No Title Necessary: my garden

Showing posts with label my garden. Show all posts

Monday, June 16, 2008

GARDENING MONDAY

Ok not much to show except this:

My first little harvest. I have a zucchini, which grew a little too big (but in my defense it wasnt nearly ready 2 days ago. Next thing I know boom it is gigantic). I have 3 more zucchini just about ready out there as well. Looks like I am making zucchini bread this week.

I have an anaheim pepper that I have no idea what to do with right now. I guess I could chop it up and put it on taco's.

A hand ful of bush beans , with lots of them still out there "ALMOST READY"

and 2 grape tomatoes. I have several clusters of them that are just now starting to turn. They are that greeny orangy streaky color. But given a few days and more water and sunshine we will be good to go. They were delicious. So sweet and still warm from the sun. Nothing better than fresh from the garden tomatoes. We dont use pesticides or fertilizer and we hose them down every day so I feel comfortable that my kids can go out and pick them straight from the plant and not worry about them eating them straight from the garden.

My Romas will be coming into their own fairly soon as well. I have lots of those, just hanging out waiting their turn to color.

I still have nothing on my heirlooms though and it is frustrating. I dont know how to get them to grow. Heirloom vegetables are hard to grow, which I why I only got ONE heirloom plant. They taste etter than any of the other tomatoes, but for some reason they are finicky and a little more difficult. I dont know why.

anyhoo thats my garden this week.

Happy Monday!

Monday, June 9, 2008

Gardening Monday 6-9-2008

Gardening Monday again! And some pretty big things happened over the past week.
First I walked out to find THIS! I was so excited. My first red tomato!!

Awwww, too bad. Something got to it before I did. In its defense, it WAS grown right near the ground. Probably the neighbors cat or something.

Remember the baby bush beans from last monday, those little scrawny podlings??

Well check out these bad boys! Just about ready to be eaten!

Then I discover that my one grape tomato plant has shot up in size. (It looks scrawny from the way I prune them, but I already have several clusters on that plant)

And here are some of my NEWEST babies:

New Roma's and new grape clusters. And my Jalapeno plant has invited a few of his jalapeno friends to hang out!

Here are pictures of my Redneck Compost Bin, as promised:

We use an extra large dog kennel. It has the slots for aeration and the gate to cover the top.
It can roll, so we can easily "turn" the compost and there are enough openings for moisture to get in where needed.
We picked this up in our neighbors backyard when they moved out and left it behind.
You really can use just about anything to compost. As long as it gets the proper mix of greens, browns, scraps, moisture and air, you can make it anywhere.

I am lucky that I do have a larger area to compost in. It really can make a huge difference in your gardening results.

Happy Gardening!

Monday, May 26, 2008

Gardening Monday

It is Memorial Weekend, so we have been out and about as a family doing fun things etc, so I will post some of those later this week.

In the Meantime, here are some pictures from my garden. It is coming along nicely.

These are some tomatoes from my Roma plants. I love these little guys. Grow my pretties, for you shall soon be salsa!! I dont have a set Salsa recipe. I just throw in whatever looks good.

I have 5 varieies of tomatoes growing, so I use a mixture. Then I chop an onion (sweet usually, but have used yellow and purple before), add peppers (jalapeno or the garden salsa pepper), cilantro, and lots of garlic. I add salt and pepper to taste and I pour half of it into the food processor to get "creamy" and leave the other half chunky. I add them together for a perfect blend. I made about 6 quarts os Salsa last year before the drought took my tomatoes. So this year I plan on eating salsa ALL SUMMER LONG!

I am currently growing jalapenos, Anaheim peppers and Poblano peppers. The poblanos are VERY mild and used for stuffing and making rellenos. I already have a penny sized peppers growing my one of my poblano plants! The Anaheim peppers have a great flavor and are a fairly mild pepper, spicier than a Poblano but milder than a jalapeno. Great for kids salsa! I dont have any pictures of my peppers right now though. I need to get back out there with my camera.

This is my Bean Garden.

In the center with the wierd looking hillbilly trellises I made, are Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans. I made those trellises out of tomato cages, stakes and garden twine. I LOVE Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans. They are the perfect green bean for fresh, cooked,frozen or canned beans. I have grown them for the past 3 seasons. Season One I had more beans than I knew what to do with. I was harvesting and eating beans daily. Season two I harvested a little, then the drought came and everything burned up. I have about 8 of these plants, which will give me a bountiful harvest.

On the outer row along each edge I planted Blue Lake Bush Beans. These are beans that need no staking or trellising. These Stringless hearty beans are so sweet and have such a great flavor. I am looking forward to canning this season. I have never grown these before, so it will be a new experience for me. Everything in my bean plot has been started from seed, so these are really my babies. I have 10 of the bush beans planted.

I also have zucchini and yellow summer squash. They are both blossoming and looking great as well. I even have little teeny weenie babies on each plant! This is actually one of my zucchini plants but both zucchini and the yellow squash look exactly like this, so you get the idea. They all have blossoms and have fruits starting. Zucchini and squash are so easy to grow. I have grown zucchini for the past 3 years. They are pretty much a love em and leave em plant. Dont have to do much work and they reward you with squash. We stir fry zucchini and summer squash. I cut into coins and sautee them in a little bit of olive oil and garlic. Then when they start to get soft I add a bit of terriyaki sauce. I top them with grated parmesan cheese. If you dont have terriyaki sauce you can use soy sauce with a bit of sugar mixed in. Squash is so versatile. Bread, soups, stews, stirfry. You cant go wrong with squash.

I will update with more pictures as my gardening season progresses. Hope you enjoyed my garden pictures and I will update throughout the summer. I hope you have enjoyed this holiday edition of Sarah's Garden!

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!!

Thursday, April 10, 2008

My garden

Yesterday i made the hubby mow the lawn. It was a jungle out there. We have had so much rain and mild nights the grass has just sprung up.

Then we worked in the garden and got one of the beds done and planted our tomatoes.

We got an Heirloom plant (German Queen), A Bush Goliath(big tomaotes) and 2 of the sweet 100 cherry tomatoes. We are going to Renfrows hardware today to get some more tomato. They usually have the sweet olive tomatoes and romas. So we may get one of each. Maybe pick up a bag of ladybugs as well.

We are also planting Green beans (bush bean) i did a pole bean the past 2 years and I am TIRED of building trellises and stringing them with garden twine etc. so we are doing the bush beans that require no staking.

We got a jalapeno plant and an anaheim pepper plant. We also got Poblano Pepper seeds and are going to try some of those as well(Charles seems to think I know how to make rellenos)

We bought zucchini and yellow squash. I am thinking about basil and maybe some other herbs.

so I have a long day of planting ahead of me, i had better head out. Wish me luck!!