Things are moving right along in the garden!
Yesterday I picked all the peas that were ready in the garden. I shelled them, blanched them, and put them on a cookie sheet in the freezer, so they wouldn't freeze in a giant clump. Today I put them in a ziploc and weighed them. Two pounds of peas! Woo hoo! We're at the point now where we'll need to pick them every few days so we don't lose any. Fortunately they'll keep in the fridge for a few days so I don't have to repeat this process so often!
My spinach is trying to go to seed and ready to be cut down, with a new row planted. I'm going to chop, steam, and freeze the leaves that aren't too thick and leathery. I use a whole lot of frozen chopped spinach in my spinach dip throughout the year. This will keep me from having to buy it. The thick leathery ones I'm going to blanch, dehydrate, and crush into powder. This can be put into soups, casseroles, spaghetti sauce, etc. for an extra burst of nutrition.
The radishes have been flowering. They're pretty, and I don't really like the radishes (too hot), so I'm leaving them. Next year I'll get good old grocery store variety red globes.
The artichokes are just about ready to go. 26 at last count. On one bush. Wow. We lost a couple to the aphids, but we've been spraying them down with organic aphid spray (which is basically dish soap, I think) and they've been staying away. We'll just have to wash them carefully before we eat them!
Peppers are flowering, tomatoes are flowering, beans are getting ready to flower. The onions are just about ready to start thinning (to use as green onions). The leeks are slow growers, to be sure, but it looks like they'll be ready right about the time we run out of onions. The squash and cucumber are coming right along. No flowers yet but they were the last thing to be planted. We got some nifty new tomato cages and we'll be training the squash and cucumber up that. Makes for a much neater garden!
In the front yard, we laid out the stones for the planter beds today. We still have a lot of work ahead of us with this project, but it'll be nice to get that piece done. I still have time to get some herbs in this summer and I'm looking forward to it! Right now I'm thinking I'll have the following themes in the beds - Italian (things like oregano, rosemary, thyme, parsley), Mexican (cilantro, garlic, and I don't know what else at the moment), lemon (verbena, thyme, balm), mint (because it will take over wherever I put it so I might as well give it a space of its own), and miscellaneous (whatever else I find that looks good!).
How are your gardens growing?
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3 comments:
You inspire and exhaust me at the same time! Sadly, our garden is thoroughly neglected. We only have tomatoes in the back, and the front is still waiting for plants, although it looks like the dahlias are sprouting. More than one person has offered to split hostas with me, and I just need to make time and DO IT.
I really like hostas. I planted a bunch of them at one of the houses we used to live in. Unfortunately, I can't have them here because there is absolutely no shade in our yard! Well, there is a little bit in the backyard, but the dogs would eat them in no time!
We made a planter box for a veg garden yesterday. Woo Hoo. No plants in it yet but at least we now have a place to put them. :)
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