Thursday, August 20, 2009

Flower Power


Last year my sons planted a few sunflower seeds in the garden. A few of them grew, bloomed and set seed. This spring I had several volunteer sunflowers come up, and I let one of them grow in the midst of my potatoes. Seeing it now, big and beautiful and full of color, I am determined to grow more of them next year. I do love sunflower seeds on salads.


I broke off the lower leaves of my Brussels Sprouts. They look pretty darn funny. But it makes sense, that with more sunlight reaching down to the sprouts, they will grow bigger. These large, ungainly plants always remind me of England. I always saw these things growing in people's gardens over there.


My garden fence does double duty as a pumpkin trellis. Here is the inter-active portion of our blog -- how many pumpkins do you see in the picture above? And where is Waldo??

My jalapeno peppers are looking pretty good. I grew jalapenos because I need them for salsa, and I rarely get them in my CSA box and they cost 50 cents each at the farmers market. My smallest plant has three peppers. My largest have nine. Or rather, had nine. Because ...


I made salsa yesterday. Fourteen pints of mild salsa: tomatoes and green peppers and onions and jalapenos and cucumbers and cider vinegar and no cilantro (cilantro = blechy).

This past week I've frozen three gallons of creamy cauliflower soup and two gallons of creamy broccoli soup. I've canned twenty-four quarts of green beans, five pints of dilled beans, ten pints of dill cucumber relish, nine pints of dill cucumber slices, six pints of pickled beets and the salsa mentioned above. I've also made eight quarts of chicken stock and six quarts of beef stock. I'm pooped. Pleased, but pooped.

4 comments:

Jo said...

There are six pumpkins! And Waldo is in the upper left corner, next to the small yellow pumpkin.

miSz tUna said...

Haha, too lazy to count. Nice post! I kind of envy your ability to can your own food.. However, I enjoy reading about it so much! So what does that make me?

Erin said...

Wow, 50 cents apiece???!!! I have harvested over 400 of those suckers this year, lol! I actually planned on selling them at market this year, but we have been having heat indexes in the 100's for the past few weeks, and since hubby is gone, I have the kids 24/7 and can't stand the heat sitting there all day, much less subjecting the kids to it! It really surprised me, as I only have 7 jalapeno plants. I was hoping they were done, but the other day I checked and there was another 100-150 peppers on them again! I am thinking about posting a pick-your-own on Craigslist just so someone else can do the dirty work, I just can't bear to rip them out when they are still producing and so beautiful!

Jo said...

Hi Erin! 100 peppers on seven plants? My, you're getting a lot more from your plants than I am from mine! You must have some fantastic soil, or the Virginia climate is pepper-heaven. I've never done well with peppers or cukes in my garden. Wish I could take you up on your Craigslist pick-you-own offer!

Hello Hazwani! I'm glad you are enjoying these posts. I'm sure someday you will get your piece of land for a garden! It took us some time to get ours, I was 32 when we moved out to the country. I grew up in the 'city' too. Your time will come!