAID. It really isn't too long to cook the zucchini, even at 420. I promise. It seems like  lot but this is what you get:

Note the wonderfulness. The smell from that is absolutely amazing by the way. It tastes OK, but then it just doesn't taste anything nearly as good as it will in just a few minutes! Now, add the mozzarella cheese and the tomatoes to the top of the zucchini and put it back in the oven. Keep an eye on this now because the cheese can get bubbly in about 5 minutes and while bubbly is nice, burnt is not so nice.

 

 

VOILA!

 

Sprinkle on the sea salt and serve OK and fresh ground pepper if you like that stuff!

(Don't forget this step it's important!)

 

You now have something even the teenager at my house will eat! That is right. I kid you not.

I would not kid about such an event. The boy is getting picky these days. He's almost 15 so you know, being cool is like- paramount, Dude. What? No one says Dude these days? Yeah, well, I do! (Dude.)

 

I gotta tell ya. I'm not the biggest zucchini fan myself. I prefer my zucchini in the form of a chocolate muffin. Disguised and quiet. I also only prefer it occasionally, but these I've been eating every chance I get. I even get cravings for them. Thanks to Sharon for starting the frenzy. The whole cauliflower pizza crust wasn't such a great adaptation, but this one sure did turn out great. Don't get me wrong. The cauliflower pizza crust? AWESOME flavor and it gave me the idea to do some cauliflower fritters just like my okra fritters that taste wonderful and are gluten free (Just like this recipe) but, to say it is a 'crust' eh, not so much. LOL.

 

Anyway... I give you my not so recipe recipe for Roasted Zucchini with mozzarella and tomatoes.

 

YUM! Now, You'll have to excuse me. I have to go make some more.

 

See you soon!

 

Barbie~



Harvest Monday 2.18.13

Harvest Monday. It's just after Valentine's Day and how fitting that this is the first week that I've been harvesting strawberries!

I don't have much for pictures this week. We took off to run up to North Florida on a little hunting trip... My boy took his first hog. We'll have a BBQ this weekend to celebrate and put half of it on the grill. I can't wait!

Most of my harvests looked exactly like this each day.

And, that reminds me I also harvested 3 small salad tomatoes a bunch of eggs and just enough lettuce to make a salad. Of course the days we were not there nothing was harvested, but - eh...It froze two nights in a row and now the rest of the week it's suppose to be in the 50's and 60's again. It means I'll ahve to restart the tomatoes and peppers that were already blooming and setting. That is a major setback, but one that is fairly normal. February is known to be cruel around here. I jsut wish I'd have been home to protect my plants. Oh, well. I have more seeds!

Joining in to Daphne's Dandelions for Harvest Monday.

See you soon! (With the picture of Troy's hog!)

Barbie~