Garden Update 14 weeks

I am a little bit nervous about what will happen to my garden while I'm on vacation for 2 weeks with the girls.  Jay has promised to water faithfully, but I just know that all of my tomatoes are going to ripen while I'm gone.  I think that I'll commit Jay to sending pictures of everything twice a week.  haha...

I thinned out one of my garden beds the other day.  One of my squash plants wasn't producing and was taking up a lot of room.  The bed was crowded.  I feel like my round zucchini plants might be on their way out and when I come home from vacation I might remove them and begin preparing the soil for peas and cauliflower.

Here are a few poorly organized pictures from the morning!

My first baby pumpkin

Pepper

Pepper leaf

What appears to be a new pepper plant that has mysteriously popped through the soil of my whiskey barrel (home to the other pepper plants).  This is the same barrel that Dancer kicked up when he was staying with us.  Is Dancer a secret farmer who was cultivating my crop?  This has yet to be seen.

Cardinal climbers, getting high.

One little watermelon plant is really outdoing itself.

There are only two big watermelon on this vine so far.  I'll take it.  They are getting really big.

Zucchini

Baby Cucumber (blurry and under the California Poppy)

This is actually thinned out.

Acorn Squash. Really growing.

Round zucchini.  But why is it yellow?

My corn is taller than my children now and up to my shoulders.  I'll bet that by the time I'm home on August 15th there will be silk and corn.

Crookneck squash plant that is now being devoured by snails and I don't care.

Tomatoes

Jalapeños 

More tomatoes.  So many there... but none are ripe

Garden at 13 Weeks

UPDATE

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When I went outside to pick the ripe tomatoes for my salad tonight they were ALL GONE.  And next to my garden sits a bowl from my kitchen and the remnants of ranch dressing.  This could only mean one thing: Lila strikes again.

I am starting to see some real progress in places that there wasn't much this week.  Everyone (even Jay) seems excited to see the baby watermelon plumping up and turning into juicy little fruit!  Also, my pumpkin are sprawling and got their very first flower.  

But first, let me talk about my very first plant to produce a vegetable.  My crookneck squash plant.  How big are crookneck squash supposed to grow?  The plant itself is giant, not growing in vines like my other squash, but it's the size of a bush with huge branches that are growing up and out and are producing gigantic squash.  

Yesterday I picked and cooked this monster squash that is much larger than my HEAD!!!!!!!  

 Here are a few little squash that are growing from one of the limbs that sprouted outside of the garden plot.  And this is only a few!  I will bet the farm that there are at least 20 squash in there that will be read to eat within the next few days.

 This plant is over 3 feet tall now.

I couldn't bear to look at my yellow, wilted watermelon and cuke's any longer.  Yesterday I picked them out of this garden bed and pulled up the plastic from under the compost bags.  The problem was pretty obviously that the roots weren't able to break through the bottom of the bags.  The green that you see popping up around this garden is rogue peppermint.  I think that I'll pick it all out and make a bit of tea this afternoon!

While Dancer was staying with us he jumped into my whisky barrel and dug up all of my pepper plants.  I replanted them, but was concerned that they wouldn't make it because their roots were ripped apart by a little Chihuahua.  Luckily, they seem to be doing okay.  

These Cardinal Climbers are probably my favorite (or close to it) thing in my garden.  I just think that they are so beautiful and I can't wait until they reach the top of my pergola.  Does anyone know if I should be repotting them into something larger?

Acorn Squash!  They are around the size of my fist now!

 Okay, so my round zucchini had hit a lull in production for a week or so... which was good because I was running out of things to do with it.  I have both eaten a lot of zucchini and I have also given a lot away.  Something happened when we left for our camping trip.  When we came home we had an insane amount of round zucchini that had somehow quadrupled in size.  Here is a shot of a patch on a vine.  There are three huge round zucchini there.  I mean, I have so much zucchini that I will need to begin chopping and freezing it.  It's just... too much.  It's only 9 am here and I've already made a zucchini quiche and put a pot of pasta sauce on and have zucchini simmering in it for a vegetable lasagna.

And do you know what else I think I'll do, bread and pan fry some thinly sliced zucchini and make a little tray of zucchini Parmesan using daiya mozzarella (which I bought for the lasagna).

I think that all of this cooking means that I'm ready for Fall.  But does fall really happen in Concord, California?  That is yet to be seen.

 The zucchini vines are stretching out to the street.

 I give it 14 days before it hits the pavement.

I've been using my jalapenos here and there.  They are getting pretty big on both plants!  Does anyone have a good recipe for them?  I already have a great popper recipe, anything else?

I am so in love with my corn plants!  You know, I feel the same way about them as I do about the cardinal climbers and my pumpkins and zucchini.  There is a certain pride that is great when you grow something successfully from a seed.  A few of my plants come from seeds and a few come from seedlings (like my tomato, watermelon and peppers).  I am always excited to see growth and production, no matter how I started the plant.  But growing from seeds is sort of an ultimate accomplishment for me.  

My cucumbers have their first flowers!

You are looking at ripe tomatoes for my salad tonight!  There are SO MANY tomatoes in there and they are DELICIOUS.  When I say "so many," I mean, at least 100.  Most of them are still green... but can you imagine all of the delicious things that I can make when they are ripe?  Or, even just giving them to my girls to snack on with a little bit of dip (one of their favorite things).  

 This is another one of my tomato plants.  It was the last plant to get flowers and baby tomatoes, but it's looking good to me!  Does anyone know what fried green tomatoes are?  I think I need to google it!  I am in a cooking mood.

 This beefsteak tomato is the first to start ripening!

I am looking forward to pumpkins!  I have two pumpkin plants here.  This is my first flower but I have high hopes.  I want each of the girls to be able to pick a pumpkin for Halloween and I'd really like to make pumpkin pie from scratch with my own pumpkins for Thanksgiving.  

I've saved the best for last.  Here are two maturing watermelon.  They are the cutest things in my garden and we all love them.  I saw another baby that is smaller than a grape, but I have a lot of flowers and imagine that there will be more to come.  I am SO glad that I planted this.  I considered giving it away or tossing it out.  I didn't have room in the bed in my backyard where I planted the other watermelon (the watermelon that didn't grow and that I plucked out and provided "the true death" to.)  I stuck these in my front yard near a strip of rose bushes.  This plant is now a huge vine and is wrapping around the rose bushes.  

Is This Normal?

Check out the roots on my cucumbers!  They are partially above the soil, as if they had been pulled up (which they have not).  Otherwise, the cucumbers seem fine (I mean, the plants seem fine.  There aren't actual cuce's yet).

Farmer Lila

Lila is my little partner in crime.  It seems that my green-ening thumb has rubbed off on her and this morning she woke up, put on her robe and said, "mama, I'm going to go out and check the garden."  she came inside with two zucchini's and one ripe tomato.  She went into the kitchen, got two bowls and cut the tomato in half and served it up for us with some ranch.  

She's so cute!  

Adventures in Zucchini- Challenge 4

My top five comfort foods:

1.) Cereal and Milk (preferably Golden Grahams)
2.) Pretzels and Milk
3.) Chocolate Milk
4.) Peanut Butter and Jelly (crunchy peanut butter, grape jelly, wheat bread.  mmm) and a nice, cold glass of milk
5.) Macaroni and Cheese (with peas, especially)

Fact: Until right this second I had no idea how much I really do love milk.  You know, milk really agrees with me.  I hear people complain about milk so much and I even have a daughter who suffers with casein allergy.  I can tell you honestly that when I eat milk and cheese I both feel better and lose weight.  Same with Butter.  I mean, if I were slathering a piece of sourdough bread with a big, glob of soft butter and ended up with a bellyache, I can promise you this- the culprit would certainly be the bread and not the butter.

But that's beside the point.

Goodness, for most of my early 20's I ate macaroni and cheese for dinner at least four nights a week.   The kind from the box too.  And I never tired of it.  Come to think of it, if I thought that I could get away with doing this now, I would.  I, however, sadly am no longer 20 years old.  My 30's have not been so kind to me, unfortunately.

That said, I made a nice, big, homemade macaroni and cheese casserole to accompany dinner tonight.  And I thought, why not incorporate a little zucchini in this!

When I make mac and cheese I like to use a few different types of pasta, different shapes and both whole wheat and plain white pasta.  I cooked and then mixed in freshly sautéed and seasoned zucchini and onions.

Then, you mix up your favorite cheese sauce.  Mine is not for the lactose intolerant or the casein sensitive (though, I do plan on letting Bunny have a small portion of this tonight).

So, I'm not entirely sure about measurements here, but I'll estimate.

I usually mix 1/2 stick butter with 1/4 cup flour to make a roux.  Add around 2 cups of milk and let thicken, whisking constantly.  Add 1 package of cream cheese (cubed) and then around 2 cups cheddar cheese.  I might add a bit more milk here and there if it gets too thick.

Then, pour the cheese sauce over top of the macaroni.  Cover with shredded cheddar and bake at 350 for around 45 minutes.

Lila just passed by this and informed me that "dinner looks gorgeous."

My Garden at 10 Weeks

Some days, like today, I take a step back and admire the chaos of my garden beds.  The control freak in me fought to pluck plants that got too big or seedlings that sprouted up from the soil after I thought I'd removed them all.  But my inner control freak lost the argument and I have just been letting it all grow.

And grow it has done!  Well, with the exception of the plants that I am growing in bags of compost.  

For example, here is a picture of the watermelon that I planted in the dirt by my walkway.  It is roughly five times larger than it was the day that I planted it.  I planted all of my watermelon on the same day, but used different methods and different spaces.

And this is one of the watermelon that I planted in a compost bag.  It is pretty much exactly the same size as it was the day that I planted it.  I have tried everything.  I have removed as much of the bag as possible.  I have watered more.  I have watered less.  I have used plant food.  Nothing happens.  

So, when I bought my tomatoes I was under the impression that they were all the same type of tomato.  I guess that I was misinformed.   I have three plants.  They should all be beefsteak tomatoes.  One of them just sprouted a few baby tomatoes, but the other two have been pretty prolific.  The thing is that one of my plants has large green tomatoes.  They are already about the size of my fist and are hard and green.  Yet, my other plant has little, itty, bitty cherry-looking tomatoes that are small but are already turning orange.  At what point do I pick them?

All of my peppers are growing especially large!  I am not certain how big my yellow peppers are supposed to get before they actually turn yellow. I have one that is getting quite large but is still dark green!  

I am really please with my jalapeno!  I have a few plants and I do believe that one of them has several that are ready to be stuffed with cheese and pineapple, wrapped in bacon and turned into poppers!  I give them one more week before I can pick them! 

Bunny's corn is looking good!  It's growing , but I imagine that it will be August of September before it has corn that we are able to eat!

Hey, have you ever seen anything like this before?  This was the only plant that I left in my garden from the previous people who lived here.  It started as a plant with long green leaves (same shape as corn but tougher and larger) and then grew yellow flowers and NOW this!!!!)  It looks like something from outer space.  

I have my first flower on an acorn squash plant!  And it comes with a little, baby acorn squash!  Isn't it cute?

Some of my round zucchini has started to grow in sort of yellowish!  It tastes the same.  I'm wondering if it's possible that there's some cross pollination happening between my round zucchini and my yellow squash.  I have read that this is possible but I don't' know very much about it.

My garlic are getting big and strong.  I have to admit that I was hoping the other four garlic that I planted would eventually sprout, but I think it's a safe bet that these are the only two that made it!  I am gratefully that they made it, so I'm not going to complain!  This bed is already overcrowded, so it's probably a blessing in disguise.  

The cucumbers that I planted in compost bags are doing pretty terribly, but the seeds that I thought I plucked out and missed are actually doing remarkably well.  I put small cages around them.  In part to give them something to climb and in part to protect the from the squash that is sprawling across that bed.

There hasn't been much change in my pumpkins this week, but know the road to having pumpkins on vines will be long and winding.  

Here's something interesting.  In this picture you'll see my cardinal climbers in front of the bench.  On top of the bench are my mimosa plants, which are not doing so hot.  I think that I need to water them more.  To the right you'll see my old peppermint patch that has been covered with cardboard, mulch, compost, watermelon and cucumbers.  And then, between the old patch and the cardinal climbers you'll see a bunch of green coming up through the cracks in the concrete.  Guess what that is?  PEPPERMINT!  It's found a way to survive!!!!!!!

I realized that I haven't given any updates on my fruit trees lately!  I will post about them specifically later, but for now, my peaches are starting to plump up and turn, well, peach!