What are You Eating from the Garden?

[Rhodie Ranch]

I clicked the Love emoji, but its happy smiling face doesn't mean that to me. Its LOVE, pure simple love that you poured into your FIL while he was with you at home. I appreciate that you were so good to him. God speed Mr, Phaedra's Father in Law. I'm thinking of you and hope that your transition is sooner than later. Hugs.

 

[digitS']

Lunch today was vegetarian. Except for the salt, pepper and some butter for cooking -- everything was from the garden:

• hash brown potatoes,
• sauteed sweet peppers,
• choy sum greens, and
• the last of the 2nd planting of snap peas.

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

Last nites dinner was a squash casserole I had made earlier in the week; sautéed chard with mushrooms and squash and a bit of Jimmy Dean sausage crumbled up; green beans and yellow wax beans steamed together. All the veggies except the mushrooms came from the garden.

 

[Cosmo spring garden]

Had sautéed okra and tomato/cucumber Salad with lunch today. So good!
DH had tomato and cheese panini with apple sauce I canned last fall.
I just love our meals this time of year. So many goodies from the garden!

 

[ducks4you]

How do you saute your okra?

 

[digitS']

Dinner tonight was my Summer Tomato Soup. It was made entirely with cherry tomatoes that are beginning to come off the plants in good numbers! Cherry tomatoes make for a soup that is a little heavy because of the ratio of tomato skins to pulp so some milk was added and, of course, grated cheese .

With the soup and also from the garden -- melons! Yes. Two melons had changed color and slipped easily off the vines. This should be the start of a bounty of 2023 melons. Kinda funny. As I was trying to reach one melon without stepping on vines, I had my foot under one immature melon while digitS' of one hand rested on 2 more for balance and I nearly pulled off the wrong fruit! I had moved to this precarious position and couldn't see the one that had attracted my attention from another angle . The patch is absolutely littered with melons among the vines.

Two different ripe melons. The cantaloupe is our customary Goddess. The other was a Galia and likely also a customary Passport, not the new Brimos. Difficult to know for sure - the melon patch is a jungle!

The new Crenshaw Lilly is of a unique shape. I'm so looking forward to having a ripe Crenshaw from the garden. Never before have I even been willing to try growing one. This Lilly is small for a Crenshaw and has a days-to-maturity of 78. By the looks of a couple that can be seen, the wait for a ripe fruit won't be long. Definitely, something gained from the heat of this 2023 growing season.

Steve

 

[Phaedra]

Time to pick some beans

 

[Branching Out]

We prepared our first BLT sandwiches for lunch (amazing), and then pasta with roasted tomato basil sauce for supper. Heavily salted beans rounded out this simple yet tasty meal. I too love this time of the year!

 

[Dirtmechanic]

I have been making small batches of tomato sauce as they come. The san marzano are basically done but the celebrity are filling the kitchen table. As they push past freshly ripe into very ripe I have been cooking them. I made 1.5 gallons tonight. And about a gallon of sweet pickles from the garden. I want to run some cucumber through the press and make a puree to try different things with but without the crunch I get a little lost. I had made a ragu with some of our sauce and enjoyed it tonight.

I am going to sauce the cherry tomatoes with what DW does not want for salads. I hear it is a very good tomato sauce. There are at least 6 out there that are about to rain red {and yellow).

Squash volunteers in the cherry tomato cages turned out to be butternut winter squash so I let them go. I have cages that are 8ft tall and now there are butternut squash hanging from them. Thats new for me though I have grown melons and yellow squash vertically that way in the past.

 

[digitS']

Processing Morning with DW and I having a snap chat at the kitchen table.

Lots (for 2 people ) into the freezers -- cherry tomatoes, 3rd sowing of green beans, last of the Springtime snap peas, broccoli buds.


Marty Marmot was not successful in destroying the broccoli plants and depriving us of secondary buds. The Gypsy broccoli has done very well considering the damage and the hot/dry growing season.

Rounding things out on the kitchen counter (but not for the freezer):


I'm not sure about these eggplants. The Nigral picture in Johnny's doesn't match the shape of these little guys. They are the size and shape of softballs. (The lemon cucumbers are tennis ball size.) I can look for a plant label but they are smaller and even earlier than Epic, which should be the only other possibility. We have been having a few for the table the entire month of July. I'm rather impressed with them.

The lemon cucumbers are coming off the vines in great numbers. Almost a full 3 gallon bucket was harvested yesterday (and were shared with 2 other families). @Pulsegleaner said that he wasn't happy with the flavor but I want to strongly suggest that one doesn't eat these after they have gained that appearance of a lemon. At this stage, I think that they are just fine .