It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

The beans, peas and zucchini that we've gotten from our garden are fine.  Tasty.  But nothing compares to garden-fresh tomatoes.  And we got our first one!  Woo hoo!

She's not much of a looker, but I'm sure it'll taste just fine.  How are your gardens doing?  Let me know!

Garden Time

We got our veggies planted this weekend.  We're hoping that it'll be a bumper crop like last year.

Nothing too out of the ordinary this year: tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, cantaloupes, squash, peas, beans, Brussels sprouts, broccoli.  There's probably more that I'm not remembering.

Of course, the little plants were just starting to get used to their new home--enjoying the light rain that fell on Saturday, when they were beaten up my a rogue hail storm that blew through Blooming Glen yesterday afternoon. 

It was quite impressive.  Luckily, the hail stones were marble-sized, but there were a lot of them!  You can see in the picture that they piled up at the bottom of our downspouts and covered the yard with white. 

The newly planted veggies will survive.  Some torn leaves and a broken stem here and there, but I believe they'll survive to bear fruit.

Bounty of the Garden

Here's another shot of just some of the veggies I picked from our garden on Sunday, including some really cool yellow and orange striped heirloom tomatoes.  Yes, the squash continues to come.

Surprise!

As you may know, part of our garden this year is a "Jacob Garden" where Jake is growing some of his favorites--mint, beans, broccoli, some flowers that he started at school, a cactus that he got from somewhere (I forget where).  Things are doing well, except the beans, which were climbing like crazy up the bunch of sticks that we set up for them.  But there weren't any beans on them...or so we thought.

Last night I was watering and noticed something hanging on the plant--sort of hidden in the leaves.  Then I realized what they were--beans.  But not just regular old green beans.  These were Chinese long beans (also known as yard-long beans, asparagus beans and snake beans among other things).  We had no idea that was the kind of beans we bought.  I had seen them used before, but never saw them "in person". 

As you can see from the pictures, they're really long (thus the name).  That's a regular sized yellow wax bean in the picture below for comparison.  They're used in much the same way that a green bean is used.  They're from Asia, so they're often used in stir-fry or fried slowly as a side dish.  They're also sometimes eaten raw.

They are incredibly nutritious, too.  According to the USDA, they are a good source of protein, vitamin A, thiamin, riboflavin, iron, phosphorus, and potassium, and a very good source for vitamin C, folate, magnesium, and manganese.  In fact, one serving gives you 31% of your recommended daily amount of vitamin C.  Pretty amazing.

Supposedly, they are vigorous climbers (which we have seen) and should be harvested daily because the beans grow so quickly.  Hmmm...I wonder what long bean/squash recipes I can come up with!

Down on the Farm, Part II

Back at the end of May, we planted our garden.  You may remember my previous post about it.  Well, not much more than a month later, things are looking pretty good!  In fact, it's the best our garden has done in a long time--maybe ever!

A mix of nice garden weather--hot and humid--and our using mushroom soil this year are the causes of our green success.  Already, we've picked more zucchini and squash than we can use--there are about 7 or 8 in our fridge and we've made muffins and fried & grilled squash.  Gotta be creative.  Our tomatoes aren't getting red yet, but they will.  We've had a nice dinner with our beans and there are eggplants, peppers and watermelons starting.  And there will be loads of ground cherries.  If I only knew what to do with them.  Hello, Google!

As you can see from the pictures, the plants are growing like gangbusters--almost growing too much.  The squash plants that ate Blooming Glen!  I'm worried that the plants in the middle won't get enough sun, but I'm sure they'll be OK.

Mary Beth deserves pretty much all of the credit for our gardening success.  She's the one who spent so much time pulling weeds and getting the beds ready.  The least I can do it make her some dinner.  Something with squash, perhaps.

Have a great holiday weekend!

Down on the Farm

Earlier than usual, we got our veggie plants in the ground last weekend.  I'm no gardener, but I love having a veggie garden.  To me, there's not much better than biting into a juicy tomato fresh from the back yard.  Mmm...can't wait until they're ready.

We have 2 beds, but they're not huge.  We have the usual suspects: a variety of tomatoes, bell peppers, hot peppers, 2-3 kinds of eggplant, green beans, summer squash & zucchini.  New for us this year are watermelon, broccoli & ground cherries.  (By the way, if any of you know how to use ground cherries, let me know.  We just bought them because we thought it would be something different.)  We also have a bunch of different herbs--basil, cinnamon basil, parsley, etc.  (See my previous post about herbs.)  The beds aren't much to look at now, but we're hoping they'll be thriving soon.  We used mushroom soil this year--on the suggestion of many.

This year, Jake has his "Jacob Garden" (toward the top of the picture above) where he's got the green beans and broccoli growing--2 of his favorites.  He's also growing zinnias that he started at school and a sunflower that he got at the Ape House at the Philly Zoo, of all places.  He wanted the watermelon, but we needed more room for them that the Jacob Garden can offer.

Let me know about your gardens--what are your favorite things to grow, what new things have you tried this year, etc. 

Good luck!

Amish Country

On Saturday, we made our yearly pilgrimage to the Amish Country to pick up things for our veggie and flower gardens.  Every year we go out with my parents and make a day of it.  The weather even cooperated for most of the day.

As we usually do, we started with a trip to Sadie's Bakery.  Sadie's is one of those places where, if you're giving directions to get there,  you say something like: "Go into Churchtown; turn right after that one church.  At that one big farm, turn right.  Then after the field with the big work horses in it, go up the hill.  It's on the left.  You can't miss it."  Once inside, though, you just want sit down and start tasting each donut, pie, whoopie pie, cake, apple fritter....So good.  And fresh.  The creme-filled Long Johns are awesome.

We went to our usual greenhouses and stocked up on a bunch of tomato varieties, peppers, eggplant, herbs, melons, etc.  We don't have a very big veg garden, but it's big enough to supply us with goodies for much of the summer.  Luckily, we didn't have time to put them in the ground yet--with the freezing temps at night lately, they would have been in trouble.  So they sit on our porch with sheets over them until the weather gets better.  Just can't wait to be able to go out and pull off a delicious, fresh tomato.  Could very well be my favorite thing about summer--next to baseball, I guess.  Jake has asked for part of our veg garden as a "Jacob Garden"--we'll put green beans and other things he likes in there.  He's very excited about that.

It always amazes me how much earlier the growing season is out there than it is here.  And it sure is a beautiful area--the rolling hills and fields are something out of a postcard.  Not to mention the great produce and meats.  Next time we go out, we're planning on filling our pie holes with the Shady Maple Smorgasbord breakfast.  Now, where are those stretchy pants?