Sunday, July 15, 2012

Gardening Update.

I know, strange to do an "update" on a reincarnated blog. Nevertheless: The squash plants are now spilling onto the lawn and producing far more squash than I need. I've even left some in a bag on my neighbor's front door handle. And because the plants are so full, squash hide and grow to monstrous proportions if I'm not careful.
The tomatoes started coming in as well, but got thrown by the long dry spell followed by several heavy rains. One on the other side of the house appears to have given up the ghost.
This is the harvest from this weekend alone. Several varieties of tomatoes (Glacier, Japanese Trifele Black, Sweet 100s, Old German), patty pan squash, sunburst yellow squash, and a piccolino zucchini. Actually, there was another one of those zucchini the size of a football and I pitched it into the woods.
I decided I would try to use it all up.  Some of the squash went onto the grill tonight.  Everything else went into the oven to be slow-roasted. The tomatoes I halved, de-seeded, and tossed in olive oil, fresh basil and oregano, salt and pepper, and crushed garlic. Squash were sliced and coated in the same mixture, but without out the garlic and with balsamic vinegar added. And then because the oven was on anyway, I sliced some sweet onions and tossed them in olive oil, and added the remainder of the bulb of garlic, still in its papery skin.
200 degrees, for several hours. I read that the tomatoes can be kept in the refrigerator for a week and in the freezer for a few weeks. I'm guessing the onions are the same and maybe a slightly shorter fridge-life for the squash. The house smelled like heaven while everything was roasting.
I also harvested the potatoes. The yield was frankly disappointing. My guess is that I need to start them much sooner so they can get more growth in before the heat hits - which was unusually early this year. I got only a few Adirondack blue potatoes. and more of the Mountain Rose. Both had skins and flesh the same color. And before everyone starts in with the Pota-Toe jokes - I often work bare-footed and when I took the photo, I decided not to crop out my foot to provide a little scale for these very small potatoes.
I grilled about half of them for dinner the other night, along with some squash and tomatoes and Swiss chard I'd picked earlier. And because I found fresh figs for sale, I grilled salmon with them and a glaze made of marmalade, grated ginger, pepper, and a little wine. I guess it's becoming clear that this blog is unlikely to change a whole lot outside a little personal caginess?

28 comments:

  1. see, here i am the first comment. my loyalty is appreciative :^)

    i learned a lot in this post. i can't believe what you get done. i am a gardener and i never thought of using and cooking up all this harvest at once. man you are a good cook. i wish you would cook for me :^)

    love
    kj

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    1. Wow, it really has made a difference to be able to have me in your reader, hasn't it?

      I don't usually do that, but I didn't want things languishing in my fridge.

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  2. Back in NW PA, we planted 'taters as soon as the soil could be worked. Your squash story reminds me of a classic zucchini skit by Paula Poundstone, where she resorts to leaving them on neighbors' porches in the dead of night.

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    1. I had read that, too. I should have started them in February this year. My grandmother was a squash-leaver, too, so I come by it honestly.

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  3. What garden heaven! For the squash bounty: the local food shelf will most likely be more than happy to see some "real" food come their way, if you were able to get it there. And with the tomatoes, onions, and garlic: just puree everything you've roasted now and freeze it in batches in Ziploc baggies, and you've got pasta sauce for February!

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    1. Not here - the local food pantry is a non-perishable goods only place. That's a good idea - I may use some of them as sauce.

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  4. Such a pretty photo with the tomatoes and squash. Middle child says she thinks she will have her first cherry tomato this week. So far we have only had lettuce, zucchini and cucumbers to harvest.

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    1. Cherry tomatoes were the very first thing to come in for me, back in May. But it got too hot too quickly here for lettuce.

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  5. Those roasted vegetables sound divine, and I can practically smell them from here. Yummy!

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    1. They are good - I tasted a few after I'd cooked them.

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  6. Back to food porn -- I feel at home again! Looks like your garden is doing very very well.

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  7. Yum! I am roasting veggies myself as I type, though with sherry, garlic, ginger and chicken... more Asian. Yours look so inviting that I will try this next batch!

    My plans are not doing well this year, we have had such a bad summer start. Even my Sweet 100s are just now getting tomtoes... I have 9. Sigh. Figs and salmon? That gets my interest going too!

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    1. What a great coincidence! I adore figs, but they are only available briefly each year.

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  8. I am so jealous! Wow, I think your crop is amazing.

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    1. Thanks. I think I'll actually plant less next year.

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  9. How cruel of you to take away the pota-toes jokes :) hee hee!
    I don't have a garden, but when we find veggies on sale we buy more than we need. DR calls it buying chores because he has to chop them up and bag them for the freezer.

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    1. Some day I'll get a big freezer and then do more of that. Right now I don't have the room to freeze much.

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  10. that is some growing and cooking - WOW. Most all cooking smells good to me. There is smell or two I don't like but I can't remember what it is now.

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    1. There is something especially great about the smell of garlic and onions cooking in olive oil.

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  11. nice...so good to eat right out of the ground like that...i know it had to taste delicious....sorry on the potatoes...earlier may help surely...

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  12. I was looking forward to a harvest like this, but only got a couple of pathetic little seedlings going. It's been too cold for good gardening this year.

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  13. Harvest - I am always impressed with your crops. What a treat for your boyfriend that you are so earthy and skilled.

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  14. time for you to learn to do a little canning maybe?

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    1. I know that would be a useful thing, but I can't work up any enthusiasm for the idea. Maybe because I had to do so much of it when I was a kid.

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