What To Do With The Masses?

This picture makes me really happy.

But what to do with it all when there are just two people and two dogs to feed? (If only tomatoes were good for dogs!)

Salsa time.

I chopped up my tomatoes, onion, and basil with a whole lot of garlic, chili pepper, salt and oil. 

Bottled those puppies and bam- delicious dip, spaghetti sauce, rice cake topping. Whatever. 

On my run/walk the other day I came across something I have never seen before. An artichoke flower. 

Artichokes are so delicious that most people wouldn't let these guys go to waste...but this experience wasn't a waste. If my artichokes ever start to fruit, I may have to let one go to flower too.

Babaam! My first round eggplant. Thanks you worm bin for providing the nutrients necessary to grow these pups.

Fresh From The Organic Garden Breakfast Juice

I cannot think of a better morning than waking up, going outside, picking a zucchini, a couple of carrots(ok, it wasn't so easy. They were rooted deep in clay and I had to get really dirty and a shovel to get it all out!), and a beet. Then going inside, washing the picks...

cutting them up, and juicing them.  It may have been the best juice I have ever had.

It was definitely the freshest. 

I even experiences some detoxing effects later that day...not so pleasant, a headache!

Ah-well, it just means I am getting healthier.

I used the discarded veggie fibers to make some dehydrated chips later on. That recipe will be a future post-

Gluten Free Stuffed Zucchini & Squash Flowers

I have so many of these beautiful flowers and it makes me so happy because I love to eat them!

Fresh flower harvest with 5 wild strawberries.

I found this little guy while I was stuffing my flowers.

I think he got stuck in there so I let him out and he was on his way!

My recipe for vegetarian gluten free stuffed zucchini flowers!

First I picked my flowers and gave them a little rinse. 

I cut up some thin slices of pecorino cheese semi-stagionato.

I put a slice of cheese in each flower along with a little spoon of the following mixture:

Black olives, capers, onion, garlic, and some chili pepper chopped up together very fine.

I then battered them by making my foe-egg mix:

Put a couple of spoons of tahini in a bowl. Add a couple drips of water and stir with a small whisk or a fork. Keep adding small amounts of water until it has a thick liquid consistency. This thick liquid will stick to your flowers and hold your GF bread crumbs very well.

So..dip your stuffed flowers in the liquid and then roll them in a mixture of Gluten free bread crumb with salt and pepper to taste. 

Battered.

Bake for about 20 minutes at 400 degrees F.

I served mine with these poor stunted growth corns and a fresh tomato/cucumber/onion/basil salad.

Growing Sweet Potatoes

After succeeding in white potato growing I decided it was time to start some sweet potatoes. 

I like them better and they are a lot healthier. They are low glycemic, have vitamins B6, C, and D. Contain iron, and are a good source of magnesium and potassium,  and have carotenoids like beta carotene. 

So here is what I did. I cut two organic sweet potatoes in half. I poked in three toothpicks to each one and set them in a jar full of water. After a little while the eyes started to grow and the roots started to spout off of them. You need to keep the potato mostly submerged in the water because some eyes will grow without making roots. They drink a lot too. I was adding water daily. Try to keep your water fresh for a healthy plant.

After the roots are at least an inch long you can take off the plant and root together from each eye like in this picture here. 

The next thing was to make good beds with loose soil for the potatoes to grow. 

I made raised beds with my first round of slips. You can see them a little larger on the right. With the second round I put them in these terra cotta pots just to see how it will work since I didn't have anywhere else to plant!

The potatoes need to be watered twice a day for at least a week and then once a day after that. 

You can stop watering at least a week before digging them up.

Can't wait to see what happens. 

Mini Plums

A giant Plum Tree along my driveway grows

These little guys were delicious.

Here is a complete vegetarian garden dinner from my yard.

Well...the sheep cheese I bought but the decorative strawberry in the middle came from my garden.

So, I went to see my family for a week. I emailed my husband to make sure he was picking the zucchinis while I was gone. "They're all too small to pick," he says...

Ha!I found these monsters when I got home. The large one went into making the dog's food. The others I juiced and grilled.

Here was dinner one evening.

My Sunflowers! Why are they not brown in the middle? 

Eggplants finally making it! They were not growing for a very long time. I decided to read up about them online and found that they need a lot of fertilizer and don't like the wind. I started giving them worm compost castings and liquid whenever I could and here is what happened!

Another dish using my ripe tomatoes...those are yellow tomatoes, not eggs! It's a caprese salad!

My first beet!

Garden Alien: Tuscan Mystery 2012 Unveiled

Well, those garden aliens went from looking like white asparagus to these flowering bits. They popped up where all my peas were while the peas were dying off. I was very weirded out by them and started asking around as to what they might be. No one knew. All my friends, family, facebook connections. No one had answers. The mystery built up until I finally went to the local famers coop. I asked one of the guys there and he told me that it is an, "orchidea spontanea" Spontaneous Orchid. Weird. Doesn't look like any orchid I have ever seen. Ah well! Mystery solved. I tried searching info on how these orchids occur but there really isn't much out there. The only things I am finding is that they are typical in Tuscany and some very rare species can be found. 

Back to intentional growth! My first batch o potato!

...and Stella.

The growing pepper.

Zucchini almost ready.

Round zucchini? I have no idea.

I did something kinda bad. I mixed up all my zucchini, squash, pumpkins..anything that has that sort of look to it when planting. So, I really didn't know what was going to come up. Here is an example. And strangely...I don't remember ever buying and saving seeds from something like this.

These yellow guys have been growing larger and getting bumpy. Does that mean they have a problem?

My first Carrot. Of course. A dancing carrot. 

I <3 my garden.