Delights From The Garden

I really need to get better at taking pictures of vegetables. But here are a few shots of treats from the garden. Lots of things at peak these days.

Beans in abundance. The packet of seeds claimed purple, green and yellow beans, but there don't seem to be too many yellows. No matter, I have yellow bush beans in another location, an undisclosed location. Now, who's the Bean Queen?

These are my beloved Pimiento de Padron peppers. Some of these were not harvested early enough and may end up blowing somebodies head off. But the small ones are tender and delicious. Saute in a little olive oil, sprinkle with coarse salt, and pop like candy. I planted 2 plants, one is thriving and doing all the heavy lifting of supplying us with peppers. The other one is struggling to produce a few measly peppers. It has labored in the shadow of a zucchini plant and been besieged by chickens TWICE, so I forgive the poor production.

We aren't getting tons of tomatoes, as I lamented in a previous post, but what we are getting is just what you'd imagine; plump, succulent, juicy and oh so flavorful. I have enjoyed them many ways, but my favorite remains crusty bread, a generous slathering of mayonnaise, slabs of ripe tomatoes, coarse salt, black pepper. This is best enjoyed over the sink.

My Dad once described some particularly gorgeous tomatoes as pornographic, and I have to say that when the lewd fruits are plump, juicy, meaty, ripened to perfection and warm from the vine, well, it's tough to find a better word.

And here are the Manzano peppers. They are about as big as a golf ball so far. Both plants are carrying about 10-12 peppers and I think there will be more to come. These peppers will ripen to yellow. The smaller Rocoto pepper plants are coming along fine, but I still don't expect to get any peppers this season.

Evildoers or Opportunists?

While I was out of town on vacation the chickens executed a jailbreak. They got into the part of the back yard that I have banned them from this year. By the time the escape was discovered they had uprooted a couple of yellow squash plants and some small onions and they had strewn a lot of dirt and mulch over the paths. This is their particular speciality, they are adept at spreading everything in their immediate environment into one even layer. This way they can pick and peck through everything very thoroughly.

But now that I think about it, I wonder if they deliberately chose the squash.

Like many gardeners I usually end up with an over abundance of squash and zucchini. And like most gardeners with this problem I run out of victims on whom to pawn it off long before I run out of squash. So I end up giving lots of it to the hens. They seem to like it, especially the seeds. But maybe they are more like us than we imagine. Maybe it is part of their dastardly plan to eradicate zucchini when they have the opportunity so they won't have to do the heavy lifting of disposing of the excess squash.

It's Gonna Be A Scorcher

We're about to have 2 or 3 days over 100 degrees. Wow. Yesterday I watered all the plants thoroughly, so they should be alright, but some may need a little refreshment.

And I'll have to do a few things to keep the hens cool. Their beach umbrella is up and the water is full. I may need to water down the run and the hedge, where they like to hide in the shade. The coop needs cleaning and a change of bedding too. That ought to be fun in the stifling heat.

Time to get outside before it gets any hotter, but first a trip to the feed store for cedar shavings, which is what I use for bedding and for mulch around the garden. Also some 5 grain scratch as a treat for the girls. Concentrates is my favorite for this stuff. Extremely helpful and friendly people there and it's close to home.

And there will be some catch up posts to make up for the dearth while I was out of town on vacation. Stay cool.