Garden glory

Because it takes an extra step for me to share photos on this blog versus sharing straight to Facebook, I'd not posted here in a long time. But, since I'm in town with wifi and nothing better to do (a complete lie), I thought I'd share some gardening pictures because even though I haven't posted in a year and a half, we are still mostly small-scale homesteading.

Hubby among the okras.

Our grapes finally did something this year! It's because, for some strange reason, the vermin you call deer haven't mowed it to the ground like they usually do.

Peek-a-book, winter squash!

Some sunny summer squash.

Corn! I get so excited about corn.

The requisite zucchini

We have had really nice potatoes this year so far. No vole or insect damage.

A typical harvest: mostly grown, some scavenged (chanterelles).

Dinner is served!

And where you find zucchinis, you can find zucchini products. This was a particularly tasty muffin recipe. Very moist. I didn't need to smother them with butter like I usually do with muffins (because, IMO, the only good muffin is one that has been thoroughly killed by butter). 

Most things have been growing well for us this summer...except maybe tomatoes...even the peaches, which is the next post.

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Get ready to be inundated

Because it's always feast or famine, people!

No, sorry; it's actually because I tend to put things off and then throw everything into the pot...or the blog post.

So, let's rush through our Vancouver trip. Luckily for you, unlike some of my friends who are good about taking a million photos each time they go on vacation, I think we (the kids, hubby, and I) took a total of maybe 30 pictures. And I'm not sharing all of them - you'll be grateful to know that, for example, I'm not sharing the photo of the dead caterpillar ds#1 found in his salad or his stunning photos of various slugs they found while hiking.

Speaking of hiking, no trip to Vancouver is complete without a trek to Lynn Headwaters in North Vancouver:

Now that ds#1 is feeling more confident with birding by ear (and is really good with IDing by sight), we're doing more and more birding outings.  We went to Whytecliff Park, which we hadn't been to in years, and were rewarded with lovely views and some unusual birds.

Hubby likes to bring the boys to wholesome places for birding too (click to see larger photo):

That place (Wreck Beach, in case anyone wants to know) is pretty gorgeous though:

We also went to check out my mom's headstone at her grave site.  My sister and I helped our dad order the tombstone back in November. It arrived in February when I was already back home, so this was the first time I've seen it.  Dad wrote out the Chinese characters that they used to make lettering with.  I think it looks pretty nice.  And I think it's pretty generous of dad, who is an atheist, to honor mom, who was Catholic, by putting religious symbols on the stone.

Besides Lynn Headwaters, a trip to Vancouver would not be complete without eating authentic Chinese food...and lots of it.  My kids have gotten really fond of chicken feet now, so we order it at every dim sum:

This next item was a first for the boys (and hubby) - and a warning to the squeamish: you might want to skip down to the garden photos - care to guess what it is?

If you guessed "duck tongue", you are absolutely right!  Most older cultures still adhere to the "waste not, want not" ideal.

The funky thing is that inside of a duck tongue is some sort of bone or cartilage which makes the tongue stiff.  Consider this is your anatomy lesson for the day.  Traveling is very enlightening. 

We're back home now, in not-as-exotic southern Indiana.  But, we have fresh food back home, so even if we don't have anything unusual, it is all tasty.  Here's hubby between the broccoli and corn:

And what was hubby doing with a pitchfork, besides posing as model for an American Gothic revival? Digging potatoes, of course!

A few more random garden photos...summer squash that got too big while we were away in Vancouver enjoying the duck tongue:

More corn because we can never get enough:

The frisee, gone to seed...but look at how pretty the flowers are!

Not as pretty as the frisee flowers, but lovely in its own way is the asparagus forest:

Hubby put our indoor banana tree out in the garden where it's been enjoying the killer heat and humidity. I'm glad something is.

Aren't the cherry tomatoes adorable?

Well, enough of my babbling for one post. I plan to post shorter, less gross posts more regularly.  (Was that confusing to use less and more within 2 words of each other?)

If I've not already visited your blog, tell me about your vacation/summer/garden, and I'll swing by for a look-see!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

How does our garden grow?

Before I get into blathering about our garden, I want to give a shout-out to Product Body's fantastic Giveaway! Head over to The Soap Bar blog to find out how to enter; Joanna's products are incredible! You can thank me later.  ;)

Thinking about the nursery rhyme leads me to suspect that Mary wasn't the one being contrary; it was probably the garden pests who were contrary!  (Unless, of course, you take it as the political allegory that it is and from the view point of Elizabeth I, Mary was rather contrary; but I hate talking politics.)

All sorts of things conspire to make your garden a failure: rabbits, voles, aphids, caterpillars, chipmunks, and, yes, even birds.  They blithely nibble on your plants and berries, snipping off and killing young shoots before they have a chance to realize their dreams of becoming a full-blown plant.  The garden is a sad, rough place to raise a seedling.

Still, we persist, year after year.  Or hubby persists, and the kids and I help to nurse his eternal optimism.

So to answer "how does our garden grow", I thought I'd show some photos of the progress.  I think I took these photos Tuesday morning (June 7th).  These are by no means all of our garden beds.  Some are still empty (well, maybe just one or two are), and some I just didn't take close-ups of (example, cucumbers, squash, grapes).

A sweeping view of the south garden, outside of the main fenced garden. Our dilapidated chicken tractor is at the left-hand side. Hubby fixed it now though, so I'll have to show a photo of his handiwork some other time.

Looking inside our main fenced garden...it's hard to take in all 27 beds in there at once:

The bib lettuce, co-existing with the frisee:

The lettuce, nearly bolting, with some beets in the foreground, not quite big enough yet. Interspersed are dill that keep self-seeding in our garden.

Speaking of self-seeding, here's a volunteer lamb's quarters:

The cabbages are doing beautifully...

In fact, dh used one for cole slaw:

...but the broccoli is just getting started:

One day soon, we'll get some peas:

More frisee, cohabiting with the celery this time:

The asparagus are still going strong, amazingly:

as are our garlic, which won't be ready for harvest for another month:

Our strawberries are pretty much done:

But other things are just getting started, such as eggplants:

and sweet potatoes:

Regular potatoes:

Lima beans:

Peppers:

Tomatoes:

And green onions - front - (this is the half bed inside the main garden, and not the six beds outside the fenced area) and basil - back:

Dh made some yummy meals again. This was a faux gyros with brown rice instead of pita, and our tomato sauce instead of chopped tomatoes (since our tomatoes haven't ripen yet).  Complete with my homemade Greek yogurt and homegrown asparagus:

This was just using up some left over dilly new potatoes.  Dh made a homefries sort of concoction, topping it with one of our eggs.

We're actually low on eggs right now.  The heat shut most of the chickens down, and one hen went broody so she's not laying.  *&^% freeloaders.  We might have to dispatch with this current group and get a bunch of new ones.  Unfortunately, ds#1 is rather attached to one of the hens, Licorice...actually most of the hens except for Four of Five...so we may have to keep them for longer.  I never knew he was quite so sentimental. 

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams