Lunch

I took a picture of my lunch today because it was so good. I LOVE fresh garden produce!!!

We had fried zucchini and onions, plus a big bowl of green beans for dinner on Sunday and these were leftovers because we couldn't finish them all. And that was after Ella ate almost a whole plate of beans herself! They are delectable with a little salt and butter...

I don't have any red tomatoes yet but my neighbor does, and they shared some with us. (More on that in a minute). There is nothing in the world as good as a garden tomato sandwich. My father-in-law taught me to make it with hummus, which ups the delicious factor even more!

I planned on eating chips & salsa too, but I was too full so I saved it for snack time. I recently got a salsa recipe from my brother-in-law that is to die for! My jalapenos and onions are ready for picking so I made it to go camping last weekend, and it got scarfed by young and old! Here is the recipe for anyone interested in trying it:

JT's Salsa

One 15 oz can of tomato sauce
3-4 tomatoes (or 3-4 handfulls of grape tomatoes)

4-5 jalapenos (seeds mostly removed)
0-3 serrano or fresno chilis if available
10 mini sweet peppers or mild banana peppers or 1 - 1.5 large sweet bell peppers
1/3 cup sweet onion
1-3 cloves crushed garlic, depending on size
cilantro
juice from one small lime or 1/2 large lime

The more variety of peppers, the better it tastes. Use the best tasting tomatoes you can find.

My usual spices:
cumin, coriander, paprika, oregano
I don't measure, but I only use these sparingly, maybe 1/4 tsp each.

Sometimes I add:
fresh ginger root
horseradish (1/2 tsp)
parsley
chives

Put everything in a food processor, starting with the spices, hot peppers, and tomato sauce. Then add the rest & run it until it chops it to the desired size of chunks.

Back to my tomato sharing neighbor... He has a special pruning method that helps set fruit sooner. He pinches off every little offshoot from the main canes of the plant and stakes them up really tall. I think cutting back on the vegetative growth sends the energy into fruit production sooner.

I thought about doing this myself because my tomatoes are huge sprawling masses of vegetation and they only have small green tomatoes on them so far. I learned, however, that my tomato variety 'Celebrity' is determinate, meaning it is bred to grow to a certain height or size, and then stop. Indeterminate varieties, on the other hand (such as Big Boy, Early Girl, Beefsteak, and most heirloom varieties) continue growing and producing vines until the frost kills them back. Only indeterminate varieties should be pruned. Maybe next year I will try a few of each so I can get early and late tomatoes.

State of the Garden

Feeling the need to document the growth of our garden in the last month (compare here). It has exploded!

We harvested our first green beans for Sunday dinner yesterday. Mmmmmmmmm, they are so good with butter and salt!

My tomatoes are getting humungous! A construction worker in the lot behind me told me I would get more tomatoes if I removed most of the leaves from the plant, but I am skeptical about that one. I do try to remove any leaves that lay on the soil to prevent molding or rotting, but there are plenty of tiny tomatoes developing as it is. Any thoughts?

In the meantime I might need to go buy some tomatoes because I've got a bumper crop of jalapenos. Time to try some salsa recipes!

We've got a few pumpkins on the vine already.

The curcurbits (pumpkins, cucumbers, cantaloupes, and watermelons) are taking over the world. I thought I had given them each enough room to spread, but I am constantly redirecting vines so they don't grow into one tangled mass!

The corn is taller than me and has tassled out.

I love this time of year... sunflowers and thunderstorms make me happy!

Volunteers

There is a benefit to being lazy and letting a few things to to seed in your garden. The seeds get buried and tilled in, and the next year they volunteer!
 

You can see at the end of my row of peppers there is a baby cantaloupe plant. There are three others in various places at the end of the garden where they grew last year. I know I missed harvesting a few small ones that went mushy, and now they have reproduced.

What doesn't belong? Beet, beet, beet, tomato, beet... I didn't even see it there until it was taller than the beets. I'll take it, since a few of my tomato plants broke off at the base in a big windstorm.

My yard always has sunflower seedlings in the summer. Usually I pull them up like weeds, but I left a few next to the garden to make it pretty.

And pretty it is!

Gardening With Kids

A talented friend of mine recently asked me to do a gardening post for her blog about teaching children, Dresses and Messes.  This is what I came up with:

Kids soak up whatever you expose them to, so get them in the garden  this summer and make growing things fun! Here are a few easy tips:

Give them space of their own. My girls were each given a small row of the garden to plant whatever their little hearts desired. Of course they were drawn to the pretty flower  packets over the veggies, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to beautify the garden too!

Read the back of the seed packet together and demonstrate the proper  planting methods, talking about measurements, spacing, and depth. They  will think it’s so cool!

Of course the best part is seeing their own plants sprout and grow! Maddie was so delighted when her marigolds popped up. We have yet to see the  flowers but I’m sure it will be a happy day!

Involve them in the harvest. My girls love, love, love peas. They are so excited when the pods form, and when it’s harvest time they ask multiple times a day if they can go pick peas. There must be something magical about opening the pod to  find the sweet little spheres inside.

Cook together! Show the kids where the veggies go after harvest. When they see the process  from garden to table, they will be more excited to eat them! Above is a  pasta salad we have been making that I learned at Girls’ Camp. Put  noodles, veggies, meat, cheeses (parmesan and feta are delish), and  ranch dressing in a gallon bag and shake it up! It’s also fun to let  kids choose what toppings they want and make their own in small sandwich bags.

Identify plants. Talk about the names, shapes, and colors of each plant, and they will  remember! Case in point, we recently visited an Aunt and while checking  out her garden, Ella exclaimed, “There’s the carrots!” I guess I figured she knew where ours are in the garden because of the placement, but she recognized the leaf shape enough to identify it somewhere else.   

Search for bugs.  This is the best part. Apparently sunflowers attract ladybugs and my girls  love finding the ladybugs and letting them crawl all over them until  they take flight. 

Search under and around leaves and you never know what you’ll find! Act like a kid yourself, and loose a few minutes watching and ant crawl around.

Occasionally you’ll find something spectacular, like this dragonfly that let the  kids hold it! Now that’s something they will remember.

MULCH!

For my 30th birthday I got the wish of my heart.... 36 yards of mulch (this is only half of it). Now isn't that something to cherish?

We spent two days spreading it about four inches thick and wondering why in heaven's name we have such big flower beds.

It makes the yard look more finished, and I love the color contrast with the green grass.

Now I am just trying to convince Mike to till it into the native concrete so I can have healthy, fluffy soil. It would certainly make planting much easier as we start to fill in with plants and shrubs!
 

If anyone is interested, this is where we bought it from: Timpanogos Special Services District.

State of the Garden

 We harvested our first lettuce this week! It is such a good feeling to bring it from garden to table!

It didn't come in very evenly, but I think it's because there was a little crust on the soil when the seelings were trying to break through.

Actually, all of my seeds came up patchy.... poor carrots.

The pumpkins are already growing rapidly. There are two mounds like this and I should probably thin them before they go crazy!

The row of cantaloupes are looking good.

The corn is growing nice and even. The back row is mammoth sunflowers. They are going to be beautiful!

The peas are getting a little taller. They aren't as impressive as my neighbor's, so next year we'll have to start in February like he did! (I love how I accidentally framed Ella with the chicken wire.)

The shallots came in really well.

I finally convinced Mike to save me the grass clippings to use in the garden. We're going to try using them to keep the weeds down on the rows.

In other news, Mike borrowed a bobcat from a neighbor and cleared our back yard again. It helps to be able to imagine what we want to do back there. We may not get to it this year, but we can at least dream....circular paver patio, extended deck, fire pit, playset, and of course more grass...

Starts from Mom's Garden

We visited my mom over Memorial Day, and 'tis the season for iris! I love this time of year when the air is sweetly scented with Russian Olive blossoms and the iris and peonies are in their full glory. 

My mom has iris from my grandmothers on both sides. Now that I have a yard of my own hopefully I can keep this inheritance of beauty alive!

This variegated one is my favorite. It smells like grapes.

I took some of each color: white, periwinkle, dark purple, purple and yellow, purple and white, and two different shades of yellow.

I had a flash of genius and raided my mom's extensive collection of ribbon to tie around the rhizomes so I could remember what color they are when the blooms are done and gone.
  

For some tips on how to plant iris, check back here. 

I also took starts of some perennials and groundcovers. I love sweet woodruff (above) and have plenty of flower beds to let it spread in.

Another good spreader is dead nettle. I got some in yellow and pink. 

A little start of Mom's chives will be perfect in my herb garden. 

She also gave me a summer phlox (pink I think), sedum (far left), and a forget-me-not. Now I just need to find them a new home!