Saturday, July 04, 2009

Garden Journal 7/4/09: Fireworks in the Front Yard


Or Maybe It's Just a Fiery Burst of Beautiful Color—But Definitely a Celebration Nonetheless

Here's hoping you had a glorious Fourth of July!

Did you do anything in the garden over the holiday weekend? Or, more importantly, did you eat anything from the garden? I harvested the garlic (and about 40 pounds of weeds) earlier today, tried to make it rain by continuing to water the garden as a few drops started to fall (didn't work), and then enjoyed a fabulous dinner of grilled pork ribs smothered in homemade bbq sauce (from the locally raised hog we had butchered last year) with a side of freshly dug new red potatoes that were simply boiled up and tossed with lots of salt and butter. Insanely good.

© Copyright 2009 FarmgirlFare.com, the happy we're done with haying this year foodie farm blog where the difference between regular old tuna salad and the best tuna you've ever eaten can be nothing more than a handful of homegrown chopped purple onion and fresh chives—and if you're eating at 10pm after having spent all day bringing in and
stacking 300 bales of hay, it tastes all that much better. Hooray for edible gardens—and being done with haying!

19 comments:

  1. Happy Independence Day to all!
    We picked a good bounty of wild blackberries in Illinois yesterday, before the torrential rains. The blackberry pie is in the oven now! I think we'll be able to get a good deal more as it seems the motherlode is yet to come. Does anyone know how long blackberries take to ripen? From hard red to ripe? I'm hoping 2 weeks as that is when I can pick again!! -Braved thorns, snakes, poison ivies and oaks, but thee little beauties are worth it. Going to make blackberry syrup for first time tomorrow.

    Happy 4th: on the 3rd, we bought a fabulous melon from a lady in a red, white and blue flag bikini and an Uncle Sam hat, waving a small flag from her lawn chair on the side of Highway 79. American ingenuity at its' best!

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  2. We had smoked turkey legs, horseradish potato salad made with local onions and potatoes and chives and dill from our garden, baked beans and salsa made with cilantro, hot peppers, cilantro & potato onions from our garden. I love this time of year! Ribs sound wonderful. I wish we had had some lamb ribs to nibble on here.

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  3. You can eat those daylilys too! The petals and stamens are delicious in salads.

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  4. Today we had green beans and some mystery squash. Our zucchini didn't come up, but we have a volunteer plant of something that looks like short, fat zucchini and tastes wonderful. I sautéed it in olive oil with onions and garlic, both from the garden. By the way, I planted onion sets, here in northern Arkansas and they made nice medium-sized onions.

    Yesterday we had our first ever fried okra. It was delicious. I didn't realize they had such beautiful flowers. I also picked our first cherry tomatoes of the year and an Early Girl.

    I planted Swiss Chard, on your recommendation, and we are enjoying it.

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  5. I made raspberry fool, with fresh raspberries from my garden!! Felt good when I saw the price of a basket of raspberries in the store today was $5.99 (in province berries, at least) and it was the same amount of berries I'm getting off my bushes every day right now :-)

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  6. Happy 4th! I spent about 5 hours yesterday working in my yard and planted some marigolds around my tomatoes. Thursday night I had green beans that I had picked from my garden. I was able to pick about three handfuls and when I went back out yesterday, most of the baby beans and leaves are gone...darn rabbits. :-)
    blessings
    ~*~

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  7. Picked the measly pickings of champagne currants, added a handful of raspberries and made one pot of currant-raspberry jam. It is only one pot, but it is my first pot -- so I am thrilled!

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  8. First taste of shell peas, a few broccoli buttons and a big spinach salad! Cannot wait for more!

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  9. we had Beet Greens and lettuce. With all the rain and cool weather up here in chicago My cool weather plants are having an extended season.

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  10. I harvested garlic too!

    I know you're already an award-winner, but I nominated you for a blogger award anyway. To accept please come over to my blog at http://homewoodgardenplot41.blogspot.com/

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  11. That's so funny! I have a fireworks flower on my blog too. Nothing has more boom for me this time of year than a perfect blossom.

    We are getting the first nibbles from the garden (beyond greens). But without much sun, our peas are not as sweet or plumb. Wish I could send you some of our rain.

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  12. Not only did I eat from the garden, but I shared with others: beets, dill, chives, and potatoes=one very, very pink salad.

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  13. Lots and lots of sugar snap peas. the second planting is jsut starting to come through now, so we should be in for another month of yummy snacks, by which point we'll hopefully be well into the tomato and zucchini, but we'll see what happens with the weather.

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  14. I'm still waiting for tomatoes, green beans, peppers, and cucumber to get ripe enough to eat. I did use some basil, fennel, and tarragon in salad over the weekend. Oh, and threw some dill in with some tuna salad.

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  15. Beans. WE ATE A LOT OF BEANS. Wow. I was overwhelmed with the beans but am already considering sowing a second round. Because the thought of being without beans? Makes me shiver.

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  16. I've been a real sucker for daylilies recently. That one is beautiful.

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  17. Happy belated 4th. What a gorgeous burst of color!

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  18. I'm a new gardener just this year and had my very first harvest today! Green peas that I put in a salad and enjoyed this afternoon and they were delicious!! Next year I'm going to triple the size of the backyard patch for sure. Tomatoes are still green, cukes still growing and summer squash not there yet but cannot wait to sample the rest of my hard work.

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  19. I'm harvesting spinach and lettuce. Nothing else is ready here in the north woods. Thank goodness for farmers' markets!

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