Using up the Zucchini

August has passed and the end of gardening season is upon us. It was a late start, with the lack of hot nights in the early part of summer, a lot of the plants just didn't get the opportunity to flourish. The tomatoes, for example, never really turned color except for one or two weeks. Instead, the green tomatoes I kept hoping beyond hope would ripen started rotting on the vine. Near the start of fall though, things really started to get going. Especially the squash. We have more squash now that we know what to do with, of both zucchini and scallop/patty pan varieties. There's plenty of kohlrabi and the tomatilloes are finally filling in their husks. The peppers are coming in and sadly, a large rabbit has completely obliterated the broccoli.

In the front yard, there is chocolate mint. Oh is there chocolate mint. And I have been delighting in mint tea, with and without chamomile. Since the chamomile never grew in, I have to use tea bags to get my chamomile fix. The mint leaves, though, I just pluck off the stem, give a wash, and throw in my Teatanic tea infuser, a lovely novelty gift given to me by a friend who shares my love of bad puns.

It sinks every time.

To use up my plethora of zucchini, I decided it was finally time to try out the recipe for zucchini chocolate chip cookies from Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Vegetable Miracle, one of my favorite books on food and eating whose website features an easy print version of the recipe, which I have conveniently included above.

We also took this opportunity to use our handy food processor for the first time ever. It was a wedding present, I do believe, but since we lived in an apartment when we got hitched, there was no counter space with which to use the food processor and it was just relegated off in a cabinet, never to be used. When we moved into our house, it sat there on the counter and I would say, "You know, honey, you should really use the food processor to shred that" and the husband would poo-poo and say it was easier to just do it with our manual shredder.

I'll have you know, I was right. He was wrong. And we have much shredded zucchini bagged and stuffed in the freezer for future use. The cookies were delicious.

And because I had a family reunion to attend in which a dish to pass is required and a mass of shredded zucchini. I baked some zucchini bread too, using my mother's recipe, passed down from her mother. The best thing about these sorts of recipes is that they give no real instruction and often interesting directions. For example, I had to call my mother and ask if by "Crisco oil" she meant "Crisco" as in shortening or vegetable oil. She meant vegetable oil. Why it was necessary to specify a name brand, I leave for you to ponder, but I have left off the name brand placements in my recipe here.

Mom's Zucchini Bread

3 eggs

1 cup vegetable oil

1 and 1/2 cups sugar

2 cups shredded, unpeeled zucchini

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 and 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons cinnamon (I tend to be more liberal with my cinnamon)

1 c chopped nuts (optional)

Mix together in a bowl, pour into two greased bread pans, and bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for one hour, or until the top is firm and golden brown.

Easy peasy and delicious. Some of my more modern recipes in the recipe box require stapling on an extra index card to fit all the instructions. Not the good, old-fashioned recipes of my childhood. They usually contain no instructions at all on the back, just a list of ingredients on the front with a notation for the number of degrees for the oven and length of time in which the baked good should remain in said oven. That's all and sometimes, it's all you should need: a boatload of shredded zucchini, some bread pans, and a list of ingredients.

A Vegetable Garden and the Need for Fishing Line

Last year, our garden attempts had two big problems. One, the bed we used did not get enough sun and so, the harvest suffered. And two, the tomato plants were eaten by deer. When I say that, I don't mean that the deer ate the fruit off of the plants. No, I mean they ate the whole plant, stems and leaves and all.

There are thick, marshy woods behind our house and they aren't quite expansive and rural enough for hunting. The deer have fairly free reign. Thus, the big fix for this year is designating a sunny section of the backyard for a new, dedicated vegetable garden and finding the appropriate way to fence it to protect the harvest from deer.

At first, we had plans for a wooden fence with a wire mesh blocking any spacing, but the expense of a fence like that was just to great this year, with all the work to the house that needs done before the baby comes. Then, the husband decided to take the posts to the old tall (and now useless and falling down) fence out back and use those as posts to a deer netting fence. He dug out one fence post hole before that idea got tossed. You see, within a few feet, he hit water. Apparently, setting fence posts becomes all sorts of complicated when there is a marshy woodland area behind your house, as it means your water table may be a tad higher than you might think.

Then, the husband discovered a youtube video that described one man's method for garden fencing that keeps the deer out. It, essentially, entails using tall metal garden posts every so-many feet. Then, wrap 30-gauge clear fishing line around the perimeter every two feet. The fishing line is strong enough at that gauge that the deer won't break it if they run into it, but is small enough that it's invisible to the deer. They can't see it so they won't try jumping it and tend to give it a wide berth (or so the video claims).

We got the posts and line up and the plants in this past weekend and as far as I'm concerned, the fishing line is pretty well invisible unless you are really looking for it. In an hour or so time period, the ten-year-old must have ran into it a good five times. I hit my head on the lower rungs a couple times while planting the tomatoes.

As far as the deer are concerned, so far no plant damage.

Thus, the garden is planted. Two hills each of butternut and scallop summer squash, four hills of zucchini, two rows of root vegetables (beets, parsnips, daikon radish, and carrots), one row of half cucumer and half edamame, two rows of lettuce, one row of assorted bell peppers, one row of broccoli, one row of kohlrabi and okra, one row of eggplant, two rows of tomatoes, and one row of tomatillos (with a few stray tomato plants at the end).

We are hoping the fence holds and that the high water table works to our advantage in the plant-growing department. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Separating the Seedlings

Memorial day has come and gone and that can only mean one thing: it's time to plant the garden. Unfortunately, our garden isn't quite ready for planting. After a week of straight rain, plus a long weekend visiting family, there hasn't been enough time quite yet to get the sod up and the dirt tilled. It is getting there though. The space in the back yard is marked off and almost half of that space is now sodless.

(Ignore the loose piece of fence there. The backyard is a work in progress.)

So far, I can say that the whole gardening from seed idea seems to be a success. I have separated most of the seedlings. I say "most" because I ran out of little pots to put them in before I even finished with the tomatoes and I started with the tomatoes. The finally tally for tomato seedlings is as follows: 4 Bloody Butcher tomatoes, 7 Abe Lincoln tomatoes, 8 Purple Cherokee tomatoes, and 7 Big Red tomatoes. That makes for 26 tomato plants if all of them survive until the garden is ready to be planted. This, of course, does not include the additional 8 purple tomatillo seedlings.

Upon seeing what we were in for, I sent my husband out to a home improvement store to try to find more little pots, which he did not find. In lieu of those, he brought home a package of blue Solo cups. He then drilled holes into the bottom of each cup and filled them with dirt for me. With these, I managed to get the eggplant seedlings, 16 total, (a mix of Shooting Stars and Black Beauty and I can't tell how many of each because I can't tell the seedlings apart) separated, as well as the 10 Romanesco broccoli seedlings and most of the 9 kohlrabi seedlings (though I may have the two mixed up, as they look very similar as seedlings). By the 19 mixed bell pepper seedlings, I was using little starter pots from last year and doubling each plant. Finally, I just ran out and left them in their original starter containers.

(The one on the right is a lone tomato seedling.)

Those plants in the smaller containers are clearly not fairing as well as the plants in the cups or the updated pots. Since returning from Michigan after Memorial day, though, all the plants grew significantly in size.

The swiss chard and blue kale seedlings, being cold weather tolerant, I planted in the front bed with the herbs from last year, spinach, raddichio, and cold weather lettuce. There are about 5 swiss chard seedlings and roughly 7 kale seedlings at present. They aren't getting quite as tall as the seedlings still under nightly porch protection but they seem to still be alive thus far. And that's something. The raddichio, however, looks like it might not sprout for the most part, due to mole interference.

Neither the lavender nor the rosemary sprouted at all. We have since purchased four nice-sized pots for the various herbs, so, unlike last year, I can bring them in when the weather turns cold. The  sage and half of the thyme seedlings went in one pot, while the rest of the thyme went in a pot with the rest of the rosemary seeds I'm really hoping at least one takes off this time. If not, I guess I'll have to go buy a starter plant from the local greenhouse. In the other two pots, I put seeds for the parsley and basil in one and seeds for oregano and lemon balm in another. Some green is starting to come up from the seeds in the herb pots but I can't tell what yet. I do know that there is no luck with the rosemary seeds yet. I gather it is not an easy herb to grow in a pot, let alone grow from seed. Time shall tell.

The lavender, as well as the other seeds, including beets, carrots, parsnips, daikon radish, zucchini, butternut squash, chamomile, red lettuce, Black Seeded Simpson lettuce, okra, two varieties of burpless cucumbers, and Early White Bush Scallop squash, will have to wait for the weekend. Hopefully the back garden is ready by then and I'll finally have time to plant the lavender and chamomile in the front somewhere.

And if all those tomato plants live, I might be looking for new homes for some of them. Twenty six tomato plants seems like a few too many for one small family garden. Also this columbine is totally out of control:

Gardening from Seeds

My dear readers will note that I've been MIA from the blog for almost three months, so it was winter and now the magnolias are in bloom.

 It was a self-imposed sabbatical, partly to get my head around my latest novel revision, partly to deal with a number of family-related events, and mostly, because I have the proverbial bun in the oven and unlike my previous pregnancy 10 years ago (we can discuss my sanity related to this procreation decision at a later time), the first trimester just kicked my behind. At this point, I'm at 16 weeks and only now started to lose that morning sickness, which really just lasted all day. I've been unable to consume chocolate, pineapple, green or black tea, overly tangy food, overly sweet food in moderate qualities, or basically anything that wasn't bland as the driven snow, nor could I so much as stand the smell of coffee. This, obviously put a damper on my recipe options.

Now, I'm starting to regain my ability to eat more food and I'm not allowed to exercise for at last the next three weeks. Doctor's orders.

This, however, does not mean I haven't been busy. The first big project of spring has been our decision to start the garden entirely from seed this year. While I'm not allowed to rake, shovel, or touch soil without gloves, I can still plant seeds and watch plants grow. With the help of the 10 year old, I got those seeds that need to be planted indoors ahead of time into a little seed-starter greenhouse contraption we bought on clearance at the end of last year, including Bloody Butcher tomatoes, Abe Lincoln tomatoes, Purple Cherokee tomatoes, Big Red tomatoes, purple tomatillo, Shooting Stars eggplant, Black Beauty eggplant, Romanesco broccoli, swiss chard, blue kale, mixed bell peppers, lavender, sage, rosemary, and thyme.

Once they started to sprout, which happened in days, the lid came off and now they spent the sunny, warm days outdoors and the chillier nights and days in the indoor porch. So far, only a few seeds haven't sprouted yet.

I also cleared out a section of the herb/leafy garden to plant the cold weather varietals: spinach, Grand Rapids Tipburn Resistant lettuce, and radicchio.

The rest of the seeds--beets, carrots, parsnips, daikon radish, zucchini, butternut squash, chamomile, parsley, basil, lemon balm, oregano, red lettuce, Black Seeded Simpson lettuce, okra, two varieties of burpless cucumbers, and some bizarre looking summer squash called Early White Bush Scallop--have to wait until closer to memorial weekend, when all risk of frost should be behind us. And not all quite all of the plants will come from seeds this year. The parsley (a biannual), thyme, and oregano are still killing it in the herb garden and the rhubarb, asparagus, and strawberry patch has returned nicely. There's even a flower on the strawberry vines.

We're really going to try to kick it into high gear with the garden this year. I have my canning pot and I'm ready to give it a go. And having purchased all the seeds buy one, get one, there was no monetary reason to hold back. Now, all I have to do is wait for summer.

Beet Burgers

When I was planning out my garden this past spring, there were very few things that my husband really had an opinion on. Beets was one of them. Apparently, we really needed to plant some beets, so plant beets we did. By the end of July, they were ripe. This coincided nicely with our clearance purchase of a brand new grill, clearance at Target.

So what did we make with the beets? One of the best veggie burgers I've ever had featured beets, so the answer seemed obvious to me: burgers.

I'm not sure what recipe my husband made or I could tell you what recipe not to make. The burgers weren't bad but they weren't the spectacular burgers I'd had before either. It was too beet-y. So what I can say is this:

Make beet burgers, but make sure the recipe isn't too beet heavy.

I would wager that adding something else with a strong flavor, like black beans, would greatly improve the taste of the burger, so look for a recipe that does so. The burgers disappointed a little, but the grill? The grill was fantastic.

A Garden of my very Own: Flowering Fauna (part 4 in a series)

As I opened up my blogger this morning (in which google reader is still fully functional. go figure.), I happened to notice that I am nearing 200 posts. In celebration, let us look at pretty pictures of flowers from my yard.

Here is the ginormous lily that was by my front door in August:

There was a red one in the front yard, but sadly, I failed to capture it before it wilted away for the season. Lilies don't seem to last very long. With the lily came the peak of the brown-eyed susan season and the earlier of the hosta flowers.

Once the purple hosta flowers left, the white ones came up right behind them, with the brown-eyed susans still hanging on into September.

Then, just this past weekend, I noticed that some of the rose bushes are having a second bloom.

And beside the chocolate mint plant, a columbine I transplanted from the back yard in the early spring has decided to flower out-of-season, hiding its half-purple/half-yellow underneath the mint's wild tangle.

Meanwhile, the hydrangeas are on their last legs and the kouza fruit from the late-blooming dogwood seems ripe. Whether or not I pick it this year will depend on if I can get a ladder out there to stand sturdy enough for me to not kill myself in the process. Time shall tell.

A Garden of My Very Own: Backyard Invasion

I made a discovery a few weeks ago in my backyard. The tanged mess you see below is what I have decided is properly wild grapes.

Often wild grapes don't produce fruit, so intent on producing more plant instead. This plant, however, has some fruit. Whether or not it will be worth keeping or not is to be determined.

This mess overtaking the edge of the woods by the second driveway, though, has no fruit and is generally just highly invasive and thus, destructive. It's death is, while not yet planned by exact date, imminent.

Then there's this fun three-leaved vine growing into the back  corner of our yard off an otherwise lovely tree. We have purchased poison ivy killing spray and hopefully, can get rid of it before we all end up covered in rashes.

In the meantime, the deer are being just as invasive as the vines. They ate all but three of the apples from our tree, forcing the husband to pick them prematurely if he was going to get any apples at all. They also have now feasted on the tomato plants so much that I'm not sure they will be able to produce anything before summer's end. It's a shame.

Next year, I guess we'll invest in chicken wire fence. And then electrify it...

Swiss Chard Sautee

To finish up old business, despite the fact that Google Reader still seems to be working at the moment, it was supposed to die yesterday. I have already provided a button on the left to follow me using bloglovin. Note that now there is also a button to follow me using feedly, if that is your preference. Feedly seems to be winning the RSS race to become the next Google Reader, so the option is there if you want it. This is an equal opportunity RSS blog.

Now on to the fun.

And that fun revolves around Swiss Chard. Below is the lovely plant growing in my front garden. It's big and lush and beautiful, and frankly it looks delicious. It's been growing so fast in all the rain we've been having that I have been able to try out a little side dish sautee twice now.

Sauteed Swiss Chard with Parmesan

Click the link above for the original recipe. It was a fairly quick one. Just chop the stems and leaves.

Then, stir fry to stems for a while (under 10 minutes) with the sauce ingredients and then add the leaves and wilt. Add some parmesan cheese and voila.

Between the first attempt and the second, my husband learned that his grandfather enjoyed swiss chard. Boiled. Can't say that I'd recommend that or that we will ever convince my mother-in-law to try swiss chard again, not after a childhood bogged down with the taste of it after extensive boiling.

In our version of swiss chard, it has a strong, tangy flavor and a bit of a crunch, as long as you don't overcook it too much, as well as a great color. I'm not a huge fan of wine-based sauces, though, so the next time we subbed a half and half mix of cranberry pomegranate juice and balsamic vinegar for the wine. We paired the chard with baked salmon. Delightful.

In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm making it again tonight.

A Garden of my very Own: Flowering Fauna (part 2 in a series)

The pre-existing plants in my new front yard continue to teach me new things. For example, wisteria vines are actually rather invasive (at least the variety in my garden) and must be hacked at constantly and new vines must be watched for with vigilance so as to avoid them taking over EVERYTHING. Also, catnip flowers and it's very pretty:

Yes, the end of spring does not mean the end of flowers. The former owner of my property made sure of that. In addition to the catnip blossoms, there are five rose bushes I have found thus far. Two are pink, one with thorns and one (pictured left), which is blessedly without thorns.

The other three of various varieties of red rose, including this one (pictured right), which looks particularly um... flowery when the rose is fully blown.

The columbines are over now, but they thrived for a good month. I kept seeing new plants of them all over the yard, including this late-blooming and amazing purple columbine.

(That white fuzz all over them would be cottonwood fluff.)

The rhododendrons too have kicked the bucket since this photo was taken near the end of their stay, but while they were here, they were just lovely.

And behind the front garden fence, I've got a few of these. I don't rightly know what they are, despite heavy amounts of google searches, so if you know what the heck this thing is, let me know:

As the columbines, rhododendrons, and azaleas were saying goodbye, the daylilies that are planted all over the front yard started budding. So far, all of the ones that have opened are a bit of a school bus yellow. I wait patiently to see about the rest.

A Garden of my very Own: Food starts to grow

After a lengthy drought, the rain has started to fall in plenty here in Northeast Ohio. Boy, do my plants love the rain (so does my water bill). In fact, the little dwarf yellow transparent apple tree we just put in the ground a month or so ago is already producing fruit in its joy.

Originally, I was thinking that, in all likelihood, we wouldn't see apples for a few years, but I'm glad to be proven wrong. The swiss chard it really starting to grow too.

(This picture is a week and a half old now.

It's even bigger now, as is the kale and both lettuces. They're all just HUGE.)

And despite my fears of a complete rhubarb and asparagus patch failure, two of the three rhubarb roots I planted are starting to leaf, and two out of three ain't bad or so I've heard.

Also, most of the asparagus roots are starting to sprout too.

On the other side of the house, that one remaining tree that didn't sprout flowers in the spring with the rest of them? It's also a dogwood, a Kousa Dogwood to be precise. It will have blooms for the month of June and they will turn into edible fruit in the fall. How about that?

Apparently, it makes a lovely jam. Mostly, though it's just a very pretty tree.

As I type, I have already cooked my first recipe using ingredients from my very own garden. That blog will be forthcoming.

A Garden of my very Own: Flowering Fauna

A lot of the real pizzazz that has been happening in my yard has already come to a close, the buds all flowering and falling, but for the past few weeks, I was welcomed into my new home by the garden around me. Every day brought a new bloom of color, little fireworks in my front lawn.

Discovery 1: A Forsythia bush
I wasn't quite sure what this yellow monstrosity was until I asked my part-time flower-shop-worker mother-in-law. I really never noticed that they existed, but once we found the one in our back yard, they were everywhere. Everywhere. I think it's a conspiracy.

While it's gorgeous for the two or three weeks it blooms, it's less than attractive the rest of the year. Also, the previous owners planted it too close to a fence line so it grows out diagonally, which will look rather awkward after we tear the fence down. Likely, we won't have a forsythia bush after next year. Unless I buy a new one.

Discovery 2: Columbines
I'm new to the existence of columbines. When the shooting at Columbine happened when I was in high school, for example, I had no idea the school was named after a flower. However, one of my aunts has given a number of columbines to mother, who is a fan of the columbine, over the years since. While de-crabgrassing the front beds, I noticed a few columbines. Sadly, some of them lost there lives during the battle. There are always causalities in wartime. Fortunately a number of columbines live on, both in the front and back yards, including those that have white, purple, and pink blooms.

Discovery 3: Four lilac bushes, plus a number of baby bushes that will need to be transplanted.
And here I was, sad about the lack of lilac bushes. Two of them have darker flowers.

Two of them have lighter flowers.

Discovery 4: Wisteria vines
We have three, two that have grown up the opposite sides of a trellis to form a living, CO2 breathing doorway into the front yard, both of which have purple flowers.

Another vine of white flowers shares a trellis with a none-wistera vine that we have yet to identify. It may be a clematis.

Discovery 5: Lily of the Valley, Blue Bells, and Violets

One of the best smells in existence: Lily of the Valley. Second only to Lilac.

I'd like to have a few more violets than I do, but I'll  take what I can get. Violets were my grandmother's favorite flower.

Discovery 6: The Beauty of my flowering trees

All of them in bloom at the same time, a grove of rose-colored hue. A flowering cherry.

A pink-blossomed dogwood.

A redbud.

Not to mention the two Japanese maples (one in the front, one with the rest of the flowering trees) and three magnolias, two in the front, one with the rest of the flowering trees).

Discovery 7: Two azalea bushes

We knew about the rhododendron bush out front, which blooms pink, but the azaleas, one in the front and one in the back, where a surprise.

The discoveries keep on coming, even as I continue my quest to rub out the crabgrass and plant my vegetables. The fun is only just beginning.