Musquee de Provence, Crookneck, and Patty Pan Squash Progress

Remember our post showcasing our first set Musquee de Provence? The one in the above picture is it. We came back from a week of holidays to find that it practically doubled while we were gone!


It also looks like we have the chance of getting another pumpkin, as shown in the picture above. We'll have to wait and see what it looks like once the blossom finishes.


You might also recall that we didn't think any of our patty pan had come up, and that we had attempted to plant butternut squash seeds in its place. It turns out we were wrong. On coming back from our holiday, I couldn't help but notice a female blossom on one of the plants. I don't know how easily you can see the shape of the patty pan at the end of a blossom bud in the picture above, but it's there. Now we're not sure if any of the butternut squash came up after all, but if we have patty pan squash, I'm happy.


The crookneck squash are producing very well. We've already had two meals from these squash, and each of the five plants are producing nicely. At this point I've counted six squash growing on the plants and many more female blossoms. We've harvested three to date (that don't include the six on the plants now). Below are a few pictures of our crookneck squash plants.




Megan

Yellow Vegetables

Yesterday, Jennifer picked the first two ripe Yellow Pear cherry tomatoes. They were both sweet, and surprisingly a little bit tart, but delicious. We are thrilled to have our first official tomato harvest from the plants we grew from seed.

We also ended up cooking the crookneck squash we harvested this week. All we did was cut the squash in to small pieces and sauteed them in a frying pan until tender, with some margarine, salt, and pepper. Neither of us had eaten it before, but it was really tasty and similar to zucchini with its milder squash taste.

Megan

Beets Two Ways

After harvesting our beets earlier this week, we prepped them for dinner. Slicing each kind was such a joy, because of all the chioggia's pretty bright pink rings in their centres, the golden colouring of the Golden Detroit beet, and the dark purple of the Cylindra. Very rarely have we the joy of eating such colourful food!

First, we washed our beets along with the carrots we picked, and dried them on paper towels.

Then we cut our Chioggia and Golden Detroit beets up and placed them in an oven dish with the carrots.

We put the Cylindra beets in a separate dish because they would have discoloured the other vegetables.


We dressed the beets and carrots very simply, with just some salt and pepper and some olive oil drizzled over top. We also added a sprig of rosemary to each for some extra flavour. Then we popped them in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven until they were roasted and tender, about an hour to an hour and a half.

They came out looking delicious, like this......


Adding some freshly chopped parsley over the carrots is a good idea, especially if you have it growing in your backyard as we do.

Of course, we saved the beet tops, since you can eat those too. Simply saute them in a wok, with 3 garlic cloves, 1 small onion, approximately 2 tbsp olive oil, about 1 to 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar, and season with salt and pepper. Leave them on until they are tender and wilted. We found these almost more tasty than Swiss Chard, but the balsamic vinegar might have had something to do with that, since that's an ingredient we don't use when cooking Swiss Chard.


Jennifer

Squash Update

This week, we've been seeing some significant progress in the growth of our squash plants. In particular, our crookneck squash plants, which we bought as starter plants, have begun to produce squash. Of our five plants, four of them have squash on them already. We also harvested one from the garden today too. At roughly 5 inches, it seemed big enough to pick without it getting too mature.


Happily, one of our Musquee de Provence plants seems to have finally set a pumpkin too. I have noticed a few other female blossoms on the two plants, so I hope we at least have one more set.


Megan

Beet and Carrot Harvest

So we finally got a mixture of beautiful, good-sized beets and carrots! This top picture features some small Cylindra, Chioggia, Bull's Blood, and Golden Detroit beets that we've been growing in a pot. A few weeks ago, their growth seemed kind of stunted; perhaps because we haven't been fortifying the soil with anything. We thought we'd just leave them until we had enough other vegetables to make a meal, and today we do!

Here is a bowl of larger beets that were growing directly in our garden. You can see four nicely-sized Chioggia around the back of the bowl, with their pinkish skins; two deep purple Cylindra on the left; and one Golden Detroit beet at the center, all yellow and bright. We have others growing that look quite promising, but we'll save them for a meal next week or the week after.


Finally, look at those carrots! Aren't they tempting? There are mixed coloured carrots, of which we only got some white and one yellow, a nice selection of Little Finger carrots, and a few little Paris Market carrots. We will probably roast these with our beets tonight. I can't wait to taste them! They are much more fragrant than store-bought carrots, and also being of a smaller size, probably much sweeter.

Jennifer

Green Zebra Tomatoes

Our tomatoes are doing pretty good, and our Green Zebra tomatoes are no exception. They are filling out nicely, and finally gaining their bold stripes. I read somewhere that they should be the size of a tennis ball when ready, and I think they are getting close to that. Today, I counted roughly 24 tomatoes just on one plant! I suspect that in a couple weeks Jennifer and I will be harvesting some Green Zebras. I'll leave you with a couple pictures.


Megan

Pepper Progress and Harvest

Our Bulgarian Carrot and Jimmy Nardello peppers, despite having been tiny little things when planted in the garden, are finally producing peppers! So far, the Bulgarian Carrot peppers look to be the most abundant producers with two or three peppers to each plant (see photo above and below), although it looks like the Jimmy Nardello are swiftly catching up with some fast-growing peppers (see third photo). My sister and I are very excited to see how these continue to grow, as both kinds are quite thin right now, even if they are long, and its my understanding that both kinds will be thicker.



Because we had so much garden space left, we planted some starter plants for Banana Peppers. The peppers produced were smaller than we expected them to be, but they were already on the plants before they were planted in the garden, so we think their growth may have been stunted by the shock of transplanting them. Banana Peppers, I believe, can be harvested at almost every stage, with the level of heat varying depending on when you pick them. These one's have just a little tinge of red on them, and despite us roasting them on the barbecue, and tossing them with some olive oil and salt, their heat was great. Megan ate two, but I could only eat one, so we saved the extra one to dice up in a corn and vegetable dish the following night. We'll feature that recipe later.


Jennifer