Hearing the sizzle outside

Holy bells and whistles. It is hot out. Our estimated temperature for yesterday was supposed to be 93, and the hubs kept getting texts from the office notifying him of ever increasing temps. At the peak yesterday it was 103. Today we reached 104. What happened????

I did go for an extremely short and hot run after dropping the boys off at their schools yesterday, I did 2 miles and I was so glad to be done. Today I gladly gave up my alone time yo the hubs so he could play basketball, it was 96 degrees at 930!

I managed to sneak outside this morning to check on the plants. Last night the fava bean seedlings were flopped over and the mint looked like someone had tried to dehydrate them in the pot. The mint rebounded, but the favas might be a goner....

I also found an abandoned zucchini on the plant. Oops!

I didn't realize I lived in an oven. Gasp!

Harvest Monday August 8, 2011

Well, we missed Harvest Monday last week again, but we have been utilizing the garden! And of course I have no recollection of where I recorded the weights.  We had a nice variety of things from the garden.

Scarlett Runner Beans

 Favas were a last minute addition to our al fresco dinner one night, it is so nice to be able to step out the door and pick what I need to get some vegetables for dinner.

Fava Beans - I can't believe they are still going strong.

 I think I did a bad, bad thing.  I enjoyed our stuffed zucchini dinner last month, but the giant zucchini was from my girl friend's garden, so i decided to try my hand at growing a "big boy". We have 2, from 2 plants, but now the plants are pretty sad looking. And we haven't had a single additional zucchini from either plant in a while. Good thing we have 1 more plant!  One came in at 4 pounds 15 oz and the other at 3 pounds 13 oz.

Pickles, Japanese eggplant, Super Sweet 100's, Cherokee Purple tomatoes, and 2 mammoth zucchinis

We also harvested some pickle fixings.  All from the garden. Now I have to try and get a recipe that I like. Trial and error period starts.

Home grown cukes, grape leaves (pilfered from neighbor, but growing on my
side of the fence!), dill, jalapeno, and garlic = YUM.

Finished product.

 And some more yummy yummy goodness.

More Scarlett Runner Beans, SS 100's, cukes, and my first Yellow Pear tomatoes.... and my first FIG of the year!

So visit Daphne's Dandelions to see what people are harvesting!  Happy gardening all!

Harvest Monday 7/18/2011

Harvest Monday, hosted by Daphne's Dandelions, is an opportunity to see what gardeners around the world are growing.

This week we managed to have a lot of green come from the garden. Our main harvests consisted of Fava Beans, zucchini, and our first Super Sweet 100 tomato.  We have used about half of the zucchinis and gave away a fair amount, due to the fact that we had to consume the mammoth Ambassador zucchini that the husband brought home.

Zucchini (duh)

Favas, SS100 tomato, pollinated and unpollinated zucchini



More favas

 I forgot to photograph it, but we are also including 13 1/8 oz of garlic into the harvest this week. I can't wait to use up the store bough garlic and try our home grown ones. YUM!

Happy Gardening all!

Harvest Monday - a little variety!

Happy Monday!  Thank you Daphne for hosting Harvest Monday, a wonderful opportunity to see what gardeners are producing all around the world.

We had some variety from what we are able to use from the garden this week. Temps are warming up and the plants are loving it, well, some of them are. The tomatoes are plumping up nicely and we had a LOT this week. I'm trying to figure out canning recipes that highlight their yumminess. Have any?

Harvest for 6/13-6/20:
Cherokee Purple Tomatoes: 3 pounds 11 7/8 oz
Strip German Tomatoes: 13 oz
Broccoli: 7/8 oz
Fairy Tale Eggplant: 2 1/8 oz
Fava Beans: 1 3/4 oz
Strawberries: 1 3/4 oz

I managed to snap a picture of the strawberries before the boys gobbled them up.

The heirloom tomatoes are so delicious and yummy, but they do have a bad tendency to crack if they get too much water. But I think it's worth it for the flavor.

Our broccoli never got very large, and I should have picked it Saturday, but I forgot and it started to flower. Maybe it will be a better fall crop, because so far I am not in love with the space/output ratio.

We had our first home grown favas at dinner last night.  We each had 1 bean pod (I shared with Ryle who amazingly enough decided to try something! He didn't like it, but heck, he tried it!!!!) grilled with olive oil and salt and pepper. Delicious. The hubby said it was far better than the last time he had favas (store bought.... probably old and past their prime).  I can't wait for more to mature, and I will definitely try this out as a fall/winter plant.

Harvest Monday 5/16/11

Happy Monday! Last week we did a lot of observing in the garden and I did a lot of regretting.  I really regretted not planting any lettuces when I saw all of the bounty my fellow urban gardeners were bringing in.  But maybe once I finally get the soil in the raised bed I can plant some there before the heat gets to be too much in SoCal.

Our harvest this week included  4 Tonda di Parigi Carrots (a petite sized round carrot we grew in containers), more peas (our plants are just about done and we need to just rip them out), and 3 1/2 oz of little Fairy Tale Eggplants.

I decided to conduct a bug search this Saturday since some critter was nibbling on my broccoli leaves.  What I found was nature doing it's thing.  A caterpillar entrapped in a spiders web and the spider hiding behind him after having taken a couple of nibbles our of him. I just left him to his dinner and help looking for others.

Unfortunately you can't see the spider hiding out. But this fat guy was making himself at home in my broccoli.

My earliest Cherokee Purple is really starting to change colors....soon!

And she has approx 30 friends for us as well.








Last week we finally planted the Japanese eggplant seedlings and the shishito pepper seedlings. Unfortunately the bunny discovered them the very same night.  He has been slowly nibbling away.  So our water/soda bottle garden is back. We don't drink many 2 liters, so I don't have really large bottles to protect the plants, so we had to make due with water bottles. Hopefully this will help until they get a little bigger and we can put up a bunny fence.

And for some reason the favas just keeled over. Seriously, just flopped over.  The stems feel strong and it was too early in the morning for the boys to have done them in, so I am confused by what happened.  I just tied them up to some bamboo and metal garden stakes and hope this helps. They are scrawny and only just starting to bulk up.

The smart pots we filled with red potatoes and my green zebra seedling finally got a home. I can't wait to see how each does in the new smart pots. They are some what uglier than a traditional pot, so I hid them by the fence.

And because I am just so amazed that it is actually growing, the sorrel again. We haven't picked any yet, no time to look up recipes to try out in the kitchen.

Now I'm off to go and fight with the pre-schooler about waking up and going to school. Happy gardening all!

Harvest Monday - 4/11/11

What an absolutely wonderful week/weekend it was! No trips to the emergency room,the kids were well behaved, and we even managed to got somethings accomplished in the yard.

This week we harvested peas, radishes, and Swiss chard.  And we are getting very excited for warmer weather and a larger garden. YAY!!!

11 oz of French Breakfast Radishes

4 1/2 oz peas

5 3/4 oz rainbow Swiss Chard

 The whole family was involved in the yard work this weekend. While the hubs was out playing basketball, the kiddos and I stayed home since the run this week was not jog stroller friendly. So we got to work on some garden projects that have been neglected. While getting the soil ready for my fava seedlings, I found a couple of worms. And normally I'd just leave them to do their work, but I know that Ryle loves bugs and worms, so I let him play a bit.

Icky!

Getting heeby jeebies just watching him play with the worms.

 And now it's time to get those seedlings planted. I've really only had Fava beans once after hearing Martha Stewart talk about how wonderful they were (yes, Martha Stewart). So I found some at the grocery store and we looked up a recipe and tried them out. We were not impressed. But lately I have been hearing about how awesome young fava beans are grilled in the pod and how delish the fava bean leaves are.  Well, I thought I'd see what I was missing.

 And we got part of our bed fixed up and ready for soil. One of the posts was missing from out kit, so we are waiting delivery. Getting excited about planting lots of yummies! So.... what grows in partial shade?

 The cress is starting to take off. I can't wait, it's so versatile. I saw some cress at the grocery store in one of those living containers, they sell. You know what I mean?  Well, I sort of figured if they were meant to keep the cress alive and fresh until you could eat it, maybe I could plant it in a container and cheat my way into a cress plant. So I panted it, and immediately watched it die. That was depressing. By about a week later I saw a little bit of cress had started growing in the pot. And now there's lots o cress growing in the pot.  Hooray!  So now we have cress. hmmmmm!

Happy Gardening all!  Check in and see what other gardeners around the world are harvesting this week!