Cool, damp summer

Blessings Darlings!

While we DID have a dry month early this summer, on the whole this summer has been coolish and dry.  There have been less days over 90 degrees than usual, and rain levels have been more than usual since the early hot dry spell.

So now I have issues from those factors in my garden!  I've only lost a couple of zucchinis to end rot from the rain, but on top of those losses some of the zukes haven't been well pollenated - they grow right the first few inches then sudden narrow and don't develop the rest of the way down the fruit.  Others, while properly pollenated have seemed to started to hibernate instead of finishing growing.  And my tomatoes are not just waiting for a few hot days to suddenly have hundreds of them suddenly ripen all at once - the indetermanent ones that ARE coming ripe one at a time all have big cracks at the stem end, the standard sign of too much water. 

I'm concerned I won't get any of the sweet potatoes, as they need rather a lot of days over 90 degrees to move from forming vines to forming tubers.

By the way, the DE didn't do squat for any of the bugs on the beans.  I don't think I'll be getting even enough beans for a dinner side dish, let alone freeze or can any.  The leaves of the beans look like delicate lace.  And the daily rain means that anything I use on the plants gets promptly washed off.

To paraphrase the folk saying:  humanity proposes, nature disposes.

Frondly, Fern

 

Zuke Problems!

Blessings Darlings!

I've had several weeks of being buried in zukes.  This has been a good thing for me.  But ... now not only have some low-level problems with squash bugs started (and I think THEY are rather under control), but wilt has hit.  I removed the plant with that, but ... I'm worried it will take out the other two in that hill.  And that it will move to the gray squash in the next hill over.

I'm debating starting more grey squash in a new hill to get me to full summer squash power, but they'd have to go in the area I planned to put my fall greens/radishes/turnips in. 

With the beans being so bad this year (I'll be applying BT to those this evening, if the wind is calm then), and the tomatoes being so late (my fault), the zukes have been our main veggie.  Without them ... mostly I'll just be getting herbs and spices from the garden.  Which will leave me sad and lower on money, since I'd have to pay for veggies. 

On top of that, something has eaten leaves from some of my cucumber plants.  So even THOSE aren't about to bury me. 

I'm beginning to think I need a larger garden, as well as the energy and time to work it more.

Oh well.

Frondly, Fern

It's Zucchini Time!

Blessings Darlings!

So ... Zucchini.

I gave 3 to Suz today (and then we went out and picked blueberries, so I have 9 pounds of those to process).  And I had half a cooked zuc left, and one whole fresh one in the fridge, and then harvested one more.  So my lunch was pasta with the cooked zuc added.

The Chubby Hubby likes to have something hot with his lunches. Often that means leftovers, but as much as possible I steer him to soup.  So I made zucchini soup.  Well, a vegetable soup that featured a lot of zuc.  Three cups water, 4 boullion cubes, one cubed carrot, most a zuc (cubed), and a large handful of dry egg noodles.  He was happy.  He ate some zuc, so I was happy.  There is soup left for tomorrow, so we can be happy again tomorrow.

I may try Suz's recipe of battering sliced zuc, drizzling it with olive oil, and baking it next, because clearly I have to keep coming up with recipes.

Frondly, Fern

Today's Haul

Blessings Darlings!

Just in from the garden and tabulating today's frugal harvest:

2 cucs, 9 oz total
1 zuc, 12 oz
green beans, 12 oz

Tomatoes are still totally green. Vines from the purple sweet potatoes still trying to take over the garden, but I have no clue if the sweet potatoes are growing under the earth.  No sprouts yet from the lettuce and spinach.

We ARE falling behind in eating the beans and cucs, so Suz is going to get some as gifts.  If we can work out our schedules!

Frondly, Fern

Freezer Eatin'

Blessings Darlings!

The funniest part of Eating While Broke - and there really are LOTS of funny things to it - is the 'creating meals out of the stuff buried in the freezer' part.  We're spending almost no money at the store any more - only milk, cat food, and a few odds and ends this week (small yogurt, can of water chestnuts, egg roll wrappers, etc) - but the Chubby Hubby thinks this week's menus are totally outstanding.

Sunday - Home made pizza, salad, fruit.
Monday - Stir Fry using Reduced price Mystery Raw Meat, home grown cabbage, home sprouted       bean sprouts, and rice.
Tuesday - Shish Ka Bob, using reduced priced beef, home grown zucchini, and onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, served in home-made pita. May need yogurt for sauce.
Wednesday - Korean Seafood Pancakes and ... probably seasoned bean sprouts.
Thursday - Kalbi (Korean BBQ Ribs) using reduced price thin flanken, rice, green beans, salad
Friday - Fried Chicken - from reduced price chicken, potatoes, broccoli, salad
Saturday - Pulled Pork - last of those 50 cent a pound pork shoulders, cole slaw, rolls, fried leftover potatoes
Sunday - Egg Rolls from scratch, using the pulled pork and some salad shrimp.  Will probably buy rather than make wrappers.
Monday - Rumaki - we now have a bag full of frozen livers from whole chickens we've bought. Will need to buy a can of sliced water chestnuts, spicy green beans, rice, salad

And when I type reduced price I mean the meat was already on sale but hadn't moved, so the store knocked the price down lower.  Cabbage, bean sprouts, and green beans from the garden are the main vegetables used this week.  Zucchini will start taking over next week.  Garden cucumbers and more cabbage are in salads.



The fried chicken and the rumaki are the only things that use 'intact' pieces of meat ... and in the rumaki's case the pieces are accumulated livers from whole birds made extraordinary.  The rest all use meat cut small and mixed with other stuff.

I've got sweet corn, but no idea where to fit it in.  I may freeze it.  Also have 6 granny smith apples, which I'll probably bake for desserts.  As a result of that ... we may need to buy some whipped cream.

Frondly, Fern

Zucchini Experimentation

Blessings, Darlings! Since my garden is producing an over abundance of zucchini/marrows/courgettes this summer, and my kirby cucumbers died, last night I tried making spicy half sour pickles out of the zucchini. For a NORMAL batch, you put the sliced cucumbers in the brine, leave them out 2 days, and they are done. This being a Laboratory Experiment .... I refrigerated them immediately instead of leaving them out. And I just tested them, about 13 hours after the pickling started. They are done. Really really done. So done that I've just replaced half of the brine with water. For some reason they are a bit bitter, but the texture is great as is the level of sourness. Perhaps the zucchinis I used were a bit too old for this? BTW, the stink bug collection experiment continues, but we've been having lots of overnight rain and I think that inhibits their travels. Or this technique is just good for indoors/attics. Or the technique fails. As the damn bugs move inside I'll try it in the basement and see what happens, but I'll keep trying it as a garden pest treatment until the garden is done. Frondly, Fern

Frakkin' Stinkbugs

Blessings, Darlings!

The garden is going great guns right now.  I've lots of green beans in the fridge to get thru' the next week or 10 days 'till my next bean patch starts producing.  I've lots of zucchini.  The tomatoes are still behind, and I noticed a very wasp-larva-encrusted tomato horn worm on them.  I have no clue if the sweet potatoes are doing anything but producing incredible amounts of vines.  Tasty-leaved vines, to be sure.  

But I've had to remove two of the 3 zucchini hills due to wilt.  Or maybe because of stink bugs sucking the life out of them and killing them.  I really don't know which. 

So I'm putting out a stink bug trap that I saw online.  I do NOT know if it will work effectively, but it has the advantage of being cheap.  I took an empty 2 liter soda bottle.  I cut the funnel top off.  I turned on a small battery powered LED light and put it inside.  I inverted the funnel top back on.  I put it in the garden at dusk.

Tomorrow morning I'll see if it worked.  Or if we'll get rain and if that will kill the light (and maybe take a few bugs with it?)

Stay tuned ....

Frondly, Fern the killer