Who else vegetable gardens?

CleoKitty

How are things growing so far?

Just in the last week or two we've suddenly started to get overwhelmed with things all being ready at once: lots of kale, broccoli, a couple buckets of cucumbers, three kinds of basil, green beans, and more zucchini and summer squash than we know what to do with. We've just had 2-3 tomatoes but it looks like within a week or two we should have a lot more.

Hard part now is trying to use everything so that it doesn't get wasted. 

Has anyone else had a pretty good year so far? 

Angela814

I have a very small garden, and not much is ready. I've had a few green beans that I'm collecting so maybe by the end of the week we can have one meal. I think I got 3-4 sugar snap peas, a handful of tomatoes, and one serrano pepper. Cucumbers are about 1/2" long right now. Zucchini haven't even started growing. I'm thinking the 90+ degree days didn't help much, even with watering the garden every night.

skippy2310

We have a lot of zucchini and a few tomatoes that are almost ready. We have a little cantaloupe too, but it's not near ready. None of our stuff is doing as well as last year, but it's been so ungodly hot lately.

 

 

hikerbeth

Things have really taken off recently.  It's amazing in Colorado, but I think we had a little TOO much water in the early part of the season so it stunted things a bit, but now it's looking better.

Our berry bushes are out of control.  DS already knows how to pick the ripe ones.  Raspberries, gooseberries, currants. . . Blackberries should be soon.  His diapers are. . . interesting.

REOM

I have a huge garden. Still lots of lettuce, which is surprising and probably my favorite 'crop'. Lots of tomatoes (cherry and beefsteak), basil, green beans, zucchini, cucumbers, and some (not enough) peppers. Strange enough, some animal ate my hot pepper plants...The peas are fried, and the eggplant is doing well, which stinks b/c I love eggplant.We also have a fig tree and a pear tree, which are both doing well.

I have a great zucchini pancake recipe that I can find for you if you're interested. You can also shred the zucchini and freeze it and use it throughout the year for breads, pancakes and muffins. I freeze the basil whole, and also make family sized portions of pesto. My neighbor has a pickling bucket where we toss all the extra cucumbers and we jar the tomatoes for sauce for later in the year.

CleoKitty

REOM:

I have a great zucchini pancake recipe that I can find for you if you're interested. You can also shred the zucchini and freeze it and use it throughout the year for breads, pancakes and muffins. I freeze the basil whole, and also make family sized portions of pesto. My neighbor has a pickling bucket where we toss all the extra cucumbers and we jar the tomatoes for sauce for later in the year.

I've been shredding and freezing the excess zucchini already, the real thing I'm struggling with is all of the yellow summer squash. I probably have 15 of them on my counter right now and no idea what to do with them. 

I'm planning on making pickles this weekend and I'll also can the tomatoes. I actually planted about 20 San Marzano tomatoes this year just for making sauce in addition to an assortment of other random tomatoes just for eating. 

AggieCouple

CleoKitty:

How are things growing so far?

Um... we have the wood to build the garden fence still in the garage, but at least it's purchased? 

veloelle

Our yield has been very good. Have you made chips from your dark greens - kale/beet greens? So easy and so good. Tear/cut up greens, remove stem. Cut them up in 2-3" squares. Toss w/ olive oil and sea salt. Bake in single layer. I bake mine pretty low, like 300. they are like shrinky dinks and will be a fraction of the size, so don't cut too small. We eat them like chips.

I googled tomato salad, and I got a great Jaime Oliver recipe that's equal parts (took a hint from the comments, his original was 3 to 1) of oil and red wine vinegar. Toss w/ salted tomatoes that have sat for a few min to get the extra moisture out. Add a clove of garlic and some red chile. Super good w/ fresh bread and stinky cheese.

happy_momma

I have a smalled raised bed garden, so we are able to eat most of it.  I did make some zucchini muffins to freeze.  I actually saw a recipe the other day on allrecipes.com for bread made with yellow summer squash, but I haven't tried it yet.

passar3588

We've harvested lettuce, radishes, turnips, cucumbers, zucchini and peppers so far. Just a few stray cherry and grape tomatoes have been ripe. Too early for tomatoes where I'm at.

I'm having mixed luck with my herbs - basil, parsley, and cilantro are not doing well. I think we had too much rain in late May/early June and they are just washed out looking. However, chives, oregano, and mint are flourishing. I can't use the oregano and mint fast enough.