Rantings & Ravings

The garden has been busy - today’s harvest includes sugar snap peas and radishes (which we had for lunch), and tomatoes of both standard and cherry size. Lots of peppers were ripe too, yielding bell, sweet, and hot peppers.

They’re not ready yet, but the cucumbers are coming along nicely too. It’ll only be a […]

After we were given cucumber from a friend’s garden (thanks Eric!) a couple seasons back, Laura was inspired to try growing cucumber this year. It’s amazing how fast they grow once the fruit sets up. This beauty harvested in at 11” and just over a pound. Some of our tomatoes are […]

Spring has Sprung here……..

We celebrated Pi Day with homemade sourdough crust Pi themed pizza pie with garden fresh tomatoes and rings of onion and sliced olives. The toppings were all round to celebrate Pi. Unfortunately when the cheese melted, the Pi related handiwork also melted… it was still delicious though.

We enjoyed a lazy rainy day breakfast with lots of goodies from the garden. Eggs and hash browns - both with bell peppers and onions (not from the garden), and from the garden… Potatoes and sugar snap peas, red jalapeños, and tomatoes (in the eggs). Very tasty!

We’re lucky to have fresh tomatoes still growing in the garden this December…..

…We enjoyed some of the latest ones in BLTs for lunch. Yum!

Winter Dendrobiums

Mother Nature was having fun with the last two bell peppers we bought….

…Each had a tiny bell pepper growing inside, complete with seeds inside the tiny ones.

It’s hard to believe that the garden has been going for over six months now. We’ve enjoyed all sorts of homegrown goodies, and have been able to share some of the bounty too. A couple of tomato plants are still producing, and the radishes and daikon are just finishing up.

Garlic and potatoes have […]

It must be root veggie season… our daikon is ripe, and Helen gave us some beautiful carrots from her garden. We enjoyed a tasty lunch of swordfish, rice pilaf, carrots, and daikon greens. Lunch always tastes better with homegrown veggies!

Here’s a closeup if our awesome meal.

We used the last of the ginormous zucchini in a zucchini quiche. It’s a kind of “impossible pie” made with bisquick. The recipe came from Helen (aka grower of ginormous zucchinis)
Zucchini gets grated, then I whipped up some homemade Bisquick in the food processor.
Other ingredients get gathered (including parsley and chives from the […]

We’re still enjoying the ginormous zucchini we got from Helen… today’s dish was zucchini casserole. It starts with ground beef, onion, and zucchini sautéed together. A little flour is sprinkled on to act as a thickener. Then canned tomatoes/sauce are added, along with Italian seasoning. The casserole is topped with grated cheddar […]

Helen shared a ginormous zucchini from her garden (Thank you Helen!)… it weighed in at over 4-1/2 pounds!
Such a bounty screamed for zucchini bread!
Even after having some zuke for lunch and grating 2 cups for zucchini bread, there’s still a lot left to enjoy.

We were gifted some sourdough starter (Thanks Eliza!) and after feeding it for a few weeks it was time to try baking something. With basil, a few small peppers, and Roma tomatoes growing in the garden, pizza seemed like a perfect choice.
The flour, salt, sugar, and water get added to the starter and […]

The basil plants in the garden (Cinnamon, Thai, Sweet, and Lettuce Leaf) needed a trim, so we ended up with a lot of basil to use. No problem…

We already had homemade homegrown tomato sauce in the freezer, added a bunch of the basil and some of the last of the fresh cherry tomatoes and […]

We grew a new-to-us kind of radish in the garden: Watermelon Radish. It really does look like a watermelon when you slice it! Both the radish and the greens are very tasty.

Our Early Girl tomato plant gave up, but there were a lot of not yet ripe tomatoes still on it. We let them ripen a bit off the vine, and then cooked them down into almost 4 cups of flavorful tomato sauce. We enjoyed it over pasta with meatballs.

The first of the radishes are coming in! We’ve got assorted small radishes (Crimson Giant, French Breakfast, Watermelon, Easter Egg), as well as Daikon. The radishes are crisp and tasty, and we’re trying out eating the greens too - they’re very “green” tasting and a little bit sharp. It’s fun having enough […]

Critters were sampling the tomatoes, so we picked a bunch that were oh-so-close to fully ripe.

A bunch for us to enjoy, and some to share with friends (which is one of the most fun things about gardening)

There’s a critter in the garden helping himself to our tomatoes. Forensic evidence of tomato-napper. Much […]