Pages

Monday, September 23, 2024

Garden Stuff

70°f, 21°C, cloudy. A shower overnight dampened the ground a bit, but we need so much more.

We are waiting for rain,  which is forecast to arrive tomorrow. I have never seen thr ground so dry and cracked. Most of our grass in the lawns around the house has died, but weeds are thriving, of course! In one tiny patch, I don't really care, as I will be expanding my rose garden into that area. I figure when the larger flowerbeds become too much for me, I will still be able to care for the roses. Planning ahead much?

I did a walkabout in the veggie garden yesterday, and came out with a couple full buckets.


The garden continues to amaze me. We still have loads of squash, as the old plants re-rooted some stems and made new plants, and the seeds I planted at the beginning of July are now plants in their prime. With so much squash, I have been trying a few new recipes. Yesterday I sliced and boiled them, then drained, and used my immersion blender to make them like mashed potatoes, adding butter, salt, and pepper. Delicious! I had made meatloaf and this went perfectly with it. Larry really cleaned it up, and the dogs enjoyed the leftovers. I will try adding parmesan next time, and I also saw a recipe for mixing yellow and butternut squash and preparing like this.

It was pepper-chopping day too, and I was thrilled with my new Nesco vacuum sealer

Image from Amazon.com. But who seals up cucumbers! Can't imagine why someone would do that.

I was so frustrated with the ones I had, that would not suck the air out properly. This new one doesn't play around! 

Today I have to string up the chili peppers, and get a few bottles of hot sauce started.

Still coming from the garden: peppers, chard, kale, dill, basil, carrots, celery, squash, brussel sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, a fewvtomatoes and cucumbers, butternut squash,  one little pumpkin,  some mini peppers, leeks, and a few green beans. So often people pull out their gardens by Labor Day, but with a little care it will keep right on going. At this point we simply use the weedeater to cut down the weeds, so the work to keep the garden going is minimal.

Well, work to do, so I'd best get at it! Have a great Monday.


Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

9 comments:

  1. ...you have a beautiful harvest. We finally had rain today with perhaps more tomorrow.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We are still waiting but supposed to have rain tomorrow. I won't hold my breath though.

      Delete
  2. Your garden is doing great. How much area do you plant? My father used to plant over an acre.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have never really measured. But let's see...one is about 16 feet wide and 50 feet long, the second is about 20 by 16, and the third varies a lot but this year was only about 12 x16. Then there is the herb garden, roughly 16 by 16, I guess-- it has raspberries, asparagus and the grape arbor as well as herbs. Sometimes we let one area rest and plow a new spot. We are on a hillside, so that's why there are different plots but the first one and the herb garden are always planted. The first one now has horseradish, strawberries and asparagus in permanent plantings, along with the areas we till for annual seeds and plants. I plant intensively in this garden, so rows are closer than normal, and I do a lot of succession planting here too, which means that there is little space that is not growing something throughout the growing season.

      Delete
  3. Beautiful fresh veggies, enjoy!

    ReplyDelete
  4. What an amazing amount of vegetables you got from your garden.
    I hope you get a proper rain soon.

    ReplyDelete
  5. That is a beautiful haul from your garden! We finally got some moisture up here in ND. Enough that the sloughs even started to fill back up!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Your hauls continue to look good to me.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for sharing your thoughts! Comments are moderated so may not appear immediately, but be assured that I read and enjoy each and every word you write, and will post them as quickly as possible.