my dad's gardens

I spent last weekend with my parents. One of my favorite things to do is wander through their gardens and see what's growing. My buddy Skippy likes hanging out here too.

aerial of my community plot

This is as high up as I can reach with my camera to get an "aerial" photo. Its another dark wet day and so I did my best to enhance the lighting with PhotoShop.

How about those ugly tomato plants. Arrgh! Not many leaves left. Septoria leaf spot is way out of control this year.

I continue to dig potatoes from the open area at the right. Lots of them! I have a small area where I have dug all the potatoes and so I planted radish and carrots seeds here last week.

My other fall seedlings include lettuce, beets, arugula, spinach, and broccoli. You can see some of these behind the ugly tomatoes.

The area of green in the upper right is my bean patch. Lots of Provider green beans ripening now. Also growing here and Black Turtle Soup and Tongue of Fire beans that aren't ripe yet. These should dry on the vines, but I don't think anything is drying anywhere in my garden this year.

My cucumbers on the trellis in the foreground did not do much this year. I finally remembered that I dug this patch as an afterthought in an unprepared area of the garden. It had no lime and no fertilizer. Two weeks ago I hastily applied fertilizer and the cucumber vines that are left are perking up a bit.

squash bread

My evening activity is making zucchini/squash bread. (While watching the awesome Chinese Olympics opening!) I grated a pile of overgrown squash - the ones that I didn't find until too late. My mom said to look for a car with an open window and put them in. But no, I grated them all. I ended up with a pile of baggies full that I froze.

I have been reading through Marion Morash's Victory Garden Cookbook again (I read this every year I think). Lots of squash ideas. I will try using my frozen grated squash in soups, pasta sauce and squash breads and cakes later.

Kathy's Summer Squash Bread
(From The Victory Garden Cookbook, by Marion Morash, where its called Lynn's Spicy Zucchini Bread. This version has my changes.)

3 cups flour: 1 cup whole spelt flour and 2 cups all purpose white flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves
3 eggs
1 3/4 cup sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups lightly packed grated summer squashes
1 cup raisins
3/4 cup nuts (I used sliced almonds)

Mix the dry ingredients together. Beat the eggs with the sugar, oil and vanilla. Gradually beat in the dry ingredients. Stir in squash, raisins and nuts. Divide between two 9x5-inch loaf pans generously greased with butter. Bake in preheated 350 degree F oven until done (50-70 minutes).

Cucurbita pepo (squash)
Skippy's vegetable recipes

aerial view of my home garden

As usual, my garden path is wet since yet another rain storm is moving in this afternoon. I can't remember when I have watered the garden this summer. A very wet year!

I have lots of fall seedlings growing in pots now for the empty patches. Mostly greens will go here: arugula, endive, spinach, mesclun mix and many lettuce varieties.

Can you spot my pumpkin under the big leaves at the right? Its just starting to turn orange. I'll have to take its picture soon.

The healthy patch of blue-green in the center of my garden is kale. Three varieties: Tuscan, Winterbor and Red Russian. The leaves are really nice. The bright orange flowers are Cosmic Orange Cosmos. Lots of pole and bush beans are starting to fill in at the far right.

I'd like to figure out how to get a better "aerial photo" of my community garden plot. Hmm.

aerial views of my home vegetable garden

onions drying

I pulled all of my onions a couple days ago. I have noticed other gardeners are drying theirs in their gardens, though with all the rain, I'm not sure why. So I have half my crop on a counter in my kitchen (bottom left photo) and the rest in the sun in my garden (top photo). I'm hoping to find Gino in his garden (his onions are the bottom right photo) so I can ask him if its important to leave them outside.

summer bounty

I am so lucky this year to have such good food, free for the harvest from my gardens! These are photos of some of my harvests from the past few days. My favorites are the beets, potatoes, carrots, beans and even the overabundant squash. Just one? - my real favorite this week is probably the Chiogga beets and tender greens.

The potatoes are also one of my favorites. Tonight I had dinner guests and before the meal, we headed over to the garden and dug in the potato patch. I didn't remember what I planted where, but I ended up finding 6 or 8 very good sized Russets. We popped them in the oven and ate them with butter. Soooo good!

Cheers to August! The best month of the year.

I read last night the chapter of Micheal Pollan's "In Defense Of Food" where he says that we (in the US) need to spend more time preparing our food and enjoying eating it. I took this to heart tonight and did my best. With our baked potatoes, we ate grilled local pork tenderloin, Lutz and Chiogga beets with greens, green beans, local bread, garden salad with orange, black and pink tomatoes, and blueberry pie. It is certainly is nice to take the time to grow, harvest, prepare and enjoy a meal with your family (and a martini!).

Cucurbita pepo (squash)
Daucus carota
potatoes (Solanum tuberosum)
harvests from my vegetable gardens

flowers in my vegetable garden

I planted a few kinds of flowers this year to attract bees and brighten up the vegetable garden. They're tucked in here and there. Big and small sunflowers, morning glory, anise hyssop, nasturtiums, zinnias and marigolds. All are in full bloom now.

Hymenoptera

weed wacking

My arms are sore from trimming weeds in the paths of our community garden. I used the Garden's super powerful weed whacker, which chewed up everything it came near and nearly vibrated by arms loose. Its absolutely amazing how big the weeds were! Nice to see freshly trimmed paths. Now I should go over it again with a mower. Wonderful how a garden can keep you busy.

Belmont Victory Garden

north shore garden

I visited a lovely vegetable garden this past weekend and had the pleasure to take a few photos. Its a hidden treasure. A big backyard garden in a small town north of Boston.

My guess is its at least 60 x 120 feet. Lots of space between the rows. The tomatoes are hanging heavy on the plants now. I believe the varieties are Big Girl and Roma. They look like they'll start ripening next week. The corn is tall and must be just about ripe too. I wish I had such a nice bed of asparagus. The feathered leaves held drops of the morning rain.

Last year too I visited here and took a few pictures.

Some ideas I will take for my garden next year: the tomato supports - a classic Italian design, wider spacing between plants, heavy salt march hay mulching, collect very tall straight branches for pole beans and use one at a time just straight up (instead of a tepee), start an asparagus bed. I wish I could have a bee box, but this does not seem right for my small back yard or a community plot.

fall seedlings

Well, my new seedlings look pretty wet here. They're getting a lot of rain, but are doing fine.

I like to plant most seeds in potting soil in cell packs. Its easier to keep an eye on the baby sprouts this way.

On July 18 I planted:
Lettuce, Red Summer Crisp, 1 6-pack
Escarole, Bionda A Cuore Pieno, 1 6-pack
Beets, Lutz, 1 6-pack
Broccoli, Green Goliath, 2 6-packs
Broccoli, Green Sprouting Calabrese, 1 6-pack
Dill, Dukat, 2 6-packs

On August 3 I planted:
Lettuce, Prizehead, 2 6-packs
Fall greens mix, 3 6-packs
Lettuce, Four Seasons, 1 6-pack
Lettuce, Bibb, 2 6-packs
Endive, Batavian, 2 6-packs
Plus one 6-pack I didn't label and don't remember what it is...

I want to try to remember to plant some fall carrots and radish tomorrow at my community plot.

Here's my entire planting record for this year.
beets (Beta vulgaris)

Capucijner peas

My Capucijner soup pea crop amounted to 2 cups this year - twice what I got last year. Its drying now in a bowl in my kitchen. I stir them often and remove the few peas that get moldy. Peas and beans for drying are usually left on the vine until they're dry, but it was much too damp for that this spring. They're pretty much dry now after a week in the kitchen.

I thought I would have more soup peas this year. I saved an amount of seeds that I thought would produce 4-5 cups based on last years yield. But it wasn't a good year for peas this year.

Pisum sativum

I can post again!

I had the note below at the top of my blog yesterday because I was locked out and unable to post. I thought it would take a long time until I could post again, but happily I can post now! Thanks blogger. That was quick.

A number of posts I drafted and saved during the lock out are now posted below.

Note to Readers - Blogger's spam robot has run amok and has tagged 1000s of blogs, including this one, as "spam." Obviously, I am not a spam blog. But for now I cannot post anything new. I don't know how long it will be until this is fixed.

Here's a site that describes this problem. You can still post comments on my old posts, I can answer comments, and I can edit my template (which is the source of this note), but no new posts. I hope to be up and posting again soon!
(By the way, I ate my first ripe tomatoes today!)

Gretta's CSA farm

I went by the CSA farm around the corner from my house this morning. Absolutely beautiful vegetables! I walked through the fields and took photos in the bright midday heat. You can see some of these posted at Gretta's website.

I enjoyed peeking under squash and melon leaves to see the varieties growing. This photo is some type of melon. From looking over Gretta's planting list I think it may by Earliqueen cantaloupe. I need to ask. Maybe I can get a taste. Gretta has several varieties of beautiful watermelons and winter squashes growing too. Of course, lots of tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and onions. And tons of summer squash. I brought home a delicious bunch of cilantro, some cukes and pretty purple spring onions. The cukes were very nice in my Friday night martini! Thanks Gretta!

Gretta said she still has fall/winter CSA shares available. The link to sign up is at her blog.

Cucurbita pepo (squash)
Melons (Cucumis melo)

day lilies

The perfect midsummer flower! These are growing in a nearby plot at the community garden. Others are 'weeds' in the paths and in my plot.


Belmont Victory Garden