My first summer harvest

I just returned from my garden, victorious! I harvested a purple bell pepper, a yellow banana pepper, a dark green heirloom zucchini (zucchino?), a handful of green beans, two beautiful beets, and four carrots, three of which are perfectly usable, and one which needs a little help, plus one little onion. My plan is to roast the beets, one carrot, and a Japanese sweet potato for dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow, and use the rest of the veggies to make a ratatouille to serve over rice for the next few days.

I'm beginning to wish that I had planted more beans, as I really enjoy eating and canning them. I also discovered that there are varieties of purple beans, so next year I may try starting some from seed. It would be very cool to can green and purple dilly beans.

So far, my zucchini haven't been productive at all. I'm hoping that will change, but one of the things I'm learning is that zucchini really don't like the heat that much. They collapse pretty quickly unless they get watered often. I'm determined not to make the same mistake I did last year and let the zucchini plants collapse.

Exciting garden news

I have corn growing on my cornstalks! It's such an exciting thing for me. Ironically, it's the smallest cornstalks that are producing right now, but i have at least three ears of corn coming up. My tomatoes are starting to produce, I have several peppers maturing, some of my beets are absolutely humungous, the green beans are doing great, and I have a small heirloom zucchini. the eggplants, tomatillo, and cucumber are all flowering, as are the melons. It's an exciting time for my garden.

Food plans for the next week (or two)

I've picked enough green beans to make a nice green bean and potato salad, so I bought potatoes at the farmer's market and I'm making enough to last at least two lunches and two dinners. I'm also making some focaccia to go along with it (yum!). Some fresh onion from the garden will round it out. I also picked up some small purple potatoes, so at some point I will eat those with mayonnaise or cottage cheese. I also just found a recipe for a lovely Italian summer soup, with beans, potatoes, tomatoes, and carrots, so that will probably be on the menu for later this week or next week.

At the moment, I'm also making en enormous amount of bread, most of it destined for the freezer. I've discovered the joys of freezing bread. It thaws beautifully, so one night of baking will last me several weeks.

If I run out of options for the next two weeks, I'll make some Eastern European whole pea soup, pasta with tomato sauce (flavored with onions and carrots from the garden!), or tasty bites, one of my favorite last-minute dinners.

Bonsais and mulch

Which have nothing to do with each other.

After a lecture (of sorts) from my garden neighbor, I decided to mulch my garden. Not having any mulching materials readily available, I headed over to my friend Sam's house to pilfer some from the streets. We grabbed some giant leaf bags and started shoveling grass clippings in. At one point, her neighbor came home as we were gathering grass clippings from in front of his house. He looked at us like we were crazy, then started laughing. I doubt he thinks we're crazy, just a bit eccentric. I got two giant leaf bags of clippings, which covered about 2/3 of my garden, which isn't bad. I'm curious to see how much it helps keep the weeds down and the water in. But so far, my garden is doing great!

One of my experiments this year is corn. I bought quite a few corn plants, some organic and some regular. I honestly can't remember which is which, but one group is doing far better than the other group. this is also the first time I've planted herbs other than basil, and they're doing better than expected at the moment. The beets are doing great! I picked a few the other day and roasted them, and they were delish. I'll have to plant more the next time around. I love beets. I pulled all of my shallots and I'm getting ready to hang them in my closet, the only cool, dark, dry place that I house. I also have a few volunteers, which I think are melons left over from last year. I don't actually remember what type of melon they are, but I know I didn't get the same kind this year, so I'm very hopeful they'll turn out to be good.

On a somewhat related side note, I've decided to take up bonsai, although probably not too seriously. Just a bit seriously. We'll see what happens. For now, I have two starters and no tools, so I can't do much other than just keep them alive (which is going well so far).

So if any of you want ideas for birthday gifts for me, bonsai tools and a tomato machine would be awesome!