Sorry for the break in posts but it's been a jungle out there! I hunted a groundhog Caddyshack style (also to no avail), burned hundreds of caterpillars with a lighter (don't judge me, they had it coming) and would have maimed a rogue squirrel if my bb gun hadn't jammed (I suspect the squirrel jammed it). Yes squirrels are adorable but this one pushed me to the edge! I even forced Louis to do his homework in his car under a tree so he could stake-out the groundhog and squirrel. Nothing. They love to mess with me.
Despite the rodent's master plant to destroy the garden, it's been amazing. I didn't get to plant a lot of stuff I'd planned on but the corn, tomatoes, beans, eggplant, squash and melons have been awesome. the tomatoes are out of control.
Everyday for the past month and a half I've gone out there to find 3 or more cups of ripe cherry tomatoes plus huge heirlooms, romas, orange medium sized ones and smaller Early Girls.
I fill containers, my pockets, stuff them in my garden gloves and make a kangaroo pouch with my shirt to get them all inside. I end up feeling like Lucy at the chocolate factory.
I've given a bunch to my nice neighbors but I think they're sick of them too, they didn't answer my call today to offer them more. I tried to control the desperation in my voice when I left a message.
I've made gazpacho, tomato sandwiches, salsa (which was, to put it mildly, da bomb) and fancy grilled cheeses...a.k.a. grilled cheese with tomato.
Gazpacho courtesy of a recipe by Alice Waters. We're tight like that/she posted it on Facebook. Tomorrow I'm going to invent a recipe for orange tomato and watermelon gazpacho. I have a ton of orange tomatoes and the watermelon are starting to ripen. THAT I'd love to can for a summer memory during winter. Alice's was traditional and delicious and is included below for you to try. Just FYI, I do not have a mortar and pestle. I winged it.
Alice Water's Gazpacho Recipe:
Next up I made Grilled eggplant with my heirloom 'Mortgage Lifters'. It's just lightly fried eggplant topped with gruyere, my lemon basil and avocado. Lemon basil is my new obsession. I'm putting it on everything.
I am generally not an eggplant fan but preparing it this way is insanely delicious. I watched a chef do it once. All you do is cut thin eggplant disks, I remove the skin, and fry them in a skillet until light brown with a little oil after coating them in simple eggwash and "spiced up" flour which is just garlic powder, pepper and salt in the flour. :) The cheese melts on the hot eggplant and the cool tomato slice along with the avocado and basil is a mind blowing combo.
It'd be nice to can the masses of cherry tomatoes I have but it's a no go. Their small size makes dealing with the skin a losing battle.
Here are some pictures of what I recently brought in.
The fresh corn was delicious. The spaghetti squash are all growing and the beans just keep coming. Our favorite beans so far are 'Royal Burgundy'. They grow a vibrant purple and turn green when you boil them, letting you know when they're ready. They are by far the best green beans I've ever had. Next year I'm planting a ton.
When I was planting watermelon this spring I mixed up the seedlings and lost track of what survived and what didn't and what I planted where. SO I knew the watermelons were going to be wild cards. When one was ready this week I cut it open to find this-
A 'White Wonder'! My good friend Erika loves this kind and told me they're $7 each for chemical-free ones at her McLean farmer's market...sooo, I'll be planting a lot of these next year too! It's super delicious and there's melon all the way to the green, no rind! I saved a bunch of the seeds. This is the melon I'm using for the watermelon gazpacho tomorrow. Some of the orange tomatoes are below.
I forget what they're called but the orange ones are second only to the cherry tomatoes in production value. They just keep coming.
The cantaloupe is also ripening up. This is from the 'Ambrosia' plant that's producing two right now and starting on a third.
I had cantaloupe salsa earlier this year when Louis hired a chef to make us dinner in St. John. I'd never even thought of melon salsa, it blew my mind. I convinced him to give me the recipe and I'll be canning that too! Excuse the rind in the picture but I had to do a quality test!
The sunflowers are starting to bloom. I've never grown sunflowers so their height is still crazy to me. Some are two to three feet taller than me. It's like a forest!
Two weeks ago the pear trees were FULL of pears. Hundreds of them as you can see in the picture below.
I noticed they were starting to ripen before I left town for a good friend's wedding and when I got back, the trees were bare! The packs of crows, squirrels and deer had cleaned us out. AND all under Louis' nose apparently. There were only a few pears left at the very top so we got a ladder and grabbed the measly remnants.
It's such a shame because I have no idea what kind of pears they are but they are DElicious. Seeing the tree bare was like the part in A Christmas Story where the dogs eat their turkey. No canned pears, pear butter, apple and pear pie, pear tarts, pear sorbet. Gone. All gone! I just have to remember next year that when I see one ripening, it's time to pick the tree before nature gets to it.
My dahlias are FINALLY starting to bloom. It's a direct result of mulching them last month. This summer was just too dry, the mulch kept them from drying out. I ordered almost 30 bulbs for every color and size and they should have bloomed last month. I'm really excited that they're doing so well now. This one is called Walter Hardisty.
It's a "dinner plate" dahlia that will be 14-16 inches in diameter and look like this when it's done-
The best thing about dahlias is that one bulb grows into multiples by fall so every one plant I bought this year will be 3-4 plants next season. I'll be sure to take pictures as they bloom. I didn't plant any other flowers this year so I'm looking forward to these!
I'm about to plant my last crop before fall. Carrots, lettuces, broccolli, spinach and rutabaga all do well in the fall. I can't wait to plant garlic when it gets chilly. Each clove is a seed! All you do is plant the cloves pointy end up two inches down, cover them with leaves for overwintering and you'll have heads of garlic in the spring!
SO easy! They can even grow in containers yet 78% of garlic in grocery stores is from China, insane. When they all pop up you harvest them, the outer skin will dry a bit, then keep them in a cool place and use them all year!
Here's a picture of bunches at someone's farm-
Another cool thing I learned recently is about green onions. I'm about to plant green onions and scallions but an easy trick to staying stocked is to not throw away the root of a green onion after you use it. Instead, put it in a little water and watch a whole new scallion grow. Change the water like you would flowers and in a few days you'll have more! Each root will do this 3-4 times.
I'm ending this post with a pretty sunset picture. There's no commentary about house progress because we're still painting. Still.
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