Lemony Zest :: Kim Lewandowski

Archive for the ‘Veggies’ Category

The manure Dan tilled into the garden this spring has made a huge difference in our yield so far this year. We pulled a bunch of onions to make room for basil, and the bell peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes are coming in nicely now.

Today I will be picking and preserving Anaheim peppers and making basil pesto for the freezer, as well as for us.

A basket full of yummies

Roma tomatoes

Anaheim peppers

We have quite a bit going in the garden right now – several kinds of tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet and hot peppers, tomatillos, onions, garlic, cantaloupe (an experiment) and lots of herbs.

These are a few pix of food we harvested earlier in the spring – we now have a couple pounds of shelled and blanched peas in the freezer, along with at least five pounds of blanched green beans. And of course, all that salad!

Our first peas!

A couple pounds of beans

Bell pepper fell off – it was about 3 inches long, just enough for Dan’s salad

Back in, probably February, Dan planted mesclun mix seeds in a terra-cotta planter on the back steps. I had told him they would last all summer, but I neglected to specify that he should sprinkle a pinch of seeds each week for the summer. So he planted the whole seed packet all at once.

April 25

This is from last week, so it’s a little smaller now, but we definitely need to eat more of this. I also added a couple of parsley plants in there. It couldn’t be easier to grow – just sprinkle the seeds on and keep it watered.

May 15

Last weekend, I was planting marigolds in the veggie garden, for some color and to help keep pests away, and this plant had to go – it was right where I needed to put a marigold in order to get the symmetry I like in my garden

I thought it was an onion, but when I pulled it out, I saw it was a head of garlic – and a good-sized one, too.

That reminded me that in the kitchen, I had a head of garlic with sprouts on the cloves, so I got that, separated the cloves, and planted them in the garden, so this fall, we’ll have more homegrown garlic. For the record, I planted them between the pepper plants (so I can find them again).

The lettuce is in very good form this year: romaine, red leaf and butter lettuces are giving us way more than we can eat. I gave Mom a big gallon-size bag of it to take home last weekend. And we have baby peas! There are also some beans in the top right and green onions behind the peas.

We can really get a lot of food in a relatively small square garden. We won’t be buying salad greens for another month, and we had frozen peas from last year’s garden till February.

Mixed lettuces and peas

Baby peas and chives

Last night’s rain and the weekend’s cooler temperatures should be great for helping our baby romaine, butter lettuce and red sails along. We might even pick some to mix in a salad. Onions, garlic, beans and peas are on their way, too.