Harvesting Blue Lake Beans

I left my garden for a few days to visit the grandchildren and when I returned things were jumping.  The tomato plants have jumped 2 - 3 feet and lots of tomatoes are on the vines.  Oh boy! 

I'll be making a few loaves of zucchini bread this week-end out of today's harvest. 

I picked my first Sugar Baby today.  Since I'm a novice gardener, I guessed as to when it should be picked.  I used the thumping method and checked the color of the melon to determine it was time to take this baby into the house and give it its place in the fridge.   Supposedly, a sign of ripeness is when the melon turns a dark green and become somewhat dull looking.  It was there.  Another method was a hollow sound when you thump it.  It sounded hollow to me or maybe the sound that I heard was my empty stomach growling and me thinking about consuming this Sugar Baby.  Oh well, it's off the vine and I will be eating it real soon.  I only have two melons so far.  I hope I get a few more. 

My Blue Lake bush beans produced a nice little harvest.   The wax beans didn't do as well.  I'm hoping the pole beans produce a good crop.  I want to add a few gallons to the freezer.  I do believe that I will do another planting of the bush beans just to be sure that I will have enough.   I have an old wash tube that would be perfect for a new crop of beans.  I'll put it to use this week-end.  Need to get my beans into the fridge so they can stay fresh until I can get them blanched and into the freezer in the morning.  How's your garden growing and what are you harvesting?  Leave me a comment, I'll pay you a visit to see what's happening in your garden. 

Squash Recipes

 

 

The squash and zucchini are producing.  I was worried about my zucchini and cuke plants.  The leaves were being eaten, and I had no idea by what.  I monitored the plants early morning and late evening and found the culprits, cucumber bugs.  Striped and spotted.  I tried a soap solution to no avail, and than resorted to Sevin.  Within a day or two, cucumber bugs were gone and the plants recovered nicely. 

The top recipe requires:

• 3 yellow squash
• 1 zucchini
• 1 small onion
• 2 eggs
• 8 - 10 ounces of Parmesan cheese
• 1 cup of mayo
• 3 tablespoons of melted butter
• bread crumbs.  

Cube squash and zucchini and saute for 10 - 15 minutes along with the chopped onion.  Mix the mayo and eggs.  Add the cheese to the mixture; blend well.  Drain the squash and zucchini and add to a greased baking dish.  Mix in the mayo, egg and cheese mixture.  Top with bread crumbs and drizzle the butter over the bread crumbs.  Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

 The second dish requires:

• Yellow squash
• ground beef
• 1 green pepper
• 1 jalapeno pepper
• Parmesan cheese

Slice squash lengthwise and remove seeds.  Brown beef and peppers.  Fill the center of the squash with the mixture and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.  Bake for 15 - 20 minutes at 350 degrees. 

 

 

Music In The Garden

Vacation is over!  Those 7 days zoomed by.  I love traveling, but there's no place like home.  I returned home last night, and spent the entire afternoon in the garden weeding and cutting back the squash and zucchini plants.  It's amazing what can happen in a week.  Weeds have grown and all of my veggies have doubled in size.  Stay tuned for a Tour of the Garden Part 2. 

While I was working, I had a visitor.  He perched on top of the greenbean teepee and he chirped and chirped.  I was able to get these great shots and he didn't flinch.  So happy I had my camera with me, it's moments like this that you don't want to miss, and another reason why I love the garden and all nature has to offer.  Do you know what kind of songbird this is?

Garden Tour

Things are looking pretty good in the garden.  I spent a few hours in there this afternoon and it was the perfect day for it.  High 72, partly cloudy.  Not too hot, and the ground soft enough to pull weeds without much effort.  That's the way I like to work. 

The squash and zucchini are blooming.  I decided to put some straw around everything today, to help keep the weeds down.  I had a bale waiting to be used.  My neighbor was nice enough to give me the bale she used for fall decorating to use as mulch in my garden.  I'm going to use the remaining to mulch the pathways.  The less weeds, the better for me. 

This is a Hungarian Wax pepper that is setting fruit.  They are all doing nicely.  I saw a few Chili's on one plant as well.  Can't wait to put these babies away for chili and salsa. 

I need to get the Geraniums in the ground.  They're laying outside the fence waiting for my attention.  I'll be planting them as a companion to the peppers. 

These are Boston pickling cukes and dill.  Can't wait to make spicy refrigerator pickles out of these babies.  I used 2 t-posts that I had laying around and garden netting for the trellis.   I placed slicers on the other side.  I took this picture before I got the slicers in today.   

The Romas and bush beans are looking good.  The Beefsteak and Pink Brandy Wine, below, are coming along nicely. 

The Blue Lake french pole beans and bush beans are coming along too.    Do you mulch your beans? 

This is Miss Tilly.  Matilda has seen better days, so she was placed on the garbage truck at the end of the season last year.  Miss Tilly is missing her hat, and Mama can't find it.  I'll have to find a replacement in the coming weeks. 

I did plant peas and sunflowers today.  I didn't have any luck with the sunflowers last year and the groundhogs eat the peas down to the ground.  Hopefully this will be a better year.  Stay tuned for more developments in the Diva's Garden. 

Veggie Plants are Blooming

Last week-end I headed out to cut bamboo for my pole beans and squash/zucchini.  My brother has a yard full of bamboo, and offered a few pieces for my garden.  

We cut 7 foot pieces for my pole beans and tied them at the top with twine, and about 10 pieces of various sizes for my other vining veggies.   I planted Blue Lake pole and bush beans and several bush Wax beans in this area.  All are coming up nicely. 

This is the squash trellis I made.  It's amazing how a pole can look straight while you're in one position, and totally off when you're in another.  That will teach me to wait until I have help.  I'll straighten it out tomorrow when I have another set of eyes, lol.

I found this fabulous old peach orchard ladder and decided to put it the garden this year.  It contains my $2.00 clearance daisy from Lowes.  I have more bush beans and Roma tomatoes under it.  I'll pot up a few plants to place on the other steps of the ladder this week-end.  I have just about everything in,  I need to add a few more cukes, dill, red onions and some additional flowers.  Can't wait to make pickles this year.   

My peppers are flowering.  I planted 15 chili, cayenne, Hungarian, jalapeno and  2 sweet.  I have 2 pink Brandy Wine, 1 Hillbilly, 2 Paul Robeson, 1 Beefsteak, and 1 German Johnson that survived.  Didn't do well with my tomato germination, hopefully next year I will be more successful.  I was truly hoping for a few Cherokee Purple.  I searched the local garden centers, and none carried Cherokee Purple for replacements.  Heirlooms are rare in most garden centers in my area.  Not sure where I went wrong.  I think next year, I won't attempt to transplant them as early.  I'll wait until their stronger.     

I'm hoping that my cages will hold the heirlooms.  How do you cage your tomatoes?  I may add a few of the bamboo poles for reinforcement this week-end.  If they get as heavy as the Amish Paste did last year, I'll need it.   What's in your garden this year? 

Square Watermelons

I have been fighting with blogger this morning trying to write this post.  I hate hate hate the new blogger option.  I was so happy that I could temporarily revert back to the old format so I could communicate with you.  I hope they work the bugs out before they make the change permanent.  I don't understand why people make changes when they have a good thing that works, and the users know how to use the product.  So much for my ranting this afternoon. 

How cool is this picture.  Square watermelons are really popular in Japan and are making their way to the US.  I'm thinking about trying this with a few of my Sugar Baby watermelon plants.   I've been researching to see how I can turn a round melon into an ice cold delicious square treat, and it seems the way to go with Sugar Babies is a cinder block.   Once the melon has matured, you use a sledge hammer to break the block.  Not thrilled about having to break block, but I could easily get my hands on a few cinder blocks and call in man power to retrieve the treat. 

I'm thinking that square melons would make a nice center piece at a family gathering this summer.  I'm sure that I could get my grandson to eat a square watermelon too, lol.  The other way of  squaring the melon requires Plexiglass squares or a wooden box that I would need to put together.   You have to make a hole for the vine and than rig it to get the melon out.  We have several plastic companies in the area, so I'll check next week to see if Plexiglass squares are available.   I may find that building the squares are too much work this year.  I need to put together trellis' and we still need to start the fencing project.  

Have any of you grown square watermelons?  If so, what method do you use?  I'm thinking the concept would work for pumpkins and cantaloupes too. 

Garden's Tilled

I'll finally seeing some growth with my veggie plants.  I've transplanted quite a few and so far they're all doing great.  The exception is sweet peppers.  I only had two germinate, and they are struggling.  Not sure what the problem is with these little darlings, but I was successful and have transplanted many into bigger pots.   I kept a lot of my veggie/flower pots over the years. They have finally come in handy.  Here's a list of what I've transplanted so far:

3 Squash
5 Zucchini  (Hopefully, I can give a few of these away)
3 Cayenne
3 Chili
1 Hungarian Wax
2 Jalapeno
3 Cherokee Purple
2 Box Car Willie
1 Hillbilly
2 German Johnson
2 Kaki Coing
1 Crimson Watermelon
3 Sugar Baby Watermelon
2 Pumpkin

I saved my drinking cups for some of the plants and glad I did.  I had a few that were leggy, and wanted to plant them deep.  I used one of my hot glue guns to punch holes in the bottom of the cups.  It worked great. 

I have several flats that contain Brandy Wine, Paul Robeson and more hot peppers.  They have germinated, so I'm hoping to transplant them in the next week. I'll be adding Romas, green beans, and red onions to the garden as well. 

We finally got the garden tilled today.  We didn't make it as large as I wanted.  I ended up with a 25 x 25 instead of the 25 x 30 that I was hoping for.  We'll see how it works out.  The dirt is so fluffy.  It's like powder.  I'm hoping that I will not have to do much amending.  I'll have a soil analysis done later in the week.  Last year, I only added a light fertilizer.  I'm hoping that my compost that has been cooking for the past year will be enough this season. 

I need to figure out how I'm going to cage my tomatoes.  How do you cage your Heirlooms?  I may follow your lead. 

Do You Soak Your Peas?

Do you soak your peas before planting them?  Since I'm a novice gardener, I try to research or make notes from more experienced gardeners blogs.  I read that you should soak peas at least 8 hours before planting.  So I did!  Little did I know that they would increase during that time period.  OMG, it was like an explosion in those little bowls, lol. 

I decided to do a succession planting of the Wando sweet pea.  So far they're progressing nicely.  I'm looking forward to harvesting these sweet peas for soup and baby food.  I also planted a few Nantes baby carrots and more Blue Lake green beans.  We've had lots of rain the past week, so I'm hoping that they all germinate.  If the weather cooperates this week-end, I'll put in spinach and a few Cherokee Wax Bean plants for black bean soup and dip.  Need to get the garlic and strawberries in for next year's harvest too.  What's in your fall garden?

Summer Garden Is Coming To A Close

I decided to pull the zucchini plant to make room for the fall veggies.  I was able to blanch and freeze 2 quarts from my final harvest for zucchini bread this winter. 

The tomatoes plants are still producing, but they're turning red slowly.  I have quite a few green tomatoes left on the vines, so I'm hoping for a good harvest within the next week or 2 so I can put away a few more quarts for soup and salsa. 

I was able to harvest a few green beans, which I was very happy to see as I replanted them 4 times because the groundhogs ate them down, lol.  I was so excited that I planted a few bush beans.  I don't know if I'll see a harvest since it's so late in the season, but it doesn't hurt to try.  Next year, I'll suit up for my battle with the groundhog early, and hopefully I'll see a bigger and better harvest.  I've fried my last eggplant of the season.  It was better than the first one that I harvested, yum. 

My peppers have done great this season.  I plan to use these in my next batch of salsa.  I love the yellow and orange colors mixed with the red peppers and tomatoes.  I still have abundance of chili, banana, and jalapenos on the vines.  I'm going to make a few pints of pickled cauliflower, carrots, and pepper mix this week.   My 4 year old grandson and daughter loves it, lol. 

I decided to plant peas, carrots, and collards in my fall garden.  Stay tuned. 

Visitors

I have a black walnut tree in the back of my yard.  I've been finding walnut shells around my deck and was wondering how they got there.  I walked into my kitchen to fix a cup of coffee, and when I looked out the window I found this little fellow sitting on the deck rails.  I think I solved the mystery!   

As you know, I've been fighting groundhogs in the garden.  We trapped 6; however, 2 more have found themselves a home under my storage building.  I placed chicken wire loosely around the rabbit fencing leaving about 8 inches at an angle in hopes that they wouldn't dig under it.  These 2 are smart, they never appear when I'm home and they only dig on one side of the garden.  I've placed a few large stones along that fence line, so far I've blocked that side pretty good.  Hope I don't jinx myself, lol. I placed bricks along the backside of the fencing, so I would know if they were out.  This is what I found last week.  They've moved the bricks and bent the fencing pretty much to the ground.  Because it's loose, it's bending under their weight.  They did make it to a few tomatoes that were growing over the fence, but no major damage.   

Since I'm unable to relocate these little pests, I'm debating an electric fence for next year's garden.  I'm a little nervous about the idea, since I have a soon to be 4 year old grandson who loves to run around the yard.  Do any of you have an electric fence?  If not, how do you manage to keep the pests out your garden?  .  

 

This Week's Harvest

I managed to can 7 pints of peaches this week.  My daughter and her family surprised me with a visit over the week-end, so I decided to show her what was in store for the baby.  I didn't put syrup on this batch as I had planned.  We're going to use it for baby food for the new baby due in November, so sugar will not be added to any of the baby's fruit.   

The Roma tomatoes are producing nicely.  I'm going to freeze this batch, there's just not enough to fill up the canner and create a mess in the kitchen.  I have a ton of tomatoes ripening, which I'm so thankful for.  My sister was visiting this past week-end as well, so the salsa disappeared quickly.  As a matter of fact, it never made it off the towels on the counter, lol. 

My peppers are starting to turn.  I planted green, orange, and red bell along with the banana, chili, and jalapenos.  I have a tone of chili and banana peppers that need to be harvested.  I going to make a pickled pepper mix this week-end with cauliflower and carrots.  I used the peppers shown over sausages this evening.  The red peppers are so sweet.  I will planting these again next year. 

My squash are producing for the second time this year.  I'm going to fry a few more, and than freeze the remainder for casseroles this winter. 

This pepper was huge.  I somehow missed it while I was in the garden.  I was surprised how sweet it was inspite of how big it got.  I've found that veggies get bitter or tough if they're allowed to get too big. 

I'm planning to plant peas and carrots this week-end.  A little late getting them in, but time has not been on my side this week.  I'm planning a baby shower for my daughter Labor Day week-end, so I've had to turn my focus to that.  My SIL asked me to plant collard greens, but I don't see that happening this year.  I need to extend the garden to have space, and I just don't have the time right now.  What's happening in your garden?  Will you be putting in cool weather crops?  Leave me a comment, I'll stop by.   

Today's Harvest

Had a good day in the garden.  The tomatoes are finally starting to ripen.  Looks like more Zucchini Bread on the horizon.  I don't like my zucchini to get as large as the one in the picture.  I obviously missed it in the garden and it grow larger than I like.  I have tons of peppers that I need to get to this evening.  My pole beans are progressing, but they're a little behind.  I had to plant them 4 times because the groundhogs ate them down to the ground.  Hopefully they will take off and produce a few beans for canning. 

I'll make a squash and zucchini casserole for dinner this evening and Blanche and freeze the remainder for baby food for new grand baby who's on the way.  We'll slice the tomatoes for lunch or dinner this week.  Need to get my canner ready,  lol.  They're coming faster than we can eat them. 

What did you harvest this week?  Leave me a comment and I'll come over and check it out.