This Week in the Garden- July 28

Early morning in the garden, before the mist has lifted.

Blueberries are ripening quickly now, and it's a bumper crop!

I dug the rest of the spuds. 

The first planting of beans are ready.  

I weeded the sweet potatoes.  What a job!  

The squash, zucchini and cucumbers are giving, giving.

My sad tomatoes have blight.  Too much rain.  

I harvested the beets.

This is what my kitchen counter looks like these days.

  Thank you Lord for the abundance.

This Week in the Garden- July 15

Oh, looky!  I have acorn squash.  I haven't had great success 

with winter squash in the past, so this makes me happy.

Jalapeños.  Sure wish I had peppers and tomatoes ready, so I could make salsa with these.  I've not quite figured out how to time my planting so that I have all the things I need at the right time.  

I pulled half of the beets and have been enjoying 

them in recipes.  The next harvest will be for canning.

Tomatoes = Love

 It appears someone else feels the same way.  The war is on.  Mark helped me wrap the tomatoes loosely in bird netting and hopefully that will discourage some of this.  I don't mind sharing a little of my goodies with the animals, but I'm not so generous with my tomatoes.

If you look really closely in the middle of all those weeds and grasses, you'll see a sweet potato plant!  What a wonderful surprise to find that some of my sweet potato plants survived after all.  Remember when I planted those baby plants and something came and ate them?  Twice.  I finally gave up and turned my attention elsewhere.   This week I will be reclaiming my sweet potatoes from the grass that's grown up all around them.  It's not going to be fun, but I keep thinking about how good those potatoes are going to be this fall.  It'll be worth the time invested.  She who plants, weeds, picks bugs and sweats in her garden, enjoys food the most.

I had a great little helper when I dug potatoes this week.

I was especially happy with the yield from my fingerlings.

The garlic has all been harvested and these soft neck heads are drying in preparation for braiding.  I will use this all winter and until next years harvest. I use a lot of garlic! 

I'm Addicted To This Salad

It's beet season and I'm happy about that.  I pulled about half of my little crop this week and commenced to roasting them, which so far, seems to be my preferred cooking method.  Aren't they just so pretty?  What are you going to do with all those roasted beets, you might be asking.  I love having them cooked and ready to pull out as a colorful addition to most any meal I've planned.  And then there's this salad...

To roast my beets, I scrubbed them well, cutting off the tops and leaving the root end intact.  I brushed a little olive oil on them and put them into a roasting pan, with about a fourth cup of balsamic vinegar.  Covered with foil, I put the pan in a very hot oven and roasted them until the beets were tender when pierced with a fork.  When they were cool enough to handle, I cut off the top and bottom and the peel slipped right off.   I had pink fingers the rest of the day.

I made a balsamic vinaigrette with 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar, 1/2 cup olive oil, 2 t. dijon mustard and little maple syrup for sweetening.  I poured some of this over the warm beets and let them marinate.  I reserved the rest to drizzle over the salad.  And this is how I assembled the salad: pile the lettuce greens in a bowl ( these were the very last ones from my garden), add chopped apple, sliced roasted beets, cooked bacon, crumbled goat cheese and toasted, chopped hazelnuts.  Those nuts had been hanging around in my refrigerator since Christmas baking and were absolutely perfect for this salad.  Drizzle with reserved dressing.

So, so good.

Grateful for My Days

First Monday counting... 
                                    when I share entries from my Gratitude Journal.

"How we live our days is how we live our lives."

Annie Dillard

261-blue skies and a sunny day

262- Greek salad

263- a plane ticket purchased for a summer trip

264-clean clothes

265-hiking Big Glassy

266- sitting at the top of the mountain with the breeze blowing my hair

267- having someone pick up a hoe and start to work on the weeds

268- fresh mulch in the flower beds

269-first day of school for an eager student

270- reclining in my favorite chair

271- thick sliced bacon

272- a kiss on the back of my neck

273- soaking in the tub while looking at a new magazine

274- fresh herbs

275- a summer plan

276- white geraniums

277- a Father's Day surprise

278- sitting under a shade tree

279- date night with Dillon and Jantzen

280- text messages from NY

281- walking around at Nana's farm

282- lemon pie ice cream

283- a five day "stay cation"

284- trying out a new restaurant with Travis

285- talking wedding plans

286- picking up Mark from the airport

287- the internet

288- fresh squash and cucumbers

289- air conditioning

290- watching the storm through a wall of glass

291- stacks of ironed clothes

292-scenic drive to Cherokee

293- Dillon's birthday

294- salty tortilla chips

295- chatting it up with a three year old

296- picking blueberries with Cindy

297- cucumbers in brine

298- a good night's rest

299- book club meeting with friends

300- a "love" text in the middle of the work day

301- getting in over 10,000 steps with my Fitbit

302- cold watermelon

303- clean doors and windows

304- holding "plank" for one minute

305- practicing stillness

306- lunch with Anne

307- a pretty new necklace

308-setting and accomplishing goals

309- fruit smoothies

310- gathering food from the garden

311- trying a new recipe

312- Advil

313- mist on the river

314- mountain laurel blossoms

315- drive to Murphy

316- quesadilla assembly line

317- Sunday dinner with Dillon and Jantzen

318- early morning quiet

319- my faith

320- a new windshield for my car

"Delight thyself in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart."

Psalm 37:4

This Week in the Garden - July 6

The squash plants are huge, especially this patty pan.

It's been a squash, zucchini and cucumber kind of week.

The tomatoes plants are growing with lots of green tomatoes.  

It's hard to be patient here.

Pulled up a garlic bulb to see if they are ready.  Yep, it's time to harvest my garlic.

The best thing about this week in the garden... I had helpers!

These guys help some too.  But mostly, not. 

 They're still fun to have around, though.