What are you eating from your garden in 2016

[applestar]

We had these for lunch yesterday. Looking at the picture, I'm thinking they don't look all that appetizing, but I didn't want to roast them until crispy with crust. In fact, I was half thinking of steaming them because I wanted to preserve the tender goodness of new potatoes. In the end, I coated them in EVOO, freshly clipped Rosemary, smashed outer clove of an elephant garlic, Pink Himalayan seasalt. And freshly ground black peppers, some butter cut into bits, and chopped oyster mushrooms. Put on a parchment lined sheet then folded excess parchment over the corners and all around, leaving open middle. So they semi-steamed. 425 for 30 minutes.

I tried to get family to tell me which one tasted the best so I can narrow down the varieties to grow, but they said they ALL tasted great.

[AnnaIkona]

So far only peas and radishes and lettuce. Looking forward to cukes, tomatoes, beats, carrots, etc.

[digitS']

El gusto es mio!

The pleasure is mine! Except you are sharing gusto* here. How could this not be the best thing about a vegetable garden forum? Just to have an idea of what others are enjoying from their gardens, adds pleasure to my gardening life.

Rainbow''s feast ... AppleStar's new potatoes, subtly and wonderfully different from the way they will be from storage and subtly seasoned by an accomplished cook -- no wonder "they ALL tasted great."

Steve
*from Spanish: taste

[pinksand]

I ate my very first homegrown cucumber today I wish I'd taken a photo! It was delicious and the skin was nice and tender with seeds just the right size. I was worried it was picked too early but it seemed perfect!

Last year was my first try at growing them and I only had a single plant. The only cukes it produced were twisted and malformed so I just stopped watering it and gave upl. This year I have several plants and they are absolutely covered in babies that seem to be growing nicely with a beautiful shape.

[applestar]

Gotta have cukes! Mine are starting to take off and some are starting to bloom

My sunniest area elderberries are in full bloom -- some have already faded, but more to come and the shady area ones have only just started.

I was trying to decide if I want to harvest the flowers since I still have some of the bottled flower syrup from last year ... I made a lot and hot water bath canned them But today, I made a slushy with one. Oh wow it's very sweet ...as sweet as those artificially colored 7-11 ones, I would surmise, but mine is made with our frozen strawberries -- oh so YUM!

I'm done gardening for today, but definitely going out and gathering some flowers tomorrow!

[KitchenGardener]

had a stirfry of snow peas, broccoli, onions, carrots and tofu all from the garden. I grow the tofu on one of those little mini tofu trees. It was so good.

Today's lunch was a saute of onions, summer squash, red pepper (not from the garden but I DO have my first padrons ), tomatoes and basil. I ate it all, just can't stop when its so good.

lettuce is just about gone, one more head to eat before the next batch grows up. Onions are bulking up and they along with the shallots have no plans to die any time soon. I learned my lesson by pulling some and realized their thick green stems are still very much producing and alive. That said, I have been pulling them, cutting them in half and grilling them and they are very, very good indeed. No one else can have any (okay, maybe just a little).

[Lindsaylew82]

had a stirfry of snow peas, broccoli, onions, carrots and tofu all from the garden. I grow the tofu on one of those little mini tofu trees. It was so good.

HAAAA! (I was sneaking on the site after I finished my LAST homework assignment of this blasted Spanish class...oh thank goodness!!! and this made me LOL. The Downgraded to Permanent Roomate Resident Man asked me what did I think was so funny about Spanish 101 ! BUSTED! )

Tonight we had a lentil stew made with tomatoes and onions from the garden. We had sliced cucumbers and sliced Cherokee Purple, Valencia, and Eva Purple Ball tomatoes.

[rainbowgardener]

Had company over for dinner last night. Had green salad with garden cherry tomatoes and the first of my green beans, and fresh tomato pasta.

For the pasta: Sauteed onion and garlic (no garden garlic this year ), added mushrooms, salt and pepper and one of my little jalapenos, then a whole bunch of fresh basil, like more than a cup. Added in the chopped up stems of my rainbow chard. After all that was tender, put in six cups of fresh picked kale and chard (kale first because it takes more cooking), adding a cup or so of the water the pasta was cooking in. Once that was tender, I put in two pints of fresh picked chopped tomatoes and cooked just until the tomatoes started to soften.

Put the tomato and greens mixture on top of the drained-and-buttered-but-not-rinsed pasta, threw some sliced almonds and grated parmesan on top, and presto! quick, easy, nutritious, wonderful dinner! I should have gotten its picture, it was so pretty with the dark greens,red tomatoes, colorful chard stems ....

And all the onion peel, garlic skins, basil stems, mushroom stems, etc simmered up afterwards into the most wonderful smelling soup stock!

[pepperhead212]

This is actually from LAST season, and I have to finish them off soon! I just used a butternut squash (or rather, most of it) last night. I still have 12 in the basement, and the new ones are showing up on the vines. It will be a long time before those are ready, but I have to use these up! And they are the largest ones - the reason I've put off using some of them.

[Gary350]

DINNER Last night. Salad with tomatoes, lettuce, onion, parsley, oregano. Corn on the cob. BBQ pork chops on the grill.

[bobbyg]

Made some vegetable soup from zucchini (yellow and green), white onions, yellow beans, and store bought carrots for lunch. Came out real good. Got to decide what to make with these tomatoes tomorrow.

[Lindsaylew82]

We always make vegetable soup with tomatoes. You just scald and skin them, and crush them in the pot with your hands. Then add fresh corn cut off the cob, and cut fresh okra, s&p. In a seperate pot, I boil potatoes and shredded cabbage. Then you just pour them together add s&p and serve with cornbread.

So easy, and it's so delicious!

[Lindsaylew82]

[applestar]

Jealous!

[rainbowgardener]

Wow! Had friends over for Fourth of July cookout and had a garden feast, supplemented with Farmer's Market (FM) local produce.

Fruit salad, nothing from garden, but lots of fresh ripe Georgia peaches from FM

Tomato salad: From the garden -- Two pints of tomatoes, bell peppers, sweet corn (my stunted second planting, not worthy of being corn on the cob, but filled out the salad well), lots of basil and parsley, supplemented with FM yellow summer squash and marinated in Italian dressing.

Potatoes roasted on the grill -- Made a foil pouch with potatoes, bell and jalapeno peppers, green onions and lots of fresh herbs, all from the garden. Drizzled it with olive oil, salted and peppered, and put the whole pack on the grill.

FM corn on the cob grilled in the husks. (My third planting of corn is tasseling now, so there will be more garden corn, just not right now)

AND a pitcher of mojitos made with fresh picked mint!

OMG everything was so good!

I never understand why Thanksgiving is the end of November when there's nothing left in the garden. This is the real Thanksgiving, now in the season of abundance!

[applestar]

Sounds wonderful, Rainbowgardener!

...so, at this point, are you ambitious to grow more corn next year or? ...In the summer, DH swings around to the farmer's stands on the way home and picks up corn by the dozens and family devours them, so my little harvest is NOTHING in comparison but to me it's still satisfying to grow my own, and each ear -- umm year -- has been better than the last.

[rainbowgardener]

Well, I have my third stand of corn looking SUPER healthy and just starting to tassel. So there's still more corn coming. More than that I don't know. The one thing I definitely want to grow more of is potatoes! Potato crop is now gone and they are so good. Even the Farmer's market potatoes I bought aren't as good as my garden ones, though better than store bought. And they were expensive. I can get really good corn, cheap, every where.

[Lonesomedave]

ok....tonight we are having....RICE....(well, I didn't grow it, it will be a nice base for what comes next)

and...stir fry....with some nice sirloin that I got at the store and our fairy tale eggplants (with one little ichiban thrown in)

and some of our korean hot peppers, sort of a chinese pepper/eggplant steak...those peppers are a little hot, maybe more than pablanos, but far less than serranos or thai hot peppers....even way less than jalapenos

in the stir fry will be some of our ginger that I have grown

looking forward to it

this weekend, me and my son-in-law are going to harvest all of our jalapenos, thai, serrano and whatever other hot peppers we are growing, and make some pepper jelly...we have done this before with store-bought jalapenos and habeneros.....big mistake, although good .....this will be a little less hot, although not much....have some long (really long and skinny) thai peppers....they are unlike any thai peppers I have ever seen...have a good flavor but atomic hot....


will let you know how this works out

/dave/

[Lindsaylew82]

Dave,

We tried the Ball's Blue Book recipe for Golden Habañero Jelly, and it was fantastic! So if you have enough to make 2 batches of something, definitely give that a try! Worth it!

[Lonesomedave]

Dave,

We tried the Ball's Blue Book recipe for Golden Habañero Jelly, and it was fantastic! So if you have enough to make 2 batches of something, definitely give that a try! Worth it!

hey...how about posting it?....they don't have it online and I don't have a ball's blue book.....

/dave/

[Lindsaylew82]

This book! I love this book, and the pictures are just amazing!

See!!! Beautiful!

The recipe!

[Lonesomedave]

thanks!....it only needs a little pepper, so I believe we can make it....instead of habenero, it will be mixed hot pepper, but it does sound good....no bell pepper and 1/2 cup of mixed hot...sounds really good....

have copied the image, saved it and printed it out in photoshop...came out great...very readable


/dave/

[Lonesomedave]

just out of curiosity...I went out and looked at the plant tag on my long skinny (atomic) thai peppers

they are called GONG BAO...anybody ever heard of them?

not only are they the hottest I am growing this year, but they are the most productive....the pepper plant looks like a christmas tree with lots of long skinny green ornaments...definitely a keeper for next year

/dave/

[applestar]

If you plan to save seeds, it's a good idea to bag the flowerbuds before they open to isolate to keep them pure. Hopefully it's not a hybrid.

Post some pics please?

[Lonesomedave]

here you go....one picture of my Gong Bao pepper

long and skinny, and frightfully hot

/dave/

[AnnaIkona]

I harvested some red leaf lettuce, a bunch of radish and SO much cucumbers over the last couple weeks! It's amazing! Last year, our cucumbers were doing so bad...we only had about 2 cukes per plant and those cukes weren't that good. This year however, we experimented by growing all the cucumbers in a new location- our daughters' community garden (yes our two young daughters have their own community garden ), and they turned out to grow extremely well. Maybe it was all the composted chicken manure in the soil, or that they are getting a lot more sun...

Out cherry tomatoes are flowering and starting to form tomatoes, while our black Krim tomatoes are not blooming quite yet but are giant. I'm guessing this is because the cherry tomatoes are a bit older than the black Krim ones.

[Lindsaylew82]

Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread!
It was a vegan recipe, and it was SO surpringly delicious!

[digitS']

From nearly one side of the continent to nearly the other side of the continent:

Me, too! (Except, no chocolate ...)

DW already made zucchini bread! We finished a loaf and started on a second.

Steve

[pepperhead212]

The later veggies are starting to produce! I was really surprised at the Big Jims (10) and jalapeños (18) I harvested on 7-4. The eggplants are reaching full size, along with some ripe tomatoes, though most of those varieties. I knocked two green ones off the plants by accident, so last night I made an Indian dal which called for green tomatoes, eggplant, garlic, and curry leaves - all from the garden.

[rainbowgardener]

Having company over for dinner tomorrow night. Menu is green salad, with some garden ingredients, including bell peppers and cherry tomatoes. Fruit salad, with some farmer's market peaches but nothing from the garden (next year!) and spinach quiche. I will make the quiche with garden swiss chard instead of spinach, and garden onions and herbs. For desert homemade strawberry mint ice cream, which I just finished making and is now in the freezer. It is fresh farmers market locally grown strawberries and mint I just picked off my deck an it is SO good!

My third planting of corn is just starting to make ears so not too long until more corn. And if no disaster happens, we will be inundated with winter squash! Still thinking about trying a fourth planting of corn....

[digitS']

... I will make the quiche with garden swiss chard instead of spinach, and garden onions and herbs.....

I should try that . Another green and something NEW-to-me: Verde da Taglio Chard.

I don't like heavy chard stems. I've never eaten what little Swiss chard I've grown. Interest in it was lost during childhood. Verde da Taglio doesn't have heavy stems. I like it!

And, green beans!

Nothing new here! My first taste of green beans each year comes with the same thought, "this really is my favorite vegetable !"

These are DW's Jade variety. I would be even more enthusiastic if they were a more flavorful one. I shouldn't take anything away from the Jade. Some of those plants powered their way through June's whiplash weather. There are more on their way, including an entire bed planted just this week .

Steve

[Lindsaylew82]

We've eaten squash, zucchini, and patty pans everyday! This time of year, when I get home and start pondering what will be for supper, I get to looking at that ever increasing stack of cucurbits and think....ugh, again. Then I taste that creation and know that I will likely not have them for much longer...

Still enjoying lots of different tomatoes! Definitely not ready for that to stop!

[applestar]

Garlic, onion, yellow zucchini, eggplant, green pepper, carrots, red chard stems, garlic chives scapes and scrappy leaves, squash blossom petals, and basil ..I think that's it... Went into pasta sauce made with store bought marinara.

[rainbowgardener]

RE: "I don't like heavy chard stems. "

Most chard recipes call for pulling the leaves off of the heavy stems and just using the leaves, compost the stems. I have a couple recipes (especially the bean cheesy chard recipe from Recipes for a Small Planet, one of my favorites!) which call for separating them like that and then cooking both, but separately. You can chop and cook the stems like celery and then they are very nice. I won't put the stems in the quiche, but I always do put them into stir fries.

[kayjay]

I'm making zucchini lasagna tonight. I made a meat sauce with tomato puree from last year's garden, and a green pepper I just picked off the plant.

[jal_ut]

Garlic. Omigosh, I can't believe how much garlic I have. I musta really been on one last fall when I was planting?

[applestar]

Can you see the zucchini in there? No? neither could my family. They all asked for seconds and thirds of this yellow zucchini-elder-flower-lemon kefir smoothie

[Gary350]

Tomatoes, beans, squash, potatoes, onions, garlic, okra, herbs. This tomato weighs 15.8 ounces. Alice made crock pot chicken with tomatoes it was very good.

[rainbowgardener]

Very pretty, applestar! What's your secret for avoiding the Vine Borers?

[applestar]

I don't think I am. I can't get down and inspect the prickly vines for eggs. I saw a SVB moth flying around just a couple of days ago -- I clapped my hands over it and it went down but I couldn't find it.

My strategy is to pre-germinate then use the spoon in the seedzip method to sprout the squash seeds to seedleaf stage, then plant either directly in the ground or in cups to first trueleaf stage indoors under the lights and over heatmats -- all this greatly speeds up germination and initial growth to get a jump on the initial planting.

After that C.pepo and C.maxima squashes will produce as much as they can then get taken down. So far in the past couple of years, they average 1-2 mature and 1-2 immature per plant (x as many plants as I have growing). Key with those is earlier maturing varieties 90 days max for winter squashes, and earlier Summer squashes that mature in 55 days or so. Summer squashes are harvested immature so they manage to eek out more harvestable fruits.

(FWIW when I tried using the insect barrier tunnel, they stayed SVB-free but limitation in tunnel size created crowded conditions, and the non-woven medium fleece I was using caused build up of humidity and heat resulting in moldy rotted fruits once the full summer heat and humidity with frequent thunder showers came along -- that would be about now. Plus getting under the covers to hand pollinate was tedious. Results may be different using a more open insect netting cover -- for one thing, I would be able to SEE inside and decide if I need to open up and get in to take care of them.)

My main winter squash selections requiring 100-120 days are C.moschata varieties. I'm still trialing different varieties but am slowing building a favorite varieties list.