greens from the garden

I went to my local local grocer's to buy local cucumbers. Of course, we canned them! I find that pickles are one of the easiest things to put up, although the vinegar smell does linger in the house. This is my most requested canned good item, from friends and husband, and BFJ opened the last jar of last year's pickles a week or two ago. I don't want to have a disappointed spouse for the next year so I stopped and got some cucumbers. I actually planted what I thought would be a bed of cucumbers, but it turns out that only two or three of the plants are actually producing cucumbers, while another two are producing what appear to be mutant pumpkin hybrids. And I'm not sure what happened to the rest of the plants I thought I had. Sad. The lemon cucs are doing better but are in the corners of the other beds.

The jalapenos and other peppers and goodies did come from my garden, though, and I did make a couple small jars of home-grown stuff. I'm not sure how the lemon cucumbers will serve (bet you can tell which one that is!) My mother-in-law brought a jar's worth of cucumbers last week, as well.

We had pesto and grilled chicken last night - a family favorite, yum, yum. It goes fast!

Shown: basil pesto, dill, tomatillo, two zucchinis, lemon cucumber, three jalapenos, two pablano peppers, and one runty cucumber from the garden. Even runty, the homegrown cucumbers are delicious!

garden panos from 2023

Last year, I made some effort (not thoroughly successful) to capture state-of-the-garden pictures every month, including panoramas stitched together on Photoshop, in order to get the whole view of what's happening. So here's a little recap of the garden in 2023! early March April May June August It appears that I missed July, and either didn't take or didn't save this project in September, although we didn't have a killing frost very late into the season - we were still harvesting a few things in October. As much as I loved the lettuce that was growing in the tunnel, and getting an early start on a few things, I'm not a fan of plastic anywhere, especially in my garden, so I am looking at options - cold boxes with old windows, etc. I'm planning to start my 2024 garden this month - pea planting, planning, and seed starting in March! What are you planting?

Spring Means Baseball!

I've had this idea for a knitting pattern in my head and it's finally come to fruition! I am still polishing up the pattern, but here's a quick peak: PS: There's more than one size and this one is too big for me but it was the only one I had "stitched up."

Night

Trixie (as in Speed Racer) and Stitch (as in per inch) Night My kitten walks on velvet feet And makes no sound at all; And in the doorway nightly sits To watch the darkness fall. I think he loves the lady, Night, And feels akin to her Whose footsteps are as still as his, Whose touch as soft as fur. Lois Weakley McKay ... a childhood favorite from The How and Why Library. Thank goodness my parents moved last year and sent this book my way. Otherwise, I would have just the first line running through my head forever!

Stephanie DAugust 25, 2013 at 7:56 AM
I've never put up pickles, but then, this is the first year I've planted cucumbers. They did okay for a while, but we had twice the amount of rain in 6 months than we had all last year, so even in my raised bed garden, they petered out for lack of sunshine. And let's don't even mention the tomatoes and peppers.

However, the Greek columnar basil I planted has far surpassed the regular basil, so I'm planning on making lots of pesto this year!
CandaceAugust 25, 2013 at 7:20 PM
Nice haul, Karen! I can't seem to grow cukes here for the life of me and how I love dill pickles! Hmm...wonder if you can carve the mutant pumpkin hybrids - you'll have the scariest house on the block!
Cheers!
ThimbleannaAugust 26, 2013 at 7:01 AM
Such a fun GREEN picture! It looks like you've had good garden production this year, in spite of the lacking cucumbers!

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