Many mouths munch mouthwatering manna. Mine? Mere morsels.

Gardening. Ugh. Seems the aphids, bunnies, cardinals, blue jays, ants, roly poly's, etc. are enjoying my labor way more than we are lately. My basil and jalapenos are still flourishing. Everything else? Not so much. The cucumbers are tough and are trying desperately to resist all of the garden pests. But, as soon as one will ripen, someone other than myself helps himself. We've sprayed and sprayed with all sorts of pest control, but to no avail.
Thankfully I've used basil at least thrice weekly since it was planted, I've given tons away, and early on in the summer I picked at least 2 cucumbers daily. We once had green beans nightly, banana peppers every few days, and tons of cilantro too. Not even the pervasive zucchini has escaped unscathed. I haven't had a single one! I'm still trying, but I think it may be time to count my losses. Bummer.

Canned

A couple of Christmases ago I got all of the equipment needed to can homemade jellies, jams, sauces, etc. Unfortunately life has happened since then leaving me little time to learn a new domestic skill of the like. Friday I pulled everything out to make use of a huge container of strawberries left over from all of our recent company. I bought some rhubarb and made strawberry-rhubarb preserves. It was so rewarding that I used the afternoon to whip up some pepper jelly from the jalapenos from my garden and from my parents' garden. They both turned out well, and I will definitely be canning more in the future...just as soon as I can rid the kitchen of all of the stickiness. Canning is a huge mess!

Recipes can be found here and here.

Peppers Aplenty

...unfortunately, after the aphid infestation, they're the only thing that's "aplenty" in the garden these days.

(I have no idea why Blogger won't post this as I've saved it, but I have to settle for sideways.)

The many, many leaves of basil

My basil plant (bush!) is out of control. It's grown to 2 feet high and is as big around as a beach ball. I've harvested basil just about daily to encourage it to grow wider and not tall and stalky. I've made everything from my basil chicken previously posted to marinaras, spaghetti sauces, lasagna, and everything in between. I've given it away and, ultimately tossed some which grossely conflicts with my pioneer tendencies. =)
Anyway, my sister had the best idea for a way to preserve the fresh basil. She suggested chopping it and freezing it in ice cube trays. I did, and it worked perfectly! I used my first few cubes in dinner last night. Just clean it, chop it up, spoon it into ice cube trays, cover it with water, and freeze. You can do this with any fresh herbs. Freeze mint into ice cubes, and use it to cool off iced tea. Freeze fresh cilantro, and use it for your salsas. The possibilities are endless.
Thanks for the great tip, Amy!

My Garden Mutt

I've been really busy lately, so there's been a lot fewer posts over here. We had a tornado last week, so we spent quite a bit of time cleaning up. We were housesitting next door, and we spent almost every waking moment swimming in her pool which she so graciously offered. Tomorrow is Chris' birthday (it's a BIG one!), and Sunday is Father's Day. Plus we're going away for our anniversary in a couple of weeks, so we've been swamped.
The garden certainly hasn't stopped producing in the meantime. I don't think I've shared this, but I have a pile of grass and weeds that I've pulled out of the garden sitting just outside the fence. I haven't moved it because I noticed a vine growing awhile back, and I thought I'd wait to see what it was. I planted everything in the garden from plants I purchased except for the pumpkin, green beans, and sweet peas. I thought at first that it may be a pumpkin seed sprouting, but I just can't figure it out. The vines look exactly like the cucumber, the leaves are a mix between the watermelon and the zucchini, and the flowers look nothing like any other plants. Now it's producing fruit, so I'm curious to see what that turns out to be. It is, by far, the biggest plant in the yard. So incredibly strange. We refer to it, lovingly, as our "Garden Mutt." Any guesses as to what it could be?
More garden progress:
Look at these creepers! There's no longer room between them to walk. Crazy.
Finally we have 2 sugar snap peas. Unfortunately the plant is succumbing to the heat and is almost all dead, so these are probably the only two we'll yield. Bummer.

Here's the first squash. We finally have some female flowers on the zucchini, so I expect those to spring up any time now.This morning while I was watering, I reached down to move some of the watermelon vines that were trying to overtake the squash, and I found these cuties! I've never grown watermelon before, and I'm so excited to watch them develop. The bottom picture is a watermelon about the size of a golf ball. So fun.

Free Mulch

We have tons of projects going on in our backyard. I've been adding up the amount of mulch or other ground covering (pebbles, pea gravel, etc.) we'd need, and it's enormous. There used to be a place in town that had a pile of free mulch, but it's no longer there. So I did some reasearch. I called a local landscaping company that trims and removes trees and stumps. They deliver free mulch when their truck is full. But you have to take the whole load. It was a lot more than I imagined, but we've already made a huge dent in it, and we've offered it to our neighbors who are using it as well. Need a ton of mulch? Call your local tree-trimming company.

Today's Garden

In addition to the basil chicken, we just enjoyed our first cucumber yesterday. Yum! Hannah loves cucumbers, so we were equally excited. Several have asked about our enormous mulch pile. It is very slowly dwindling. We offered it to all the neighbors, and they've helped themselves. We mulched the garden, and now we're preparing a giant planting bed around the perimeter of the back yard. We'll use it for Hannah's pool, a future swingset, and our Adirondack chairs and fire bowl. We haven't made much progress, so I'll be sure to keep you posted.

Can't wait to use these green beans in my green beans and almonds recipe!

2nd cucumber almost ready to pick

mulched

The Garden

More garden updates:

2 jalapenos almost ready to pick

I love the flowers on the green bean plants

I was taking pictures of the blossoms on the cucumber plants and noticed this one for the first time! It's about 5 inches long.These creepers double in size every 3 or 4 days. Can't wait to be eating some fresh squash and to watch the pumpkins and watermelon grow.This morning's garden - huge difference from day 1!

This morning's garden

Fence painted, edging bed complete and planted, awaiting window boxes with sweet potato vines and pretty flowers (and a TON of work on that crazy lawn that's been neglected during the gardening prep)

Cucumbers - at last count there were over 30 baby cukes or blossoms...from ONE plant...that I ought for $1.29!

Zucchini blossom

I'm so excited about how well my squash are doing. There are hundreds of blossoms, so I hope the neighbors like summer squash! The tomatoes, strawberries, and banana peppers, however, are not doing well. Not sure how to fix that, but we're moving on...

Garden Update

Blogger is giving me trouble with picture uploading, so I apologize that some of these are sideways. But I wanted to document my garden progress. I cannot stay out of the garden and am loving every minute of it. It's great exercise digging, weeding, and generally taking care of everything. It is still a work in progress which I kind of hope never changes. I cannot wait to eat fresh veggies, and it looks like we're getting close

Here's the whole plot 3 weeks ago then again about a week ago

Sugar Snap Peas 2 weeks ago then last night (tilt your head to the right for this next one):

Jalapenos - see the two tiny peppers? The larger one is about 1 1/2 inches long so far: Cucumbers - we have about 12 blossoms and tiny cukes. Yum!

Okay, now tilt your head to the left to see my creepers (pumpkin in the back, watermelon in the middle, then squash - both yellow and zucchini - in the front). The top is 3 weeks ago, the bottom is now:Last - banana peppers. Can you see all of the ants on the blossoms? Ugh! I tried a home remedy last night, and they are all completely gone this morning. Mix 1/2 cup veg. oil, 1 1/2 cups water, and 2 tsp liquid dish soap in a squirt bottle, and spray the plant 1-2 times per week.