2012 what are you eating from your garden?

[Nancydobs]

I planted a month EARLY for this area and covered with tarps at night. And still, my peas are 6" high, I have a bumper crop of unripe strawberries, my tomato and pepper plants are about 8" high, and carrots about 1.5" high. Just to give you a reference!

Even worse than the late spring frosts (which generally last until June 1 or later) is the early fall frost, which starts again in September. It's a race to get the tomatoes to grow and ripen with only a 90-day "frost free" growing season, and it does occasionally frost during that time as well.

Bottom line, if one has the deep yearning to garden, as we all do, there's no end to what we'll do to make it happen, right?

[rainbowgardener]

Spring stuff is mostly done and summer stuff mostly not ready yet. But I made veggie chili tonight with basil, chard, and celery from the garden.

It's been years since I grew celery, but I have more space this year. I planted 4 of them across a 4' wide bed at my community garden plot. I only even see that plot about every other week, so have tended them very little. And I never gardened that plot before, so the soil isn't very good. But the celery is doing great, turned into a whole little celery hedge across the bed.

And it tastes wonderful! The garden celery is as much more flavorful than storebought as garden tomatoes are than storebought tomatoes.

In the meantime, I'm busy already harvesting herbs. I have lemon balm, basil, lavender drying and little vials of distilled mint and lavender...

[Tonio]

I made a quinoa tabuli salad !! yummmyy!!
Instead of mint I used home grown thai basil , genovese, japanese cucumber, black krim tomato. And added purchased flat leaf parsely, EVOO, lemon juice.

T

[hendi_alex]

Here in late June the following are staying ahead of us: tomatoes, green beans, jalapenos, cucumbers, corn, Swiss Chard, salad greens, zucchini. We also have plenty of herbs: parsley, basil, thyme, oregano, and of course we have plenty of garlic.

Melons are just starting to vine. A single squash vine is giving a trickle. Have replanted some squash, so will probably have more in late summer.

[rainbowgardener]

This isn't about eating, so much, but I don't know if we have a thread about what are you harvesting. Yesterday I pulled the last dozen garlic scapes AND picked the first half dozen ripe tomatoes! YAY!!

[hendi_alex]

I'm just too spoiled. Wouldn't do for me to move far up north. We've been harvesting tomatoes for over two months now. With a little luck will still be eating fresh tomatoes in December.

[gumbo2176]

The only things fresh out the garden now that the heat is getting very oppressive are Yard Long Beans, Ichiban and White Globe Eggplant, Jalapeno, Belgian Hot Wax, Banana Peppers and Okra.

For fruit, I have fresh blackberries and figs daily. So many of the latter that I've already put up 4 quarts of preserves and given away some fresh to friends.

Then there's the herbs of Basil, Sage, Rosemary, Oregano and Parsley that are still doing well.

[applestar]

I mentioned elsewhere that I picked my first Tromboncino summer squash and was going to out it in pasta sauce. Well, it didn't make it into pasta sauce because another idea took over.

I sliced up the Tromboncino squash into 1/4" disks and started sautéing in a bit of EVOO, salting to help it along, then added minced Egyptian onion set, Summer Bell hybrid yellow pepper cut into strips, a handful of orange (Sun Sugar hybrid) and red (Matt's Wild Cherry) cherry tomatoes, a stalk and leaves of nameless celery (planted in spring as started plants bought from the gardeners co-op) and the stalk part of a red Swiss chard from Rainbow chard mix. A bit more salt, turn the now nicely browned squash disks to finish the other side, then added diced chard green. Adjust the seasoning, a bit of freshly ground black pepper. And done!

Very simple, but oh, so flavorful !!
yum, yum!!

[rainbowgardener]

Love summer! Dinner last night was stir-fried-garden-veggies-that-need-to-be-used-up: Onion, garlic, celery, green peppers, tomatoes, basil, chard, parsley. Threw in a few store bought mushrooms, just because they needed to be used up too, but everything else was from the garden. Just lightly stir fried adding the hardest veggies first so they cook longer. Didn't add anything else but salt and pepper and light dusting of parmesan when it was done. Came out very nice. If you want more substance you can serve it over couscous, rice, noodles, etc, but I just ate it plain.