Everything, food and weed alike, has been growing like mad in the garden for the past three weeks while I’ve been down with a cold. But today we got out there, pulled weeds, removed more sod and thinned out the beets and spinach. We’ve learned one thing: carrots don’t seem to like being transplanted. That’s okay – we have other things to grow there, and the original bed from which I was thinning is happier now that there’s more room for the remaining carrots.
Today’s meal was created around what simply had to be thinned out. I froze the beet greens. The stems and wee bitty beets are simmering on the stove for a vegetable stock. When you work so hard to grow it, you don’t waste any of it. The spinach was going to seed, so I cut out a lot of that and combined it with garlic and fresh oregano, also from the garden. I cooked it briefly in some bacon fat (no nitrates) that I had saved (waste nothing), tossed in a bit of white wine, leftover bacon bits and some romano shavings. It was really good, if I do say so myself!
Oregano:
Spinach:
Spinach with organic bacon, garlic, oregano and Romano cheese:
More garden pictures – mid-July:
Nice garden! Any problems with deer or other critters? We just lost a bunch of beautiful heirloom tomatoes to hungry deer, and lettuce to a groundhog.
Keeping seeds growing is a challenge because the squirrels think freshly-dug earth is the best place to dig for nuts. I laid hardware wire screening over the beds, about 2-3 inches off the seeds, and removed it once the plants were touching it. They pretty much survive squirrels once they’re big enough. To keep the woodchuck out of the lettuce (he at it all last year), I put chicken wire around the lettuce and that’s kept him completely away and the squirrels choose that area last. So the lettuce is doing great. I’ve whacked a few Japanese beetles off the strawberries and picked just three or four worms off the cabbage. So far, so good!
The photos are almost as beautiful as gardens are right now — the greens are great and . . . . make me want to run outside and weed
Que hermoso huerto!
This year we started our own vegetable garden. My husband built the bed and with the help of the cool people from the Newell St. community garden (who gave us the tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapeno pepers, lettuce plants and advice about the soil) we just harvest some tasty vegetables.
The only thing is that we planted four tomato plants so close together that they have taken over the whole vegetabe garden! We didn’t think they were going to grow that big!
Saludos!