Just budding out...

We have seen for the first time now the Machinaw and Casper eggplants we put in the ground more than 3 months ago, little tiny fruit, no bigger than 1.5 inches have appeared - very exciting. The Machinaw is a from of Japanese eggplant so it will be great in our Thai Curry and other Asian cooking dishes. The Casper, yes so named because it is a white eggplant, is supposed to have a thinner skin than the traditional Italian Eggplant and we hope to be able to slice bread and bake/fry that for various Italian dishes.

Equally exciting is the appearance of little itty bitty melons, really no bigger than a large jaw breaker at this point and so cute!

Things continue to move along out in the garden, we have one mystery squash, I'll have to post a picture of it and see if anyone out there knows what it is, I'll do that next week.

Blake and Kendra, Living Garden Gnomes

We had a lot of fun last week in the garden.

Our seven year old twin niece and nephew stayed with us for a few days last week and couldn't wait to get out in the garden and pick some strawberries and vegetables.

Of course they only ate the strawberries, but they enjoyed picking everything.

The tomatoes are really coming on now, I think it has something to do with the fact that our temps have hovered between 90 and 105 for the last two weeks!   I've been able to share tomatoes with friends and family and think that by the first part of next week I will once again break out the pressure canner and can some tomatoes, the Super San Marzano, an heirloom Roma tomato will be perfect for diced tomatoes and marinara sauce.

Our yellow beans have been a little tough and leathery in the latest harvests and I am wondering if it is time to call it a day with those and plant something new in their place.  Has anyone else had this experience?  The green beans continue to be tender and yummy!     

We are still seeing as much zucchini as we can handle, and one of the gnomes picked our first crook neck squash of the season, more to come I am sure.

We have watered the garden every day, and on days that hit 105 or better twice a day!  I think it is working as we have not yet lost any plants in this heat wave.

The corn continues to grow well, looks like we will see at least two ears per stalk, yay us!       We can't wait to sink our pearly whites into those pearly whites!

Presto Pesto

Yesterday I decided to make a little pesto pasta.

I picked two cups worth of basil from the, Sweet Basil, and Pesto Perpetua Basil plants and went to town.

Pesto is really quite easy, its all about having the right ingredients on hand, I was lucky that I had some pine nuts on the cupboard from a salad earlier in the year.

The recipe is as follows:

2 cups fresh basil leaves

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup shopped pine nuts

1/2 cup Parmesan or Romano cheese

1/4 teaspoon salt

pepper to taste

You just put all of the ingredients in a blender and presto you have pesto!

I stirred it in with my pasta and then threw some of the yellow cherry tomatoes on top, as you can see I paired it with a little Pizza Margherita, I used the Sweet Basil leaves on this pizza and the Super San Marzano Roma tomatoes.

It was yummy and so easy!

Garden Beauty & Bounty

Well, I couldn't resist taking a few pictures of the garden yesterday morning, I took pictures of both the east and west sides, it looks so inviting right now with all of the blooming flowers, and pretty greens of the vegetables.

I'm working on getting a picture of the entire yard, that however requires that the patio be cleaned off and presentable since some of it will have to show, and its a little chaotic at the moment!

This morning I picked the ripe beans and tomatoes, and realized I now have enough basil for a batch of pesto - yummy, I can't wait.

I prepared the beans and dove into my first "pressure canning" project.   I actually did a practice run yesterday with the new Presto Pressure Canner, I didn't want to have any questions when I was in the middle of it today!  It went very well, each of the three jars sealed appropriately and they look kind of pretty.  I think I am going to need some smaller jars, the quart size will be just a little too big for a two person portion and I would prefer not to have left overs when I open our canned veggies. 

Summer Favorites

Two of our summer favorites are sweet corn, and tomatoes.

The tomatoes are starting to ripen, and by the end of the week we should start to see plenty of tomatoes, and should continue to see ripe tomatoes through September YAY !  

I am hoping to make a batch of Pomodoro sauce on Friday with the Super San Marzano's, a 4" heirloom roma tomato that we planted,  and our Sweet Basil.  I love the fresh crushed tomatoes with basil and garlic to throw over a little pasta.  

We had a tomato salad on Sunday, our Stupice and Golden Delicious heirloom tomatoes drizzled with olive oil and topped with basil, also from our garden.

Thrilled to see that corn is starting to grow.  We may only get a one or two ears per stalk but we will enjoy every last kernel of the corn.  We would definitely plant more corn next year it has been very easy to manage.

Pollinate your Zucchini, by hand?  I had never heard of this but I highly recommend it.  

We toured the garden of our friend Ken Mano a few weeks ago and had a discussion about pollinating zucchini.  Ken mentioned that he had been losing fruit in its youngest stages, until he started pollinating the zucchini by hand.  

I came home checked our plants and realized the same thing was happening to us, I found several small zucchini, that had started to shrivel, they were only 2-3 inches in length and were also discolored, kind of yellow/brown.

 I have since this time been pollinating our zucchini by hand and am having positive results.  I simply wait for the bud on the fruit to open slightly, and then take some pollen from the stamen of an open flower and transfer that pollen to the stamen on the bud connected to the fruit.  It takes a few seconds, but is well worth it.

It's started..

Zucchini madness that is, and I love it.

I just made a batch of zucchini muffins and they are fabulous. Nothing like a home cooked muffin warm out of the oven with melted butter.

Yesterday we had sauteed zucchini in our omelet, and on July 4th we'll have California Vegetable Casserole, with zucchini, onion, tomato, cheese and a little Bisquick to hold it all together, its yummy with other BBQ sides like beans, onion casserole and potato salad.

I also need to pick beans today, the green and yellow beans are ready to eat, we'll have those in a salad tonight with our evening meal.

I just love the garden!