Edible zucchini

Normally zucchini is not great.  But if you lay it in flour and fry it in a pan, then mmmmm.

I cannot explain why this photo is sideways.  But you get the gist.

Love, J

Veggie quinoa

Despite a lot of take-out and stove avoidance in the heat, we really are eating a lot from the garden.  Most of it I eat raw - kale, beans, carrots.  Peas and strawberries earlier in the spring.

And if I want to cook, I just do it at 5 am while the kitchen's cool.  Here's my made-up recipe for veggie quinoa:

1. 1 cup quinoa, 2+ cups water in the rice cooker.  Put the rice cooker on the back porch and plug it in with an extension cord, so it won't heat up the kitchen.  Cook for ~18 minutes.

2.  Grate beet and sautee in a little bit of coconut oil.  After a few minutes add sliced carrot and cook til soft.

3.  Transfer beet/carrot mix to large mixing bowl.  Add sliced zucchini and chopped parsley.

4.  Boil sliced beans until barely tender (Al dente?  Or does that word apply only to pasta?) Drain when done and then add the beans to the beet bowl.

5.  When the quinoa's done cooking, stir it into the veggies.

I like to eat it cold.

Love, J

The garden in July

This guy right here deserves a lot of garden credit.  He built the beds; paths; greenhouse; fence; compost bays.  And now he's doing a chicken coop for Alice.  He's the best sport ever for bringing my ideas to life.  We're a good team - I just need to work on pacing myself so he doesn't end up working on too many projects at the same time. 

Last year was the first time I ever planted flowers - snapdragons and marigolds.  The snapdragons reseeded themselves and just sprung up as is, which was convenient.  The marigolds I started in the greenhouse using seeds I saved from last year's plants. 

I got one beet last year.  One.  This year the whole patch took off.  I did nothing different.  And last year the parsley was phenomenal while this year only 4 or 5 seeds even sprouted.  I can't figure stuff like that out.  I figure it keeps us from having the same exact garden every year and makes things exciting.

When seeds won't germinate or the marmots take out my starts and I've got a hole to fill, I just stick a zucchini there. 

 Canteloupe in the foreground.  I've never grown these before and had no idea is was so easy.  I started these from seed in the greenhouse and they are some of the happiest plants in the garden.  There are already 6-8 fruit forming.

My fancy new 3-bay compost facility is in the background here. 

Squash; pumpkins. 

I will not water the grass.  We haven't had to mow since May. 

The hubs built this pallet fence last fall, to give us a little privacy from the road.  Our lot is beautiful but it's weird not to have more of a real backyard. 

 Paul graduates from acupuncture to a chiropractor next week.  It's only his right hind leg that's not working now.  He still scoots around with commendable pluck.

The little white rabbit is Ginny.  She is the cutest bunny to ever live with us.  She's also a real jerk.  I'll formally introduce you another day. 

All that food growing outside our door and still we've been doing take out for at least half of our dinners because it is too damn hot to cook.  Also I'm tired from working in the garden.Love, J

I got me some raised beds

Me, in March, "Boy, keeping the paths in the garden cleared each summer is pretty back-breaking.  I wish we could lay stones or something to keep the weeds down."

Some internet searching... then, "I guess if we were going to do that, what would really look great is if we had raised beds too."

I had impossible material criteria, such as:
- Zero maintenance
- Recycled
- Pretty
- Cheap.  Ideally, free.

And I'll be damned if the internet didn't come through, with an idea to build walls and dig in paths made of "urbanite," or broken up hunks of concrete.

I posted a "wanted" ad on Craigslist for free, busted up concrete.  It took longer than I'd hoped, and we had a few false starts, but then a woman in Post Falls emailed me and said she had a 400 ft. wall made of cinder blocks that she wanted gone, and if we could come haul them away, they were ours.

 So we did (with, as usual, DIL and little brother's great assistance).  And the blocks were BEAUTIFUL.

 And a little while later, I got another email.  This time from a man who had a lot of concrete he wanted to get rid of.  Not only that, he was able to deliver it to us.  Not only THAT, but he also had some really nice dirt to unload, and he was happy to haul that to us as well, and we could use it to fill our new beds.

This has nothing to do with the garden, but aren't they cute?

 Here is where I'm super glad I was not in charge of this project.  It didn't occur to me that leveling and measuring and all that would be such a big deal.  But under DIL's advice, the hubs was meticulous about the whole thing.  And I cringe when I think of how sloppy it would look if I'd had my way and just slapped it all together.

We had a moose in our yard for a day.  It was exciting.

 Holy cow, did the hubs WORK on this thing this summer.  My job was to chip the old mortar off the cinder blocks, haul them to him, keep the weeds down, and bring him iced tea.  His job was everything else, and it was totally backbreaking and hot and TOOK FOREVER, and he's not much of a sun guy in the first place.  Total trouper.

Also, little brother was here pretty much every week, just to hang out, but really to help lots and lots and lots.
 

 And enjoy rainbows.

 We've got one more bed and a few more paths to do next spring, but it's over halfway done and it looks amazing.  The skill and strength of these guys impresses me to no end.

Love, J

Parsley

Parsley for Freya in the morningtime.

Love, J

5 minutes between clouds

We just had one of those "Quick!  It stopped raining!  Get outside now!" moments.  


The garlic (which was coming up SO gorgeous) seems doomed.  It's all shriveled and moldy.


But we found our second beautiful strawberry of the season, and the lavender is long and lovely and perfect for braiding into Ms. G's hair.  So things are all right, really.


Love, J

Double the dirt, double the fun

It took almost 3 years, but I finally convinced the Hubs to rip out a portion of our giant lawn to expand my garden-canvas.  

 Well hello, this year's home for corn; beans; squash; cukes; and tomatoes.  

Bonus: my lawn-mowing time is now down probably about 8 minutes.  I do like mowing the grass, but I HATE watering it.  So I don't.  And then it dies by the 4th of July, further cementing our status as the neighborhood hillbillies.  Which on our block, I assure you, is a title for which there is very stiff competition.
 
I love this pictorial because I was at work when he did this project.  I didn't even know he'd taken photos as he went until I just now found them on the camera.

And after all the work, he read my mind and got some shots of the flowers alongside the house.

And THEN, he stopped reading my mind, and went kind of a weird direction...

Thank you for the new patch of dirt, handsome!  We will feast on corn chowder this winter.


Love, J