Garden Tour

I didn't make anything delicious today but I'm going to take you on a tour of my garden to introduce you to some of the blog-stars-to-be...  Now, my yard isn't very big and my garden is also not very big but I have big dreams so I have a lot of stuff crammed into a little bit of real estate.  Hang onto your hats, kiddies.. away we go!

This is my surprise plant.  I'm not exactly certain what it is, but I suspect, from the shape of that little fat bottomed blossom in the middle of the frame, that this is going to give me a bunch of butternut squash.  This is actually a plant I started from seed and then we got frost and I thought it died.  Apparently, it was more determined than I was to make it to the big time so I'm just kind of grateful that it made the trip.  Thanks, little guy!  Butternut Squash has become a real source of joy and comfort to me since moving to the Midwest.  It's better than mashed potatoes (no, really, it is!) and I could make a meal of one squash, some butter, salt and a fork.  I can even make it in the microwave (though I'll admit they're so much tastier in the oven).  I'm looking forward to finding new ways to incorporate this delicious gourd into my fall harvest diet.  I've got THREE of these things and they all have a ton of blossoms on them so I'll have lots to work with!

I also have two cucumber plants that are trying to take over the whole garden  One is a regular cucumber plant and one is supposed to be a "bush" style plant that doesn't vine all over the place.  Don't ever trust a cucumber plant.  THEY LIE!  They vine and spread all over the place.  If' you're considering putting in cucumbers, give them room to stretch their legs.  They need it and if you don't give it to them, they'll take it anyway.

Just for the record, I can eat cucumbers like apples.  Sometimes I'm so excited about that crispy, cold, sweet deliciousness, I don't even bother to slice it and I especially don't bother to peel it -- though I've discovered that you SHOULD brush off the stickers cause they're like little cacti and can really poke you good.  Last year's plant took blood.  I really do have a ton of blooms between the two plants and am starting to get a little nervous in the face of this harvest.  I hope I can keep up!  They are also going to become more than a garnish or a crunchy salad addition this year.  I don't know how, maybe I'll make a soup out of them -- ooohhh..  Cucumber and Basil soup? mmmm.. this has some potential..   Somebody remind me of this later..

This is my one, lonely (and now I notice, deformed) tomato.  I have three tomato plants and I'm not much of one for beefsteak style tomatoes.  I don't like the goop in the middle.  I prefer a fleshy tomato and if I'd started earlier, I would have mail ordered a whole yard full of San Marzano Romas just to keep me happy -- but I didn't.  So this is the only tomato I have in ground (the other two are in topsy turvy planters).  This is also the only FRUIT this plant has borne yet and it's July.  Come on little guy, we're running out of time!!  Anyway, this tomato is supposed to be a hybrid of a beefsteak and a roma so because it doesn't LOOK like a roma, I'm going to presume it is meaty like one.  It only just started to turn red this week and it's been on the vine since early June so as soon as it can be picked, i'll use it for something yummy and we'll see what kind of a hybrid we have.

Also, part of the reason why I have had no fruit coming out of this plant was that we were infested with some kind of creature.  I couldn't see them.  I couldn't hear them, but all the leaves were curled up like some of the ones you can still see in the picture.  I have had to spray a few times and only once I sprayed did I start to get more blooms. With any luck, we'll have more tomatoes soon as I do have lots more blooms coming out now.

These leafy beauties are my peppers, Anaheim and Jalapeno.  I'm ALWAYS making salsa in the summer and I would much prefer to use my own fruits and vegetables to do it -- though I'm sorry guys, I just don't think a mango tree is going to survive a Wisconsin winter so I'll have to keep buying those.  I had the same delay of produce on the peppers, which are at the foot of my tomato, behind the ever-spreading cucumber infestation.  Whatever was taking a big steamy dump all over my tomato was also working on my peppers.  Now I am beginning to see some blooms so with any luck, we'll have a few yummy peppers to use for cooking very soon.  Obviously, I don't ONLY like them for salsa but they are so flavorful and give heat without burning your face off, I love to use them whenever and where ever I can.  I think I'll do some research on paella and see what I can come up with for you.

Let us not forget our leafies -- yellow cabbage and butter lettuce.  My yellow cabbage, after a little bit of a rocky start, has been going gangbusters.  I have gigantic fronds of cabbage all along the front sideline of my little garden.  They're starting to form heads so I think I'll have some lovely crisp cabbage for stir fry and cole slaw later.  If I'm really lucky, I'll also have enough for swedish meatballs with dilled potatoes and cabbage.  Oh yes.

The butter lettuce did not fare as well as the cabbage on the first try.  This is actually attempt #2 on the year.  I had a row of hopefuls in the ground just after Memorial Day but they didn't survive beyond a couple of weeks.  So with my head hung low, I skulked back into the garden center and bought six more frighteningly wilty looking little butter lettuce plants, with some not so high hopes of their success.  Thankfully, they seem to be doing better than I expected.. though I didn't know they would get so tall.  I like butter lettuce because it seems to be more to chew on.  Don't get me wrong, I still eat and enjoy iceberg and romaine (and even once in a while, I'll guiltily enjoy some red leaf lettuce, too) but, well, there weren't any of those at the garden center this year and I'm not skilled enough with seeding to start my own... not yet anyway.  maybe next year.

In the same section as the lettuce, I have some spindly, pathetic little soybean plants.  I was very excited about the soybeans because, if you didn't know, they're farmed by the acre here.. and they're full and green and bushy and gorgeous.. plus they give me Edamame so I was all ready to put in my own little harvest.  Unfortunately, they nearly died and are only just now beginning to give me teeeny, tiny little purple flowers, which, I must presume will one day be soybeans -- only, I can count the blooms on one hand so maybe I'll have better luck next year? these aren't the only beans in my garden.  I also have five pea pod plants.. they have some delicious looking snow peas on them right now but only a few and not enough to harvest so I'll let them keep going and see what they do.  I had planned to have long green beans, too, but they were among the seeded plants that died in the late frost.  Next year FO SHO!!  I loves me some green beans!

Now, behind the in ground tomato plant, I have a raised planter against my mud porch window.  In this planter, I've got a number of different things but one of the first things I put in a few years ago were strawberries.  I can eat strawberries morning, noon and night.  I love them.  So these plants are supposed to provide fruit all summer -- an early and a late harvest -- to keep me well stocked of my obsession.  Unfortunately, this is the first year I've gotten anything more than a few blossoms out of them.  They've SPREAD all over the dang place and I'm sure the squirrels are having a field day because I always find what little fruit I DO have half eaten and left to taunt me on the edge of the planter. I got a few berries out of the first harvest but recently I noticed a BUNCH of new blossoms and now I'm starting to see some fruit, as well.  We have another couple of plants in a topsy turvy as well but they're not doing nearly as well as these.  I also like having them in the raised planter because I can harvest them without squatting for an hour like at the pick your own berries place.

The other things I have in this raised planter are some herbs.  This is where my dill grows wild and big as trees.  I have plenty of Italian Parsley and some Spearmint and this year, I took my first venture into roots when I planted Shallots and Garlic -- which I use in EVERYTHING.  Right now, I'm using the shallot chives along with a generous handful of parsley and some dill in my tuna salads and will be experimenting with the garlic chives next week sometime -- not sure in what..  here are the pictures of those lovelies:

First is the messy, hillbilly layout of my Garlic and Chives section -- it looks like a hillbilly front lawn.  Only thing missing is an old Ford up on blocks.













I love this picture with the benevolent frog watching lovingly over my Italian Parsley.  The leaves on this stuff are HUGE -- I had to put more of it up in my herb topsy turvy (pictures in the next batch)















This wispy, unassuming yellow flowered thing is my wild dill.  I intentionally planted ONE DILL PLANT, three years ago.  It grew into a tree with a 4inch diameter trunk.  I pulled it out.  Since then, there have been dill plants popping up EV-ER-Y-WHERE... in the planter, next to the planter, in the cracks of the sidewalk, in my neighbor's driveway cracks, I even found one growing in a gutter!  Seriously.  It's fine with me, though, I use fresh dill in just about everything I can.  It's so much more savory fresh than it ever is dried.  I can't wait to try using it in some pickling this fall!

Meanwhile, while Dill is taking over the universe, my little spearmint plant is just doing it's own thing over here, hiding out behind the "plant I can't identify but can't manage to bring myself to pull up" that you can see growing behind the wild dill in the last picture.  (I think it might be oregano, but it's not very strong).

The last thing in my planter is my watermelon.  Yes.  I went on a gourd kick this year -- I will have seven billion butternut squash in fall, and I have ONE watermelon plant that is making a go at it.  it looks like I'll have a couple of blooms on it soon so we shall see.  I think it might even be seeded (like the old fashioned kind!!)

This is the other topsy turvy, filled with genovese basil, gorgeous purple Thai basil and more of that titanic flat leave Italian Parsley. I can't get enough of it.  Dried parsley is useless.  I don't know why anybody ever uses it.  There's no flavor in it except the flavor of dust and old age.  Throw away your dried parsley and ONLY use fresh -- please.  For the sake of the children.

Finally, I have one last plant.  I know this is another of those little guys I started from seed before the late frosts we got, and when it's little brothers died, I gave up on it.  Suddenly, this started to grow. Right there, next to my mom's gardenia.  I know it's something I intended to plant.  I'm sure it's something edible.  For all I know, it's my fourth butternut squash plant and I'll never want to see another butternut squash as long as I live.  Thank goodness my boyfriend loves those things as much as I do.  He's gonna have as many as he can put his hands on this fall.  Just don't tell him that.  Let's let it be a surprise!