what are you eating from your garden today 2017

[PaulF]

Blackberries, beets and zucchini.

[applestar]

We are drinking elderflower drink made from freshly made elderflower syrup

...also, Lettuce Basil leaves have been subbed in for Lettuce in sandwiches.

[rainbowgardener]

Yummy! I bought an elderberry plant early this spring (late winter actually) and planted it and it had been thriving. But it is on the fence line. My next door neighbor sprayed some kind of lawn chemicals and the elderberry got blasted. I'm watering a lot and hoping it pulls through. GRRR

[applestar]

Oh no! I hope it survives.

.…wait did you say plant (singular?) my understanding is you need two cultivars to cross pollinate for good fruitset?

Of course I don't know if I do any more. I originally bought "Johns" and "Adams" but neither of the original plants are alive any more. Birds helped to spread them and I just kept ones that were growing where I didn't mind.

I suppose since they are seedlings presumably from the original two, they are hybrids with sufficient genetic variations.

[rainbowgardener]

Our first ears of Silver Queen corn were dinner last night! Ripe corn before the Fourth of July!

[rainbowgardener]

Today I dried lots of herbs (purple basil, tarragon, oregano, thyme, lavender, sage, lemon balm), made pesto from fresh garden (green) basil and garden garlic. I made homemade strawberry mint ice cream with fresh picked mint. And I made a vegetable plate to take to a July 4 party with tomato slices (red) and cherry tomatoes (orange), broccoli, green pepper, carrots, swiss chard, with a sunflower in the middle of the plate for ornament.

[Taiji]

Today's salad. Chard, and the first Scarlet Nantes.

[xtron]

baseball sized red potatoes, sliced, wrapped in foil with red onion, also from the garden, butter, salt and pepper, then roasted on the bar-b-que with pork chops. side of peas that were picked and frozen 3 weeks ago. salad of fresh picked lettus, spinach and swiss chard...gonna be the last salad before it all bolts..kind of woody now.
got it cooked and back inside with 5 minutes to spare before the rain started

[rainbowgardener]

We had company for dinner and picked TEN ripe ears of Silver Queen corn!!

Since we had already had two dinners with corn on the cob, that is most of the ears from my 4x4 patch, just a few left.

But the second planting of corn is getting pretty tall now!

[pepperhead212]

I made some Szechwan eggplant tonight - a dish I usually make as soon as I am getting enough eggplant (2 lbs for a double recipe, which I almost always make) from the garden. I also used garlic from this season, and dried peppers from last season. Usually the scallions would have been from the garden, but I didn't plant them, due to that Allium leaf miner threat here.

On the side I also had some cucumbers I always make - simple quick pickles, made by halving the cukes, de-seeding them, then cutting into sticks about 1/2" x 2-3". Simply soak these in and equal amount of white vinegar and sugar, and a bit of salt (about 1/4 tsp to 1/4 c each vinegar and sugar for 2 medium cukes) in a sealed jar, shaking them occasionally, and in 3-4 hrs they are ready! I drain them, and add nam prik pao, or a tsp easch of sesame oil and hot oil, to give them a kick.

[Taiji]

Sounds good. This reminds me that I have a food dehydrator that I hardly ever use. I need to start doing that.

Latest rhubarb cuttings for pies. Only started growing rhubarb here about 3 yrs. ago. Am surprised how it keeps pumping out growth even in extended 100+ degree heat day after day. Always thought of it as a cool weather spring crop mostly suited for back east gardens. I always feel like I'm making a pie out of celery. (until I taste it!)

[applestar]

(Lambs quarters) and onions, mushroom, and manchego cheese omelet seasoned with my own chili powder made with dehydrated and ground up (peppers, onions, garlic, oregano)

DD saw it and said -- Oh! Mama made GREEN EGGS!
Mean while, DH quipped from the family room -- and ham?

[imafan26]

I picked my first cucumber of shio kyuri. It looks like a skinnier version of Suyo Long. I gave it to my mom. I have about 6 more that should be ready in a few days.

[applestar]

Shio kyuri - salt cucumber? -- is it naturally salty or is it for making salt-rubbed cucumbers?

[Animal_lover]

We have just moved to our new place in April and planted basil, parsley, mint, tomatoes and thyme with sunflowers. When we get some cheese from our neighbor's goats, we eat it with herbs . They are doing really well and apparently eating raw parsley is super healthy, as it is one of the superfoods, packed with vitamins.

[applestar]

Today I dried lots of herbs (purple basil, tarragon, oregano, thyme, lavender, sage, lemon balm), made pesto from fresh garden (green) basil and garden garlic. I made homemade strawberry mint ice cream with fresh picked mint.

What kind of mint did you use for your ice cream?

[jeff84]

used some carrots, onions, zucchini, bell peppers, and chicken to make stir fry. the chicken came from the store but the rest was straight from the garden.

[rainbowgardener]

Today I dried lots of herbs (purple basil, tarragon, oregano, thyme, lavender, sage, lemon balm), made pesto from fresh garden (green) basil and garden garlic. I made homemade strawberry mint ice cream with fresh picked mint.

What kind of mint did you use for your ice cream?

What I have growing, which is the Kentucky Colonel spearmint.

You actually have to work pretty hard to get the mint flavor to come through. I used three times as much mint as the recipe calls for and it is still fairly subtle. I think next time I will infuse the mint into hot milk and let it sit for a good while...

[digitS']

Snacking on cucumbers, now. The vines have just begun to grow so the 6 they have produced so far is surprising!

In fact, additional cucumber starts began as seeds a couple of weeks ago and have been squeezed into the onion bed primarily as room was made by harvesting some of the scallions. The onions are forming bulbs now and harvesting them will continue -- sliced sweet onions and cucumbers, splashed with vinegar and sprinkled with salt & black pepper ... That's certainly in the foreseeable future!

Several zucchini were harvested on Tuesday. Already today, there was one about 10" that must have doubled in size in 2 days. Oh, and some additional summer squash starts went in between the early cabbage about a week ago and we brought several of the cabbage home, today!

Steve

[imafan26]

Cucumber (Shiyo Kyuri) with mayo and shoyu. Crisp and sweet. Japanese cucumbers have few seeds when they are young and are not bitter. This one was 16 inches long and about an inch in diameter. I gave one to one of my co workers, they did not know that fresh cukes had spines.

[digitS']

...they did not know that fresh cukes had spines.

Next time, you should rub your cucumber with your gloves on before giving it to them. I could say, toss it in a box and carry it for a thousand miles .

Our give them a Beit Alpha type cucumber and have them think that you picked the wrinkled thing a week ago.

Steve

[rainbowgardener]

Company dinner tomorrow night will be a big pot of vegetarian chili, with lots of garden ingredients. The tomatoes of course, but also green peppers, corn, onions, garlic.... I will make a very big pot of it and then the left overs can go to church potluck Sunday AM.

[Gary350]

I love to cook. I made this for dinner last night, I often change the recipe to suit US. I used baked potatoes as the bowl instead of the green pepper body. I scooped out the inside of each potato and mixed it with, sour cream, butter, Cheddar cheese, then put it back into the empty potato body. I remove the meat from the casing of 2 German Bratsworth and fried it in the skillet with, 1 onion chopped, 5 garlic cloves chopped, 2 tomatoes chopped, 1 large bell pepper chopped, 1/2 cup red wine, 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce, cook and stir until onions are soft and liquid boils away then dump it over the potatoes. WOW it was GOOD.



Our Garden is loaded with vegetables we are in heaven, too bad we can't have fresh garden vegetables year round.

[PaulF]

The Black Cherry and Ambrosia Red Cherry are ripe and the Marianna's Peace will be ripe today. Several peppers have been picked. Golden and dark green zucchini have been fried and eaten and blackberries are loaded, have been picked and frozen so when they are done I can make blackberry jelly.

The harvest has begun in Nebraska.

[xtron]

put up 6 pints of peaches flast Friday, and will have that many more by tomorrow. yesterday I made 4 pints of blackberry jelly and blackberry ice cream YUMM. there's 2 head of cabbage ready to be harvested and processed later this week, and we are eating red potatoes every day or two.

[applestar]

Oh! oh! How do you make blackberry ice cream?

[applestar]

Harvested -- Not quite ripe tomatoes that split from overnight rain, runty onions that "matured" and dried up behind some weeds, overgrown Lettuce that are still good but not for very long, some lemon yellow fully ripe Aji Pineapple hot peppers ....

Had leftover brown rice and a hard boiled egg so -- chopped everything but the lettuce and mixed with a little mayo, then added rice until it seemed like a good ratio. Considered adding something more bit really didn't need anything else. Wrapped the egg-tomato-rice "salad" in freshly harvested/rinsed Lettuce leaves for lovely breakfast -- yum

[Gary350]

Oh! oh! How do you make blackberry ice cream?

Electric ice cream maker usually comes with several recipes. Did you get recipes with yours? Some recipes are cold mix recipes and some are cook recipes. I like the cold easy to make recipes. Milk, sugar, and flavor it about all it is. The addition of cream makes a nice ice cream, I sometimes mix in a container of half & half with the milk. Add sugar and other things recipe calls for then turn on the ice cream maker and let it run. If you put Blackberries in the ice cream maker at the beginning 30 minutes later after it becomes ice cream it will be blue color ice cream with black berry seeds. If you freeze the black berries hard and rocks you can stir them into the ice cream at the very end of mixing. Let them mix about 1 minute. Frozen berries stay together and ice cream does not turn blue. Frozen berries soften by the time you dump the ice cream out of the machine and get it in bowls.

[imafan26]

Ice cream sounds good now. I just had a neopolitan bar for breakfast. It came from the store though. I like my cucumbers prickly. That is how I know it is fresh. The prickles will fall off in 24 hours. I just found another cucumber. It was hiding between two pots. It is going to be more than one meal. I got some calamondin but I gave it to my friend. She uses it for bathing.

[rainbowgardener]

Dinner last night was a Moroccan vegetable stew with almost all garden vegetables, mixed with rice and lentils. Dinner tonight included green salad with lots of garden ingredients and potato salad made with garden potatoes and green peppers and eggs from our chickens! Came out wonderful!

[applestar]

I cut open my Thai Kang Kob cross squash from November 12.



I put the piece I cut off in a stew with pork, daikon, Korean glutinous corn off the cob, immature Enterprise apples, and mushrooms, onions, elephant garlic, and aji pineapple peppers (Rosemary, bayleaf, sea salt) in home made chicken stock. I sautéed the meat in Sunflower oil first, then added the onions, apples, garlic and deseeded peppers, and the mushrooms -- medium-low heat until everything was caramelized while adding chunks of daikon and squash, then deglazed with brewed Japanese cooking wine (I think this is some kind of sake, but not the artificially flavored one). Added the chicken stock and ...oh! To get the gelatinous stock and fat out of the container, I needed hot water, so I ran a 6 oz Keurig cycle into it, but I forgot I had my used eco-brew coffee pod in there, so "weakly" coffee flavored water... Stew tastes wonderful -- so rich and full of flavor.

...I just had a second serving. I can still taste the squash in the tender chunks and a lingering mild spiciness that could be either from the peppers or from the squash.

[xtron]

rib eye steak...from the store.... with fresh picked corn on the cob...both grilled on the bar-b-que, and cole slaw from the cabbage picked the other day. the rest of the cabbage were canned into 8 pints. and that was just the first of the cabbage.
more corn will b e picked tomorrow and frozen/canned/dehydrated.

[applestar]

I had several cocktail size tomatoes -- Maskotka -- split from last night's downpour, and I harvested some garlic chives, so I made a spicy garlic chives omelet with fried not- quite full-ripe tomatoes.

Heat a pat of butter and sunflower oil enough to coat the 6 in. personal sautéed pan. Start by covering the bottom with chopped garlic chives, add one minced Aji Pineapple pepper (no seeds/membrain), sea salt, 2 beaten eggs, 2 deli thin slices of provolone. Fold over and let runny eggs run out and puff in the oil. Remove omelet, arrange halved stem end trimmed tomatoes cut side down and let sizzle. Put omelet back on top and press down to crush the tomatoes into the hot pan. Remove as soon as tomatoes soften and liquid runs out. Yum!

[lakngulf]

Still enjoying lots of tomatoes....Cherokee Purple, Better Boy and Brandywine.....and okra loves this time of the year down south. Lots of okra.

[lakngulf]

My second crop of tomatoes had to deal with some tough, HOT july weather but are hanging in there!



Picked these this morning. Better Boy and Cherokee Purple. These flats make about 8 we have picked off about 20 plants. We consider that pretty good for this time of the year.

[Gary350]

Tomatoes, cantaloupe, corn, beans, squash, potatoes, onions, garlic. .

[rainbowgardener]

Made an "extra vegetable fried rice" recipe with brown rice, with cabbage, tomatoes, green beans, green peppers from my garden.

[benshawlerd]

Pulling out some lettuce today...woohoo!

Got my instructions and planting dates from www.growmigo.com, very accurate recommendations.

Waiting for tomatoes to ripen...

[digitS']

The cherry tomatoes are nice and becoming plentiful. The larger varieties have the "weird ones," down in the center of the plants. Only one or two good enough to slice and use the whole tomato.

The very first ears of corn ... and a little jumping the gun on those . Maybe, there will be some more mature, this morning.

Buckets of potatoes carried out and washed. Probably not a good idea to wash but they have to be carried across carpet and down to the basement ... where it isn't especially cool with near record heat!

The turnip greens are coming out of recovery from the spring flea beetle attacks. I hadn't really anticipated them as a summer green but haven't grown turnips since the seventies! They are good .

Green Beans, Snap Beans, String Beans, Haricot Beans, Phaseolus vulgaris ...!

Steve

[rainbowgardener]

Made an "extra vegetable fried rice" recipe with brown rice, with cabbage, tomatoes, green beans, green peppers from my garden.

Nothing new since then, but I am busy processing stuff. Canned salsa and tomato sauce. Dried a whole bunch of herbs (oregano, tarragon, spearmint, rosemary, lemon balm, sage, etc). Made purple basil pesto and purple basil simple syrup. Usually I make basil jelly (green and purple), but I got so carried away making jelly last year, that I still have plenty left, even after giving a bunch away.