Garden Update – Early August 2012

Another pic heavy post about my garden. I love tracking its progress. I’ve learned lots this year and hope to remember everything needed for next year. I feel like its almost nearing the end and its just the beginning of August but there’s been a plethora of zucchini, squash, pumpkins and tomatoes so far and I fear that once those are done, gone will be my garden.

And now, time for the pics 🙂

Budding butternut squash

Butternut squash

Cucumber

San Marzano tomatoes

Beefsteak tomatoes

Roma tomatoes

Beefsteaks again

More beefsteaks

Soon to be eaten beefsteaks 😉

Bell peppers

Jalapenos
(I swear these are more spicy then the kind you buy at the grocery store)

Know what these are?

Eggplants!!

Beautiful eggplants

Budding eggplant

Almost ready to be picked eggplants.
Oddly enough, I bought Chinese eggplant seedlings and these are starting to look like Italian eggplants. No worries though, our home is filled with equal opportunity eggplant enthusiasts. 😀

This is the former lettuce bed. There were 8 plants to start. I cut one to see if it would grow back on its own but the stump just died. The other 7 I left to see what would happen but the taller they get, they seem to ‘milk’ when you harvest the leaves. And they’re staring to flower. Definitely done for the season. Not bad for a 3 – 4 month run right?

The group shot – herbs, jalapenos, peppers & leaf lettuce area.
Psst, that’s purple basil down in front that’s trying to steal the show.

The slowly dying Italian oregano (which I have yet to figure out how to use!) and basil in the left planter and my flowering cilantro on the right. Cilantro doesn’t seem to be in my cards this year 😦

Lastly…after some googling, I have deemed this to be purple basil.
Its beautiful to look at but I guess I should taste it and perhaps start using it?

Garden Update – Mid July 2012

Time sure is flying by rather quickly! It seemed like just the other day I had finished planting the garden with the hubster and the wait for the veggies was just beginning.  (I did just post about it last week but the pics were from a few weeks prior. You can read more about my garden here )

Now here we are, mid July and there is finally some evidence that I didn’t kill the garden!! *insert Snoopy dance here*

Here’s an update via pics.

We have been enjoying salad almost daily with our bounty. This is a pic of AFTER I had harvested two large bowl.  Homegrown lettuce DOES taste that much better…grassy, earthy, slightly bitter yet sweet. I. LOVE. THIS. STUFF.

Ah yes, the yellow zuc.  Found this one hiding under the huge leaves that come with the plant.  When dad found this he nearly keeled over with shock as he didn’t remember me buying this seedling NOR did he believe that zuc’s do come in yellow LOL  Either way…it will be in our bellies soon enough!

This was more along the lines of what dad was expecting.

Not sure if you are able to pick out what the pic is of with a quick glance but if you focus just to the right of the centre of the pic…you will see jalapenos!! I loved growing these last year and am slowly learning how to cook with them. I can’t wait for these puppies to grow as they grow plentifully well.

These are in the same planter box next to the jalapeno’s….I was so giddy with glee when I spotted these! I totally thought they weren’t going to produce but slowly and surely there’s 2 right there (they’re about the size of a medium plum right now) and their friends are hanging out in the plant behind this one.  So far, there are 4 bell peppers!!

Spotted some San Marzano tomatoes finally on the vines.

And some beefsteak tomatoes too!!

Lastly, just to give you an idea of the size of the zuc’s…yes they’re larger then life. Definitely larger then the tray but the teeny tiny one down in front there at the bottom…thats a ‘store bought’ one.  That’s right. My home grown zuc’s are BIONIC!!!

So with that lil update … anyone got any recipe suggestions/ideas for the zuc’s?  I do the whole zuc bread thing as well as sauteeing it or grilling it up as a side dish and have also shredded it and added it to sauces but I’m sure all of these ideas will get old really fast with the boys.