The poor, hot summer garden.

We are just coming off of a week or two of 100+ degree days. It is freaking brutal out there.

My pepper plants look so bad, I pulled two of them. But this one has a wee little baby bell!

The okra has been the winner this year by FAR. It's so hot now, that production has slowed down considerably.

Pathetic peppers.

One cucumber trying to make it on a dying plant.

Yuck.

Forest of okra.

Dying zucchini, which is now dead.

One hubbard squash plant died overnight. the other is trying- even has some buds on it! But I have a bad feeling about it.

Something chewed straight through my only malabar spinach plant. It was a sturdy, strong, healthy plant about foot and a half high, and something just sheared straight though the stem and left it. :(

My lavender died. 

But my chard is much happier! I finally managed to find a place where it gets bright light but zero indirect sun, and is close to my door so I remember to water it. It still droops a bit in the heat, but it green, and putting out new growth. Yay! I really thought I would lose it.

It's beginning to look like fall?

No. No, it is not beginning to look like fall. It was 105 here yesterday. :/  However, it IS time to start some seeds, to be transplanted outside in hopefully a month or so!

This first round has some broccoli, brussel sprouts, two types of kale, kohlrabi, two types of lettuce and frisee. More to come, as I am hoping to time-stagger some plants. The rest of the seeds that I have will be started outside, I think. My set up above is pretty ghetto, using whatever I could scrounge up around the house, since I am super poor. I hope it works!

Patience, patience, patience.

Last chance for winter squash!

First, the store bought acorn squash transplant died. Then the one Hubbard squash seedling (I planted two seeds) that was growing so lovely died very suddenly and mysteriously. So, I am giving it one more try. technically, I think it might be too late to get anything off of a new plant. I will keep my fingers crossed that freezing weather is not early this year!

They popped up almost immediately, and are already almost twice as big! I am hopeful, which is a dangerous thing in my garden...

Homemade pizza with homemade roasted veggie pizza sauce.

We had some friends over for dinner and Cards Against Humanity (I won! I am the weirdest, apparently!) and I decided to make pizza. It was really fun, and it turned out super delicious. I put out pepperoni, italian sausage, soyrizo, thin sliced yellow squash, fresh sliced jalapenos, fresh spinach, chopped artichoke hearts, shredded mozzarella. I made a homemade pizza sauce the day before, and used the pre-prepped pizza dough from Trader Joe's- wow it was awesome! Fresh, delicious, easy to use. We tried the whole wheat and the herb seasoned, and they were both good, though I would probably just stick with the herb seasoned from here on out.

I cut the raw dough in half and then rolled each piece out into vaguely pizza shaped slabs and plopped them onto oiled pans. Actually, we only have one cookie sheet, so one crust went into a large stainless steel skillet and one went into a medium stainless steel skillet. Strange, but hey- it worked! After slathering the dough with sauce, everyone piled on their favorite toppings and they cooked for about 12 minutes or so. A pizza made with half of the dough was the perfect size for one person. Very easy! I put soyrizo, artichoke hearts and squash on mine. So good!

For the sauce, I used this recipe: Roasted Tomato Pizza Sauce. It was crazy easy, and I WILL be making more of this while the summer tomatoes are at the farmer's market, to stock up in the freezer. Basically, you just chop up an onion, a bell pepper, two garlic cloves, two carrots. Add this to a crap ton of cherry tomatoes (I used mostly little orange ones), mix with olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme. I imagine oregano would be tasty, too. Roast for a while, let cool. Put the peppers aside under saran wrap to let them sweat and then peel the skins off. Puree with some broth. Done! :) Next time, I will add more tomatoes, I think. This recipe is definitely a success!

The night ended with chocolate chip cookies dipped in Trader Joe's Cookie Butter, and Cards Against Humanity. Good times.

 

Weekly farmer's market trip

Three types of tomatoes (most of which will be frozen), a canary watermelon, a kabocha squash, carrots, celeriac root, potatoes (red and purple), lots of long beans, leeks and garlic. Oh, and eggs! 

On the menu: pureed celeriac, squash and leek soup. And a stir fry with the long beans, maybe some leeks, carrots, cabbage (from last week's market trip) served with some noodles and pre-cooked Pork Belly from Trader Joe's. 

Planning for the fall

So, what does the middle of summer mean for a gardener? It means it's time to obsessively plan for the next season!

My current seed collection. Broccoli, brussel sprouts, two types of kale, kohlrabi, snow peas, sugar snap peas, fava beans, three types of carrots, radishes, chard, multiple types of lettuce, fennel. (Also pictured- some zucchini for next summer, and some hubbard squash.)

The chart above is a tentative layout of the wee patch. I am trying to keep a center aisle open so I can squeeze in there, since the patch is just a leeeetle too wide to comfortably reach into the center from the edges. 

I don't have any fennel or broccoli typed in up there. I will have some pots empty for the broccoli, not sure where to put the fennel. The lettuce will get grown in a rubbermade container- the ones that slide under beds work great for salad greens. 

The plan is to start some of the seeds inside in August, to get them outside by the end of september. The rest will be direct sowed outside september or october. I have never grown fava beans, snow peas, carrots, radishes. I can't wait to see how everything goes. Hopefully better than the garden so far, considering the only things growing well are the cucs and the okra!

The wee garden today.

I replanted the poor thyme, finally. It was so pot bound, it was dying. Hopefully I caught it before it's too late. To the bottom right, a new lavender plant!

I ripped out two tomato plants, one of which never put out any tomatoes, and the other put out only one. The two remaining plants (a chocolate cherry and a little yellow pear) have a few unripe tomatoes on each, but it's too hot, I don't expect them to ripen. I also ripped out the zucchini-plant-that-was-supposed-to-be-yellow-squash-plant. It only gave out one zucchini. I am giving up the fight against the squash borers. The remaining plant, while also in a serious battle with the borers, is at least giving me one or two zucs a week, so I will keep fighting for now. 

The okra is doing great. I wish I had room to plant twice as much, and harvest more than three at a time! The cucumbers are also doing great. Cucumbers at every meal! EVERY.MEAL.