July 4th Harvest

With the recent heat and occasional rain, the garden has taken off. The sweet corn is tasseled and the tomatoes are turning red. Today I went to get some kale for a salad and returned with a whole bowl of green beans and other vegetables. This is about the time I start leaving vegetables in peoples mailboxes so you have been warned.

Below we have a bowl of firsts.  This was the first harvest of green beans, both pole and bush, as well as the first zucchini and yellow squash.

Bowl of firsts

Lots o green beans

Corn tassels

Red cherry tomatoes

Typical June update

Once again we took a vacation in June and I have some before and after pictures. This year we stepped a bit outside our comfort zone and traveled outside the United States by visiting Costa Rica. Aside from being hard on iDevices (lost Apple Watch and damaged an iPhone), the trip was wonderful and far exceeded my expectations. Since this is a garden blog and not a travel blog… hmm… Matt’s Travel Blog anyone? …. sorry, side tracked again. As I was saying, since this is a garden blog, let’s get on with the garden update!

This first set of pictures was taken on June 11th before leaving.

Cherry tomatoes not yet to the top of the towers

Green cherry tomatoes

Bush green beans with two rows still barely visible

Two zucchini plants that still have some space around them

Pole beans just off to a good start on their climb

Spinach just ready to eat

Peas blooming but no pods yet

Pea blossom

Wispy carrots

Leaning and patchy sweet corn

Sweet potatoes with a few plants starting to vine out

Steak Sandwich tomatoes

Close up of the Steak Sandwich fruit which was still green.

Super Tasty tomatoes. Don’t seem to be a super tall variety.

Yellow squash and a basil plant

Kale and lettuce with cucumbers just off the right of the picture

Onions are pretty thin

Now that we have the before pictures, let’s see how the garden looked after being gone for ten days and about 3″ of rain. Pictures were taken the evening of Friday June 21st.

Looks like I really need to clean out this rain gauge

Kale is everywhere. I had to find willing neighbors to take some off my hands.

Look! Small zucchini! I’ve got a frying pan with butter that has your name all over it.

Pole beans have continued to make the climb. Leaves have filled in where the vines climbed before the vacation.

Peas are a bit taller with a number of pods now

Pea pods. I’ve got some butter with your name on it too!

Carrots have gotten taller and as you can see in this picture, the weeds have enjoyed the rain and gardener absence as well.

Yellow squash has grown both is height and width

Steak Sandwich tomatoes added some height and made some attempts to escape the ladder support while I was away.

The sweet corn has gotten taller and filled in the bed more yet is still leaning a bit too much for me. Thankfully, between the time this picture was taken and writing this post, the corn has straightened up its act is is much better.

Sweet potatoes started with just a couple vines trailing out and ended with just about all of them stretching out in all directions.

Onions are still looking pretty poor. A bit better, but still poor.

Finally we have an update on the cherry tomatoes. They have stretched past the tops of the towers and are spilling out in multiple directions. There are also a lot of green tomatoes just waiting for the right about of hot sunny days to ripen.

This post is long enough already and I am sure very few of you have actually gotten this far. I’ll make another one soon which shows a few pictures from our vacation.

End of May update

Time for an update on the garden. A few friends and relatives were able to get an in person update last weekend during Ethan’s graduation party. The weather forecast showed a near certainty of rain and storms during the party up until about an hour before it actually started. Very thankful the weather change for the better and we had a great time outside in the back yard.

I also want to welcome any new followers and subscribers.  I heard I might have picked up a few more this spring. Not sure you will find this all that exciting, but welcome all the same.

Zucchini with the row of radish in the background. Both need thinned.

Pole beans doing nicely.

Carrots are a bit spotty but starting to fill in.

Spinach is doing okay so far.

Sugar snap peas are finally starting to get their growth spurt.

Probably a couple too many cucumber plants but appreciate having too many.

Lettuce and Kale which were started indoors are doing quite well.

Onions are still adapting to their new home. Hopefully they will start growing more in a few days.

Sweet corn is a bit patchy this year. Wondering if I didn’t have a consistent planting depth.

Some of the sweet potatoes seems to be having issues this year. The new growth leaves are orange and purple. Hoping they grow out of it.

Steak Sandwich tomatoes are climbing their ladders quickly.

SuperTasty tomatoes are also doing well.

The two Cherry Baby tomato plants are already fighting to escape their cages. I can’t turn my back on them for too long or they will be out.

A closer look at the Cherry Baby and lo and behold there is fruit already!

Yellow Egg Squash is a tad slow this year, but the plants are there and growing well.

Unfortunately, the weeds are also growing well. I had these walkways cleared just a couple weeks ago and the weeds have grown back even thicker.

Spring planting 2019

Despite being an incredibly busy April and early May, I managed to take advantage of a couple non busy and dry days to get the garden (mostly) planted.

Before I get started with the update, I realized I have not posted the garden plan for this year.

Garden plan for 2019

The last post covered the planting of the peas and tomatoes.  The peas are off to a good start with them emerging from the ground around Sunday May 5th.

Emerging peas

On May 5th, I also was able to get out late in the day and get some more of the seeds planted.

For pole beans this year I am trying a couple new things.  First is a new variety of pole beans.  These Seychelles sounded good and figured I’d give them a try.  In addition to the new seeds, I also am going with a new support system.  I bought a Bean Tower from Gardener’s Supply.  I like the fact that it isn’t as large as the round tower I am still using for the peas and the pole beans in the past years.

New Pole Bean variety

Bean seeds around the new support

New Pole Bean tower next to the old support being used for the peas.

In addition to the pole beans, I also got the cucumbers planted.  Nothing new with them this year, same seeds and support as the past years.

Cucumbers seeds for this year

Sweet Corn again this year.  Same seeds as last year, Ambrosia.  Only change is I decided at the last minute to flip the rows and go horizontally.  Not sure really why or what I hope to achieve but we’ll see how it does.

Sweet Corn with new row orientation

Not pictured are the zucchini and yellow squash which were also planted on Sunday along with spinach, radish, carrots and lettuce. Also, to boost up the green bean production, I put in two short rows of bush green beans as well.

A couple concerts, senior awards ceremony and some rain storms later, I skipped out a bit early from work and got the sweet potatoes planted.  Sometimes when the weather is nice, you have to take advantage of it.

Sweet potato plants

Sweet potato closeup

The only thing I have left to plant are the onions. I’m hoping to find some onion plants locally and then I’ll be done with all the spring plantings for 2019.

Busy, busy, busy

I have two activities I try to do each summer in the kitchen, both of which are pretty time consuming. One is to can some green beans and the other is to make some zucchini crisp. For some dumb/smart reason, this year I decided to do both in the same afternoon/evening/night. Needless to say, I am looking forward to going to bed tonight. On the plus side, I got them both out of the way.

Making use of the giant zucchini

Final product being sliced up and made ready to take to work

Fat chef supervising the loading of the mason jars

Quite the production

Ten new jars of green beans

July Update

Umm… ya. It has been a month since the last blog post. Sorry about that but it has been busy. Here is a catch all post with pictures from the past four weeks or so.

First up are some pictures of the garden from June 13th before we left on vacation.

Here is a shot of the corn.

Three cucumber plants starting to climb

Sweet potatoes are taking off. Starting to leave the raised bed.

Golden egg yellow squash still look like two separate plants.

Some nice green tomatoes on the Brandy-Boy.

This year we headed back to the mountains. We spent 10 days in Colorado visiting Denver, Rocky Mountain National Park, Estes Park, Boulder, Ft. Collins, Colorado Springs, Pikes Peak, Canon City and many other points in between.

Pet turkey at one of the Airbnbs on our trip. Kids loved it.

Panoramic shot of Emerald Lake in RMNP

A stop along Trail Ridge Road in RMNP

Eventually, as with all vacations, we had to come home. Also, as with past vacations in June, the garden grows by leaps and bounds while we are gone. This year we had over 4.5 inches of rain while we were away and the temperatures were in the 80s-90s. Very good growing weather as is evident by the next couple pictures.  I didn’t bother showing the rest of the garden as it is just a overgrown jungle.

Corn after vacation

A ripe cherry tomato!

Nemesis bugs, Japanese Beetles

A week or so after getting back, it was time to start harvesting some vegetables! So far I have gotten peas, tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers and green beans. The peas just finished up but I expect the rest to continue producing for a bit longer yet. At least until the bugs and disease start killing the plants. Squash vine borers and spotted blight seem to shorten the squash and tomatoes before they are ready.

Not too bad a harvest.

And finally that takes up to today. The shots below were taken in the garden tonight.  Bush green beans are moving into their second week and pole beans are just about to be ready. Corn is fully tasseled and producing ears. I’m guessing another week or maybe two until we get to try some.

They don’t call these cargo shorts for nothing. Pocket full o’ Green Beans.

Spring planting for 2018

Over the last two weekends I was able to get all but one vegetable planted in the garden.

First off though, is this years diagram of the planting plan.  Nothing too radical this year, pretty much most of the same from past years just rotated so I don’t have things in the same spots.

Garden plan for 2018

The first weekend (May 5/6) was a bit rushed because I had to first get the second garden bed replaced.  I also had to move the lettuce from the back two beds to the second replacement bed.  All of that took a while. In the end, I had time to get the peas and radish planted and get the tomatoes out of their tiny pots and into the ground where they can have all the root and head room they could wish for.

In the years past, I never provided the peas and beans anything other than water and occasional fertilizer.  This year I am giving an inoculant a try.  When ordering seeds this year I threw Burpee Booster into the cart.  We’ll see if I notice any difference.

Giving the beans and peas a boost

All six tomato plants with ladders

Two Brandy Boy tomatoes

Two Happy Day tomatoes

Two Cherry Baby tomatoes

Pea tower with a few left over lettuce plants I did not move

Transplanted lettuce and bean tower

For the second weekend (May 12/13), the goal was to get the rest of the garden planted. The weather forecast looked like this.

Not a good forecast for planting

As a result, I was up and in the garden before 8 am in an effort to get as much planted as I could before the rain arrived.  I’m happy to report I was able to get the garden planted.  In fact, it didn’t actually rain until Monday afternoon.  I had time to go to Lowes and get some sweet potato plants and get them in as well on Saturday. Between the vegetable garden and other needed yard work, we ended up being out until dark.  I was beginning to wish for the promised rain so I could be chased inside.  🙂

So, what all was planted this weekend…

• Sweet corn
• Zucchini
• Yellow Squash
• Green Beans – Pole
• Green Bean – Bush
• Cucumbers
• Basil
• Carrots
• Sweet Potatoes

Twelve sweet potato plants

All that remain are the onions. I’m still waiting on Burpee to process that portion of my order. I am tempted to just cancel the onions and try and find some locally.

Kitchen side of gardening

While the garden has been enjoying the abundant rain this past week, I spent some of my time in the kitchen turning a few of the vegetables into tasty dishes.

Old Fashion Green Beans

First up is some Old Fashion Green Beans. Not that fresh, steamed green beans aren’t good enough, but if you add in some bacon and brown sugar they can be even better.

You know when the recipe starts off with Bacon, it doesn’t really matter what follows. 🙂

Bowl of green beans for dinner.

Trimming green bean tails.

Fresh picked and cut green beans.

Final product. Green beans, bacon and brown sugar.

The annual zucchini crisp

At work we have a breakfast club where each member of the club takes turns bringing something in for breakfast on Fridays. Most of the time there are donuts, bagels or muffins among other tasty treats. While technically not a breakfast food, I thought I’d bring in Zucchini Crisp. I’ve detailed the making of this dish a few times before (click here for the original posting with link to the recipe) but figured I’d capture a few more pictures of the process again this year.

This year I started with a 16 inch long zucchini. I wanted to capture how much I used for future reference.

Peeled and sliced.

Removing the spongy, seed core from each slice.

Amount of zucchini remaining.

The zucchini magically turned into apples and mixed with a lot of sugar and cinnamon.

Next pour the zucchini mixture on top of the bottom crust.

Sprinkle the rest of the crust on the top.

Finally, before cooking, we sprinkle some more cinnamon on top.

July Garden Update

I’ve been a bit busy since coming back from vacation, but that hasn’t stopped the garden. This post is a summary of the various gardening activities taking place so far in July.  The garden has been getting plenty of rain recently, with just another inch today, so as long as we continue to get sunny days in between the showers the garden should really continue to take off.

Zucchini and squash from the garden

Zucchini sauted in butter and sprinkled with Parmesan cheese.

Sweet corn in full tassel

So far so good, but the ears are what counts.

First red tomato of 2017

A few bowls of green beans so far this year.

Broke out the pressure canner again this year after skipping last year.

Just eight jars of green beans canned so far this year.

Just tonight I picked some cucumbers, yellow squash and zucchini. Ill give you one guess as to what the one on the right will be used for later this week.

Celebrating a milestone

This post marks the 300th post to Matt’s Garden Blog!

Who would have thought all those many years ago that I’d still be writing posts about that small patch of ground in the back corner of the yard.  My first post was all the way back in early April 2010.  The posts were not as detailed or consistent back then (that hasn’t really changed) and the images were not quite as clear.  The first image posted was a couple weeks after the blog was established using a now old and retired iPhone 3G.

First garden image posted to the blog.

The gardens have certainly grown and evolved since then. Most notable expansions are the two new garden beds and the perimeter fencing.

Installing the two new expansion beds

Garden with new perimeter fence

I’ve tried to grow a few different vegetables over the years.  I tired Broccoli a couple times, Brussels Sprouts a few years, Carrots most years, Lima Beans a couple, Onions most of the time recently, Yukon Potatoes once, Spinach quite a few times, Sunflowers, Sweet Corn for the second year, Sweet Potatoes quite a bit recently and Yellow Squash pretty consistently now that I started.

The permanent fixtures of the garden have been the Cucumbers, Green Beans, Lettuce,  Radish, Tomatoes,  Snap Peas and Zucchini.

I have to admit, if someone asked be how long I have been updating this garden blog, I would not have believed that this is now the start of the seventh year.  Will I make another 300 posts and/or seven years?  I guess you’ll have to stay tuned/subscribed and find out.

Happy gardening!