Mid August Harvest

Smaller than usual harvest haul

The relatively cool weather until just these past 2 weeks of ultra-hot, has slowed down the growth of the veggies in my garden. Then the sudden and intense heat seems to be telling them to ripen quickly. So I'm noticing that I'm getting ripe veggies that are smaller than usual.

I’ve only harvested one green zucchini so far, weighed about 1 lb, a good size for a zuke, and these 4 very small yellow crooknecks. Not sure how any of them taste yet. Only a few tomatoes have ripened so far. Romas and golden cherry tomatoes. The cucumbers are the small, pickling variety and very tasty.

Everything is moving in slow motion. Everything but time, that is.

© Copyright 2012 Mountain Harvest Basket

Midsummer Harvest

Small Harvest



French Breakfast Radishes, Radish Greens, Snow Peas & Baby Romaine Lettuce. That's all I could harvest today from my midsummer garden. Everything is growing so slowly this year. Except for the weeds! I seem to be able to grow huge, luxurious weeds very well indeed.

Arrgggh!

I just haven't had the time this year to get out there and pull out the weeds when they are small and easier to remove. I know better than to let them grow big, but have not had the time to address them. I will. I really will.

So except for the berries and cherries (I will write about those in another post) and the artichokes which I posted about toward the end of "Spring" last May, I really have not had a very productive garden yet this year. Got started late and things are growing slowly. I haven't even planted some of my summer crops yet! There is still time, but I do worry that summer will be over before I can gather my usual abundant veggie harvest.

I love my garden. I love growing and eating fresh vegetables and fruits. I just need to make more time for it in my life.

I need to be at one with my garden.
Zen gardening.
Yes.






© Copyright 2010 Mountain Harvest Basket

Spring is Finally Here!

Sweet Strawberries ~ freshly picked

My strawberries have started to ripen. I have gathered those that the birds and bugs have left unsampled. Not many so far, but very nice ones.



Artichokes!

Multiple artichokes have appeared! The most and the largest in the many years that I've had this artichoke plant. Must be due to our prolonged cold & wet weather. I am tired of the cold wet weather, but am loving the artichoke production.



Blue Irises

I used to get many colors and many blooms in my iris beds. Not so much variety in recent years. This year I have many blue and some dark red blooms to enjoy. They do add cheer to my day. You can spy some golden California poppies sneaking in there between the irises.




Spring Bouquet


I made an impromptu bouquet of Sweet Williams, Sage flowers and Lavender. You can't really see the lavender in this photo, but it's there. Really. Lovely scent and color to brighten my home.

Finally, it feels like Spring here today. Tomorrow it will suddenly be summer. Then I'll be complaining that it's too hot...




© Copyright 2010 Mountain Harvest Basket

Mutant Over-Wintered Carrots

Alien Carrots


This is what happens when you leave your carrots in the ground for a full year from one spring to the next.

You get "Attack of the Mutant Carrots".

Could be the title of a new movie....



© Copyright 2010 Mountain Harvest Basket

Late Winter Greens

Kale & China Choy ~ cold weather greens

We've had sooooo much rain, cold weather and mud around here this winter that I haven't had a chance yet to get out to my main veggie garden to weed and till the soil in preparation for Spring planting. The chore still needs to be done, but will be done later this year than usual.

I did, however, have the pleasure of harvesting some very late winter greenery from that same garden bed last week. Seen in the photo above are some crunchy kale (I forget the exact variety that I planted) and some juicy China Choy cabbage which is similar to bok choy, but not quite as sturdy. When fully mature like these are, both greens are great used in stir fries, soups, stews or simply steamed. When younger and more tender, they are very nice in fresh green salads.

I used some of the kale as an addition to a stir fry dinner a few days ago. Very tasty and also nutritious. I believe that kale in particular contains high amounts of lutein, which is supposed to be very good for eye and heart health.

I will plant more of each of these greens, among others, this Spring after I get a chance to work the soil and prepare the seed beds. Still way too muddy and wet out there today. Maybe next week...




© Copyright 2010 Mountain Harvest Basket

Garden Garlic

Garlic Braid


I grow garlic every year. I plant it in the Fall and harvest it the next Summer. I tried growing garlic bought from a seed company the first year, but found that not only was it very expensive, it did not grow well in my garden. So the next year I bought a handful of ordinary garlic from the supermarket for about 50 cents, took it home, separated it into "toes" (leaving the paper skin on each toe), and planted it in my garden pointy side up about 1 inch deep in the soil. I watered it as I would any garden veggie until the Winter rains came. Then I pretty much ignored it and left it to grow on its own until the warmer weather came back the next Spring and Summer.

When the garlic tops (leaves) started to turn brown in late May or early June, I test-dug one bulb to check for size, and then harvested all of the bulbs over the next day or two. I washed each bulb with cold water and veggie scrub brush, leaving the long stem and leaves intact. I then braided the garlic as best I could to hang over my kitchen sink in front of the window to dry and to be handy when I needed it for cooking. I made sure that I reserved 3 or 4 nice looking heads for planting next season's crop.

I have been growing and harvesting my homegrown garlic in this way for the past 10 years. Each year I use some of the garlic that I harvested in the Summer to start my new crop in the Fall. It works very well, and I have been very happy with the results. Some years have been better than others. Other years have had odd weather and small bulbs resulting. Some years have had huge bulbs produced. One year I had an invading gopher (yes, in my raised bed!) and had to dig up my half grown garlic bulbs and transplant them into another raised bed to finish out the growing season while we repaired the hole in the original raised bed. That was fun. Not.

Anyway, until this past year I usually planted the same type of garlic each year. Descendents from that original handful that I purchased at the local market. The common California White, a softneck variety of garlic. I live fairly close to the Garlic Capitol of the World, Gilroy, CA where there are fields upon fields of CA White garlic growing prolifically. I am sure there are other types grown too, but the most common one we see in the markets is CA White softneck.

I have always enjoyed my homegrown CA White. It has a medium-strong garlicky flavor that I used in a variety of dishes. It keeps very well hanging in braids in my kitchen for months after I harvest it in Summer. It is easy to peel once it has dried a bit.

This photo below and the photo of the garlic braid at the top of this post is from my current crop of CA White softneck garlic. I think it is beautiful. I love looking at it, and enjoy having it decorate my kitchen.

California White Garlic

Last Fall, inspired by my local organic farm store's variety of garlic that they had for sale and also by two of my favorite blogging friends, Farmgirl_dk from Critter Farm and frugalmom from Fancyin' the Farm Life and both of their garlic gardening adventures, I decided to try growing a few different types of garlic along with my favorite CA White. I chose about 4 varieties from the farm store. I don't even remember their names. One was purple. One was reddish brown. Another was tan. At least two of them were hardneck varieties. One was the standard CA White like the one I had already grown. I thought I'd compare store-bought to my own homegrown garlic descendents as far as growing and bulb production.

So I planted my usual 5 or 6 rows of garlic, some of the new varieties along with my CA White, each row having about 7 or 8 plants. They all sprouted and grew through the Winter months. This photo shows how my garlic bed looked in late Spring:


Garlic Growing

That's broccoli, lettuces, chard and bok choy you see growing in between the garlic rows. I find that the close proximity of the garlic helps repel the bugs and slugs from my tender greens.

I found that my homegrown CA White garlic descendents grew much bigger and stronger than the store bought CA White, by the way. I have a theory that has proven true with many crops in my garden. My theory is that plants adapt to their local environment, the weather, the soil, the air, the gardener's vibes, and whatever else affects plant growth. I have noticed that each succeeding generation of plants grown from seeds (or in this case, bulbs) from a homegrown plant, is bigger, stronger and produces better than new seeds just being introduced to my garden environment (like from purchased seed packets). This works best with open pollinated varieties as opposed to hybrid plants.

Continuing on my garlic growing adventure, I read all about the phenomenon of garlic scapes on Fancyin' the Farmlife, and then I ran out to my garden with my camera and found these odd looking spiral flower stalks on every hardneck variety garlic plant.


Garlic Scapes in the Garden

I had never grown hardnecks before, only the softneck CA White. This was a new, exciting and weird happening for me and my garden. Apparently, only the hardnecks send up scapes as the weather warms in late Spring/early Summer. The scape is a flower stalk (you can see the flower bud in the photo). It is recommended that the gardener prune off the scapes to allow more nutrition to be available for the garlic bulb's growth. So I did that:

Severed Garlic Scapes

The scapes tasted like "green garlic" and were quite good. I understand that they make a lovely pesto sauce. I used them in my normal cooking as I would any garlic. I chopped them up small and put them in soups, stir fries, stews, eggplant parmesan etc.

And they added delicious flavor to my homemade pizza!


Mushroom Pizza



Homemade Pizza! Yum!


Garlic is good! Plant your own this Fall.

© Copyright 2009 Mountain Harvest Basket

Bread & Butter Pickles

Homemade Bread & Butter Pickles


Last Friday's visit to our local organic farm store netted me about 4 1/2 pounds of cucumbers. I chose small ones with pickling in mind.

I like making these bread & butter pickles, but my own garden cucumbers are a long way from producing so far this year. Seems like my summer crops all got delayed for some reason. Weeds, probably. I feel confident that I will have my own cukes this summer, but it will be awhile yet. So I took advantage of the fresh organic cukes I found in the farm store this week and made some pickles yesterday.

Last August I was lucky enough to have a large crop of cucumbers in my garden, so I turned 6 1/2 pounds of them into bread & butter pickles

Maybe next month I can make another batch from my own garden, but at least for now, we have 5 new pints of freshly made B&B sweet pickles!



© Copyright 2009 Mountain Harvest Basket

Snow Peas

3lbs of freshly picked Snow Peas!

My snow peas did well this year. Long cool lead in to summer's hot weather made for great growing conditions for snow peas in my garden. The photo above shows 3 pounds of snow peas, the last harvest for the season which happened a couple of weeks ago. Overall this season, I have harvested over 5 pounds of fresh from the garden snow peas. That's a lot for my small raised bed garden.

Delightfully sweet and crunchy raw as snacks or in salads or sandwiches. I've added them to stir fries and steamed veggies. I've given away several 1/2 pound bags to friends. And I still have a bunch in my fridge. I may blanch and freeze them to use a little at a time in stir fries or soups. I don't want them to spoil and I just can't eat them fast enough!

One of my favorite ways to eat snow peas is in a simple Asian inspired stir fry that I call simply Shrimp & Snow Peas.


Shrimp & Snow Peas

Frozen Shrimp (from Trader Joes) + Fresh Snow Peas + Canned Water Chestnuts

Stir fried in a little olive oil , soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, ginger, black pepper, garlic, lemon, and a pinch of corn starch to thicken the sauce. Eaten over a nice warm bed of steamed white rice makes a very tasty and satisfying dinner. It's good even without the water chestnuts. Just shrimp and snow peas.


© Copyright 2009 Mountain Harvest Basket

Salad Days

Big Beautiful Ice Queen Lettuce

Remember those big "volunteer" heads of lettuce I pointed out in my last post? This big head shown in the photo above weighed in at 1 pound and provided me with enough crispy cool lettuce for many salads and sandwiches. These big heads started from seeds that last year's plants sowed all by themselves. I also have some Ice Queen babies starting to show themselves in the newly planted section of my garden along with the other Spring greens.

Even with gifting a big head of lettuce each to Jack and Bob, I still have several left out in my garden. I must go out there and harvest them soon though. With this warmer weather we are having, those cool weather greens are starting to bolt. They have already sent tall spikes of leaves upward toward the sun. Next will come flowers and seeds, both making the lettuce leaves taste bitter. I will pluck the remaining heads and store them in the spare fridge. They will keep for a week or two.

I predict lots of salads on my menu for the next few weeks.

Another early season harvest item is show in the photo below and fits right in with the Spring salad theme.


French Breakfast Radishes

These are the first few radishes of many. I have already enjoyed them in a few salads. I noticed that there are many many more waiting to be plucked from my garden soil. Their round red shoulders are showing above the soil line asking for attention.

I really need to make the time to get out there and tend my garden this week. My tomato seedlings are big enough to be planted out there now. I will do it as soon as I remove the new layer of weeds that have established themselves after our rainy and now hot & humid weather.

Maybe if I get up tomorrow morning and just don't answer the phone or turn on my computer, I can sneak outside and play in the dirt for awhile. You think?

Happy Spring weather everyone.


© Copyright 2009 Mountain Harvest Basket

Wet Weather in May

Seedlings ~ Rainy Day Window

Rainy, grey and cold weather here again today. Unseasonably so.

My tomato, pepper and eggplant seedlings, all warm weather crops, are taking forever to sprout their "true" leaves this year. They are growing long and spindly, looking for some warm sunlight. Some have keeled over and died. Usually by now, even though I started them late, they are thriving and almost ready to plant in the garden. It will be a few weeks yet before I can set these seedlings outside.

The photo above was taken this morning. Those are my recycled yogurt container seedling pots sitting up high (out of kitty reach) in my half moon window. This window faces east and usually has hot morning sun, but not today. It is cold and foggy out there even now.

This next photo was taken a couple of days ago when it was a bit sunnier. That's my main raised bed garden partially planted with cold weather crops.


Raised Bed Garden

You can see the garlic growing toward the back. Several kinds of greens are planted in between the rows of garlic. They are still very small and hard to see in the photo. I have found that planting my tender greens in between the garlic plants helps to keep the bugs off of my greens. It's not foolproof. The slugs still get in there as do the pill bugs, but the other pests seem to be repelled by the garlic sentinels. This year I planted spinach, mesclun, bok choy, Swiss chard and two kinds of lettuces. There is also some broccoli on the other side of the garlic patch in the shade when this photo was taken in the late afternoon. It is doing quite well as broccoli likes this cold damp weather we are having.

A big bunch of curly leaf parsley grows to the left of the garlic. That bush was planted there last summer and has thrived all winter providing me with wonderful fresh parsley for my salads, soups, stir fries etc. I did cover it with a milk crate and plastic sheeting to protect it when we had snow and freezing weather during the coldest parts of winter. It did beautifully and continues to thrive there. Unfortunately, the parsley is planted right in the middle of the space where I planned to grow my root veggies this Spring, so I had to plant my beet seeds all around the big parsley bush. Hopefully the beets will get enough sun there. I love hearty beet greens and pickled beets.

Between the parsley/beets and the side wall of the raised bed I planted radishes and carrots and a long row of snow peas. All have sprouted, but are still so small that you can barely see them in this photo.

The foreground of the garden bed is full of many little weeds that will be pulled or tilled under when I get ready to plant that area later in the month.

The big bushy lettuce to the right and in front of the garlic "volunteered" itself from plants that went to seed last summer. That variety of lettuce is Reine des Glaces (means Queen of the Ices) and is a cold hardy loose leaf crisphead. It is one of my favorites to grow. See a better picture of it below:

"Queen of the Ices" Lettuce ~ I call it simply "Ice Queen"

It is one of the lettuce varieties that I planted this year in between the garlic rows. I plant it every year.

Since I had my camera in hand this morning snapping photos of seedlings and the weather, my sweet kitties just had to get in on the photo action. Below is my best friend Jessie looking half asleep as she poses for me in the morning window light.

My Sweet Jessie

And then of course, Frieda had to ham it up for the camera. She posed demurely and waited for me to take this photo of her. All before their breakfast was served, too. Such patience was displayed.

Furry Frieda Poses for the Camera

Well, that's today's garden and weather report from Mountain Harvest Basket. Too wet to be outside today. Back to my other rainy day activities like laundry and baking.

© Copyright 2009 Mountain Harvest Basket

Winter Carrots

Spring Planted, Winter Picked, Carrots

Well, not actually Winter carrots, but Spring planted carrots that I left in the ground until now. I had been meaning to dig up the carrots for awhile now and finally got out there to do it yesterday when I was out there "heeling in" my new blueberry and raspberry starts. (A story for another day.)

They keep well in the ground through the winter months and continue to grow and mature. Unfortunately though, starting in late Fall they start to flower and go to seed, so those carrots that go to seed start using up all of their taste and nutrition to supply the seeds with nutrients for the next generation. Those carrots may become very fibrous and not good to eat. The carrots you see in the photo above were the ones that did not produce seeds, so these should be fine for use in soups and stews. They won't be as tender and delicious as new baby carrots are, but they will still be good eating.

Just look at the huge specimen on the far right of the photo! Wowee! That one is short and very fat. These are Nantes carrots and I did leave them in the ground a little too long. They are not at their best when they grow that big. I give the chopped up carrot greens to my chickens. They are delighted with a nice green salad treat in the middle of winter.

I think I may turn these carrots into carrot soup. Seasoned with ginger. Good hot soup full of beta carotene to ward off winter colds. Now I must find my recipe for that...


© Copyright 2009 Mountain Harvest Basket

Winter Green & Cornbread

Green Pumpkin & Parsley

It has been warm for several days and then cold at night, and now it is finally getting colder during the day and very cold at night. My porch thermometer reads 44 degrees F as I type this.

I plucked this last sweet little pie pumpkin from my garden about a week ago. I kept waiting for it to turn orange first, but I couldn't let it sit out there in the cold weather any longer. I brought it inside in the hopes that it would ripen indoors. It is doing just that, although very slowly. There are some flecks of orange on it and I placed him with his orange colored sisters hoping their ripeness would "rub off" a little on his green little self. There below is my whole pumpkin family for this season.


Small, sweet & tender pie pumpkins


So with the weather getting much colder now, I figured I'd better harvest the last little green bell pepper from my garden. I had left the plant in the ground due to the extended warm weather and because it had a pepper growing on it. It was fairly protected in my raised bed garden, blocked from cold north winds by the back wall of my house. The nights have been getting far too cold for a hot summer crop like bell peppers! Reports of temps in the 30's made me concerned that this little green pepper gem would shrivel up and be culinarily useless, so today I plucked it right off the plant and brought it inside with a brief stop on my porch for a photo op with her neighboring parsley plant.


Green Bell Pepper & Parsley Harvest

My parsley plants are still growing strong, and I bet if I protect them with a cold frame for the winter, they will last right through until spring and keep on producing for me. I use parsley in so many things, not just as a pretty garnish. I like to put a healthy handful in my green salads and I love to cook with it. It is very nutritious.

To change the subject slightly from green garden things to warm food for cold days, take a look at the nice cornbread I baked in my cast iron skillet a couple of weeks ago. I had never used this skillet for baking before, and I am very pleased with the results. The cornbread was delicious!


Delicious hot homemade cornbread

I just had to show it to you. Now I made myself hungry. I guess I should go make myself dinner now. No cornbread in the house though. Guess I'll make a sandwich...

© Copyright 2008 Mountain Harvest Basket

I Planted Garlic Today

Prepared Garlic Planting Bed


Yup, I am leading off with a picture of dirt. That's not just any dirt. It's carefully prepared planting soil in my raised bed veggie garden. First I loosened the soil down about 4 inches or so with my special hand tool called a Korean Weeder/Cultivator. It was a gift from a friend several years ago. I didn't take a photo of the one I used today, but did find this one on the web to show you:



Korean Weeder/Cultivator

It's great for loosening the soil and digging up the weeds to prepare a bed for planting.

After loosening and weeding, I spread about two buckets full of aged homemade compost across the bed and mixed it in and smoothed it with the weeder. Then I used a standard cultivator tool to make 5 long rows across the garlic planting bed. I know from previous planting experience that I can get 5 rows of 7 or 8 garlic plants in this little square section of my raised bed garden. The square section is 1/8 of the total raised bed space, and I use a different section each year to rotate my crops and avoid diseases and soil burn out.

I chose this section of my garden today because I haven't planted garlic there for a few years and I intend to plant my lettuces and leafy greens there in the spring. I will plant them in between the rows of garlic that I planted today. The garlic tends to keep the bugs away from my greens, and that's a good thing. Garlic takes up very little garden space, so there is plenty of room for the greens to grow in between.

After soil preparation and row making, I went to fetch my garlic cloves. I usually only plant Calfornia white garlic (the kind they grow in Gilroy, CA the "Garlic Capitol of the World") because that is what I started planting years ago and have had great success with it. It is a medium hot garlic that is quite juicy, and I like it's flavor very well. I find that if I save a few heads of each harvest to plant the next year, the garlic flavor keeps getting better and better.

Well, this year I planted 5 different kinds of garlic, for two reasons:

One, I neglected to plant any garlic last year, so I did not have any garlic heads saved out to plant this year. All I had were a few cloves that were part of the 2 or 3 heads of white garlic that "volunteered" themselves in my garden this year. I must have missed them and left them in the ground when I harvested my summer 2007 garlic.

and,

Two, I was influenced by both Farmgirl_dk's great post about garlic on her Critter Farm Blog last month where she talked about several kinds of garlic, and also by visiting my local organic farmer's store and finding many different kinds of organic garlic available for me to try.

I don't remember all the fancy names of the garlic varieties that I purchased and brought home to eat and plant, but here is a photo of the cloves I chose for planting today:


Garlic Cloves for planting

Clockwise from the upper left corner of the picture are purple cloves that came from a purple colored garlic head, tan or red cloves that came from a white head, my few homegrown California white garlic cloves that I saved from the volunteer garlic this year, purple cloves that came from a white colored garlic head, and lastly at the bottom of the frame we have white cloves that came from a white headed garlic that I bought in the organic farm store.

My guess is that the purchased white garlic cloves are the same CA white garlic variety that I have been planting for years. They look the same and felt the same when I broke the head apart. The shape of the cloves was sort of rounded as opposed to elongated like the "red" variety.

The rest of the purchased organic garlic that I planted today is a mixture of hard and softnecks, reds and purples, most likely all grown from seed garlic purchased at Peaceful Valley Farm & Garden Supply. Our local organic farmer and I both buy seeds and some supplies from Peaceful Valley. Actually though, my first CA white garlic that I planted years ago, was conventionally grown garlic that I bought in the local supermarket for mere pennies.

Garlic is easy and fun to grow. I am excited this year to see how the new varieties of garlic will grow and produce.

So I finally got around to planting my fall garlic. Probably took me longer to tell you about it than it did to prepare and plant it!

Plant your own garlic. You will enjoy it.

© Copyright 2008 Mountain Harvest Basket

Bell Pepper Celebration!

Green & Red Bell Peppers ~ Homegrown by me!

For 10 summers now, I have been trying to grow bell peppers in my garden. I want big beautiful bell peppers of many colors! I always plant them. Sometimes the plants do grow well, but the peppers have never really pleased me. I have tried several different seed varieties from many sources. I especially want to grow red and yellow/orange/gold bell peppers. They are sweeter than the typical green ones and they are so expensive in the supermarket. I never buy them in the market. Sometimes our local organic farmer has colorful bell peppers, and then I will buy one or two. This year I did buy a few purple bells from our farmer friends to make my favorite stuffed pepper dinner recipe.



Big Red Bell Pepper ~ a green Cal Wonder turned red in the sun

In years past, I have tried growing bell peppers from seeds and also resorted to buying pepper plants when my seeds wouldn't sprout correctly, or when I couldn't find the seeds I wanted. I have planted and grown green, light yellow, purple, gold and red bell pepper plants. I said, I grew the plants. However, usually the plants only produced a sparse few peppers, mostly green, mostly small and not very tasty.

The purple variety, as I recall, produced many peppers, but they were all the size of a ping pong ball at maturity, (maturity = turns color) which didn't work very well for my stuffed peppers recipe.


Gold & Green Bell Peppers!

This year, I started two varieties, a Green Cal Wonder, and a Golden Cal Wonder from seeds. The plants were healthy if a bit small at transplanting time. They flowered well and started to bear fruit. Little peppers formed on each plant. However, they kept getting shaded by the adjacent summer squash leaves that were taking over my entire raised bed garden. I kept moving and even pruning the big squash leaves away from my peppers, but the little pepper plants did not get enough direct sunlight to really produce well. That is until the end of summer when the squash plants started to die back and let the sunlight into the rest of the garden.

Then the recent cold nights hit and a few rainy and cold days. Peppers love heat, bells being no exception. So I went ahead and harvested all of the rest of the peppers, green, red and gold and brought them into the kitchen. Perhaps a bit prematurely, since it has been sunny outside now for a few days.

The peppers that were already starting to turn yellow or red have since turned color completely in the warmth of the house. They are beautiful, thick walled, crunchy, juicy and sweet. I have been enjoying them mostly raw in fresh green salads. Also some in stir fries. Only one or two were really large enough or the right shape (square & blocky) for my stuffed pepper recipe, so I doubt I will use them that way.

So I am celebrating my harvest of beautiful bell peppers. There are more peppers of more color variety that actually taste good, than I have ever grown before. So this really is a pepper celebration.

© Copyright 2008 Mountain Harvest Basket

Is that a Zucchini in your pocket...?

3 lbs!


...Or are you just happy to see me??


Look at what I found in my little garden yesterday:


3 lb Clarimore Light Green Zucchini, aka, "Big Boy"

A beautiful but very sneaky light green Clarimore zucchini hid quietly amongst the big squash leaves and the now crispy green bean foliage to surprise me yesterday. I actually shrieked with delight when I spied him hiding there right in front of me.

These light green zukes are usually sweeter and more tender than the dark green ones, so this will make a couple of batches of very nice zucchini soup or perhaps I will bake this one in the oven since our evenings are becoming cooler now.

So far my little garden has produced 46 lbs of squash this season. 19 lbs of that was this light green variety. I have really enjoyed being creative and using the zucchini to make all kinds of meals, appetizers and desserts. More and more I am realizing that I need my creative outlets to soothe my soul and keep me somewhat sane. This blog is one of those cherished creative outlets of mine. I love writing, and I definitely enjoy the friends I have made through blogging. Thank you all who read my blog, both the known commenters and the "lurkers".

Now to go be creative with this sneaky Big Boy....

© Copyright 2008 Mountain Harvest Basket

Tomatoes, More Tomatoes, Eggplant, Dinner & A Visitor

Freshly Picked Romas in my Garden Scale

So my Roma tomatoes have finally been ripening.


5 pounds of Romas ~ harvested August 31st


Once they start they just keep coming...


5 1/2 pounds of Romas ~ harvested September 7th


I grow Roma paste tomatoes mainly to make tomato sauce, spaghetti sauce, fresh salsa and for canning whole. Sometimes I can it or freeze it if I make a lot. Below is some fresh spaghetti sauce simmering in the pot.


Fresh Romas plus garden herbs, garlic, olive oil and some ground turkey meat made this sauce extra tasty!

I had several dinners from this one batch of spaghetti sauce.


Whole wheat noodles + fresh tomato sauce = Delicious & Healthy


Enter the eggplant.

The one lonely little eggplant that I have harvested thus far in this odd weathered gardening season. It's a cute little thing. So sweet, smooth and purple. Hardly bigger than the palm of my hand.


Cute little eggplant

So cute that I figured it would be very tasty sliced up as the main flavor ingredient to another night's dinner of Ratatouille! So when I add the cute little eggplant, to the ripened red Roma tomatoes and the prolific zucchini and crookneck squash, then throw in a lot of garlic and olive oil, I get Ratatouille! Not sure I have spelled that correctly, but you know what I mean. Any way you spell it, it is very good eating. And healthy too.


Ratatouille saute


It seems like the vegetarian meal inspired a vegetarian visitor. See gratuitous picture below:


My Deer, or really My Doe

This doe sat outside my kitchen window for a couple of hours one recent morning. I talked with her through the window and took pictures of her at very close range. I believe she is one of my regular does that hang out around here. I have no dogs to scare them off, so I have many deer friends.


© Copyright 2008 Mountain Harvest Basket

Garden Art

My Gardening Angel


One recent morning I was in my garden enjoying the green plants, the sunshine and my various garden accents that I call my Garden Art. These are just an unorganized collection of doo-dads that I took a liking to and purchased for myself or maybe received as a gift over the years. I decided to share them with you, my blogging friends.

Above you see one of my newer accents, my Gardening Angel, keeping watch over my broccoli and my chard plants. I do think she helps them grow strong and healthy. In real life, my Mom was, and still is, my Gardening Angel.


My Gardening Rooster

Also among the veggies is another newer color spot, my Gardening Rooster. He protects the basil and the eggplant from being overrun by the squashes. Yeah, right.



Sun Faded Sunflower

Moving away from the veggie garden and over toward one of my herb gardens, we find a much older art specimen, my Sunflower & Butterfly friends. The sun has faded her petals, but she still stands among the oregano and thyme to add her muted colors to the mix.


Metal Hen and Her Chicks

In the front weed flower bed there is Metal Mother Hen and her 4 little Metal Chicks contentedly pecking the ground for bugs and worms.


Metal Quail Pair

In keeping witht the metal bird theme, also in the front bed near the porch stairs, I have my Metal Quail Pair to greet my visitors and make me smile each time I see them.


Hummingbird Solar Garden Light

Also in the bird family, and located in between Mother Hen & Chicks and the Quail Pair, is one of my pair of Hummingbird Solar Lights. These were a birthday gift to me from Hardware Bob a few years ago. They work well to brighten up the walkways at night.

Venturing onto the porch itself now, we find several frogs engaged in various activities.


Frog & Dragonfly Rocker

The first is the animated Frog & Dragonfly that rocks back and forth in balance except when the wind blows them both over with a loud clang. They were a gift from Joggin Jack's daughter many years ago.


Tiny Frog Windchime

The photo above shows what is left of my tiny Frog Windchime that lives in a potted plant. The windchime part fell off long ago, but the frog part is still cute.


Ceramic Frog Pot Waterer

This cute little froggie was a gift from Joggin Jack about 2 years ago. I spied him at a summer festival and Jack got him for me. When I fill his mouth with water, he slowly waters the plant in the pot in which he sits. The frog, not Joggin Jack.


My Favorite Windchimes

Still on my porch it's time for some aerial scenes. First above, are my favorite windchimes. They are tuned chimes and sound so beautiful when the breezes blow.


Bird Feeder and Waterer

Then my bird feeder and waterer made by a local artist who lives very near me. The birds love to visit and eat the seeds, drink the water and make a huge mess all over my porch.


High Tech Herb Drying Line

My favorite artsy garden art shot of the day is a close up view of my Herb Drying Line which is strung between two porch posts. It is functional and fun. I enjoy seeing the bunches of herbs hanging there through my screen door in the summer. The overhang of the porch awning protects the drying herbs from rain and from too much direct sunlight. Every now and then I replace the heavy duty twine that is the line. After awhile the sun weakens it.



Summer Harvest Basket

The real art in my garden is shown above in one of many ever changing versions of my Summer Harvest Baskets. Nature is the real artist around here.



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