A couple of days ago we walked down to the garden to pick dinner. The plan was to make a fritatta.
Our first Zucchini, some baby Swiss Chard, a dozen or so Snow Peas, and fresh herbs (basil leaves, thyme sprigs, and a few Italian Parsley leaves). These made up the veggies part of our dinner.
Saute in a baking pan until tender, then add a few beaten eggs, place on top a few slices of fresh tomato, and some Almond milk mozzarella cheese slices, and bake until puffed. Add some Tabasco sauce and serve. Yummy.
We’ve been having salads and stir fry as well.
Lots of lettuce plants. We've been thinning them and eating at the same time. The zucchini plant is starting to produce a lot of baby zucchinis.
Behind the zucchini plant, the marigolds are making lots of blooms, and next to it two spaghetti squash plants are setting the gourds. They are very small yet, but we have probably six weeks until frost, so we are hopeful.
The tomato plants are setting lots of fruit now, and we are hopeful that we will have enough fruit to make tomato sauce for the winter, plus lots of fresh fruit to eat on the salads.
More lettuce, and we just picked one of the four Napa Chinese Cabbage plants in this picture. It is huge and takes up a big space in the refrigerator. Stir fry veggies is the plan for lunch today.
Beets are about an inch in diameter at the moment, so they are growing well. The carrots are still tiny, in no hurry to grow evidently.
Our corn plants are almost four feet tall now, if you count the first two feet of the raised beds.
We can safely say that corn is not in our immediate future from these plants. We MIGHT see an ear of corn, but highly unlikely. The beet plants behind them are really looking nice, and behind the beet plants the green beans are all starting to set baby green beans like crazy. In a few days we will have all the fresh green beans we can stand. I’ll have to start doing some preserving this next week.
Swiss Chard is such a pretty plant. We have two rows of it, planted almost a month apart, and the plants are virtually identical in size.
Swiss Chard is the best ingredient to have in a fritatta. Next year the plants will have a head start as they will come up again from the roots as soon as the ground thaws.
An heirloom tomato plant that our friend Susan gave to us is starting to bloom. We might get a tomato off it.
The watermelon plant behind the tomato plant is just barely starting to bloom – no melons in our future either. June was just too cool and wet for any of the melon plants. They like hot weather.
Something about our soil is not to the liking of the pepper plants. None of them are thriving. Next year we will have to figure that out. Perhaps more nitrogen….
One of our two Gooseberry bushes, this plant more than doubled in size this year. I'm glad we left a lot of space for it.
We’re going to plant a Rhubarb plant next to the Gooseberry, and instead of a pile of weeds we’ll have something delicious to eat.
We are getting ripe strawberries and raspberries to munch on every time we go down to the garden, just a few at a time. Next year we’ll have much more of both of those things to work with.
The red currant bushes have also doubled in size this year. They all set a few small clumps of fruit, and next year they will definitely produce enough to do something with.
We need to put up a support structure for the raspberry bushes. They are heavy and fall over, breaking the canes. The black raspberries are starting to turn color and we’re both really keeping an eye on them, anticipating trying them out.
The blueberry plants are also putting on some growth, as are two grape plants, and the Josta berry plants. And the fruit trees grew about a foot this year. One of our new cherry trees even set a cherry. A Robin tested it for us, and pronounced it quite edible.
Today we have a lot of weeding to do, and our summertime neighbor brought us two small boxes of plums from his place in Idaho, that need to be made into either jelly, jam, or butter. I haven’t decided which. I have two kinds of plums so perhaps two kinds of preserves will solve my dilemma.
And I brought home a small batch of peaches from the fruit stand this week. We had peach pancakes for breakfast today.
Gardening is fun!
I think the birds are keeping an eye on your raspberries too!!!!!