Will my Garden Grow?

Or not so much. Kind of slow, almost like it teasing me. The trees are much taller this year in the yard and my little veggie garden doesn't get as much light as the year before. Need to figure out what I'm doing wrong.

This is my garden so far. Most of it planted with seeds this year. May have to move my garden this fall.

almost ready to pick

first harvest

carrots 

Just watch a video from the The Rusted Garden about spraying it with epsom salt. May try it. His garden was so lush and beautiful. Wish my garden looked like that. Here's the link to cucumber maintance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JhgtTcOFyU

kirby cucumber, needs a little help

manoa lettuce

Got the garlic chives from one of the chefs at the restaurant. She also gave a tomato, basil, mint and chiso. Have that in front of the house.

garlic chives

This was a last ditch effort with seed to see if I would get something. I just threw a bunch of seeds in a couple of pots and this is what I got. Going to transplant the flowers this weekend.

parsley

dill,  zinnias and pompom flower

My Stubby Carrots

photo by april_yurie on Flickr.

Made me smile when I harvested them today. They are taking a long time to come in.

Saturday's Harvest

It's the end of July and my garden is not a bed of weeds! Hurrah!!!



Today I harvested:

• all of my manoa lettuce--8oz worth. Not bad for the weed whisperer
• 4oz of swiss chard--they are still going strong 
• 2oz of assorted herbs--flat leaf parsley, basil and mint
• pulled some carrot to test to see how they are doing. 

And I planted:

• row of manoa lettuce
• row of beet--one more try

In my kitchen, I'm rooting some thai basil from some cutting from the restaurant. I hope to pot them tomorrow. I'm trying to root some celery, doesn't look too great. 

Oh!I forgot I got 8oz. of tomatoes on Friday.

How does my garden grow?

Not very well at the moment. Remember that nice little garden my family help me put in last year. Well, it's currently grow a beautiful lush patch of weeds that the critters brought with them.

I even have a giant weed tree that refuse to die right next to my front door.

But now that I have the skilled gardening experts back at my house, I'm hoping to take advantage of their skill for a trade of jam and cake and maybe even some sweet potato doughnuts. 

Cooking up some savory goodies

Got these beautiful carrots [red, orange and yellow, I'm a sucker for these kinds of veggies] from the farmers market, with some red and orange beets,  swiss chard [my favorite)] and a delicata squash and decide to make up some savory goodies for my lunch this week.



Starting out roasting the some of the carrot and beets with olive oil, Herb de Provence, salt and pepper. 

I used only 1/3 of the bunch of carrots, so I decide to try making a carrot salad asian-style with the rest.

While the carrots and beets are roasting, I'm caramelizing onions for a zucchini and caramelized onion tart. Someone from work gave me a giant zucchini that I need to use and I found this recipe from One Perfect Bite. 

I found my way to One Perfect Bite while I was looking for instructions to make dried apricot jam in crock pot. I bought a big container of dried apricots a while back and I thought I better use it up soon. And loved the apricot jam made this summer. So that's also cooking away at the moment.

The onions are done now and I'm off to make some crust, making up 2 crust, one for the tart and one for an apple sour cream crumb pie from Martha Stewart. Yes, I got some apples from the farmers market. [my eyes are bigger than my stomach]


My kitchen smell amazing at the moment. I'll post some pics of the finish products later. 

I'm thinking of trying a stuffed delicata squash with swiss chard [and probably the leftovers of the giant zucchini] and cheese. But that's tomorrow's project. I have a ton of baking and cooking on my list for tomorrow. It's perfect weather for all this cooking. I'm taking advantage when I can. 

I know this all sound way too much for one person. But I have all of this great veggies and fruits from the farmers markets and friends that I need to use up. I guess I'll make someone happy when I surprise them with a sampling.