Garden Update

My annual resolve to deal with summer heat and humidity is fading away. I try so hard to make the most of summer, but it wears on me. I am feeling sapped physically and mentally too. I am like Detritus the troll in the Terry Pratchett books; I need to be cool to think well.

We are now getting regular, torrential rains, but they seem to just make the air feel heavier. If I wasn't still looking forward to the tomato harvest and other veggies, I would be wishing for snow. I think I would roll around in it with the dogs right about now!

Anyway, I'll try to limit my whining...at least collapsing in the air conditioning has given me time to catch up with a fun British show called Being Human, about a werewolf, a vampire and a ghost trying to live like regular people in Bristol, England. There are a lot of laugh out loud moments! The first season came out on DVD here on Tuesday and we watched that and then found season 2 on youtube. Now, we have a long wait for season 3 as it doesn't even air until January, 2011!

I haven't bought any bread since starting to use the 5 minute artisan bread technique. I liked the basic boule so much I made up batches of it a few times in a row, but now I've also tried a delicious rye/wheat bread too. I will try to work through most of the recipes in the book and I am thinking about getting a copy of the sequel too.

Here is one of my rye/wheat loaves.

The garden just gets more and more bountiful as the season progresses. Today, we canned some cranberry pepper jelly flavored with our jalapenos. They are a hot variety this year! Jeff tasted one and when he went to speak his voice sounded like Kermit the Frog being strangled! Good thing he loves hot peppers!!

The jelly is deliciously sweet with a bit of zing from the pepper. I like to put it on sandwiches: roast beef, boursin and jelly or turkey breast are really good. I like it on chicken too, as a glaze/sauce for a stir fry with pineapple and sweet peppers. It goes with Mexican food too, like chicken quesadillas. The classic way to serve it is on cream cheese and crackers. It's SO versatile!

I have a bunch more canning projects planned including pickled jalapenos, flavored with a bit of garlic and honey! Here are some of the glossy green jalapenos I used today.

Here are a couple of the sweet green bell peppers still on a plant.

While I'm showing close ups, how about a look under the leaves at the green beans? They are almost ready!

This is a *very* early pumpkin. I will have to pick it soon!

Some dreaded 'late blight' has been spotted in Massachusetts, so I am watching my plants for any signs of trouble. It affects tomatoes and potatoes and ultimately shrivels the entire plant! I am also starting to use some organic copper fungicide on my tomato plants to prevent the more common humidity/wet related problems like bacterial speck and bacterial spot. I only use organic substances in my garden and only when absolutely necessary. That's why you'll see so many weeds and some bugs in my garden. I plant extras of everything to sacrifice to bugs. I like to keep the beneficial insects happy and healthy, but that means having some of the nasties too. One of the many reasons for the plastic mulch you've seen me using is to reduce potential bacterial harm to the plants. Any bacteria lurking in the soil are prevented from splashing onto the plants during rainstorms.

Here is some of the main block of tomato plants. The plum tomatoes are the shorter, bushy ones. There are a lot of green tomatoes.

Here is the cucumber and tomato 'annex'.

The tomatillos are shoulder high on me.

Here are the beautiful zinnias which have been attracting numerous butterflies and hummingbirds too. The sunflowers in the background tower over me!

The giant Casa Blanca lilies are in bloom by the patio. In the evening, the scent is almost too strong!

Well there now, you've had another tour of my garden and some cooking without suffering any of the heat and humidity =)

Favorite Cupcakes

In the heat of summer I try not to do too much baking, but some things don't take too long. My little loaves of bread take <35 minutes and for a sweet treat, cupcakes are done in 25 minutes. I do occasionally make cookies too. Though they only take 12 minutes to bake, I have to bake them in batches, so it takes quite a long time overall.

For my chocolate cupcakes, I used to always use Hershey's European Dutch Processed Cocoa, but when that was discontinued, I was at a loss as to which cocoa to switch to. I tried a few that baked up terribly! It is not fun to have to throw out a dozen cupcakes or a two layer cake!! Finally, I tried Bensdorp Dutch Processed Cocoa and I love it. If you are a baker, what is your favorite cocoa?

You can see the Bensdorp gives a nice dark, chocolaty look. And the flavor is as good as it looks!

I am not a frosting artist. Sometime it would be fun to learn some techniques, but I am happy to just spread a bit of buttercream on top. In the heat of summer it's a bit melty anyway, so simple is best.

I like buttercream with a minimal amount of butter (the ratios given in the Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery cookbook are good in my opinion) and it's fun to give it a bit of color too. Here is a color from another batch. After they've been in the fridge they are less melty looking like this one.

My favorite chocolate cake recipe is from the Moosewood Restaurant Cooks At Home Cookbook and the entire book is online, but the cake recipe is here and includes instructions for cupcakes. It is called the '6 Minute Chocolate Cake'. That book was released in 1994 and I've been making the cake since a couple years after that. I like it with water just fine, but it is richer with cold coffee, if I happen to have some saved for it. I use plain vinegar. It just happens to be vegan which helps it be so very quick to make and I'm even more likely to have the (all pantry staples) ingredients on hand when I have a craving for it.

Today's Reading and More Gardening

Today, I finally began my 'summer reading list' and have been voraciously reading London in Chains: An English Civil War Novel by Gillian Bradshaw about a feisty, 17th century girl who gets a job managing a secret, illegal printing press! I will be finished with it in less than 24 hours, which is what always happens when I get a really good book. I have no restraint; I must know what happens and then I have book withdrawal!

Although it was hard to put down the book at all, I did take some breaks to plant, weed and take pictures in the garden. I have to be a bit better about weeding now that we've had rain, but you'll see in the pictures that there are still plenty of weeds.

The zinnia patch really benefited from the rain cleaning their leaves and nourishing them.

Most are now at waist height or even a little higher.

The mixed planting of winter squash, gourds, pumpkins and sunflowers is one of my favorite bits of the garden. The sunflowers are now taller than me!

The vines are looking for space to grow and I will let them grow out over the lawn if they want to.

Here, you can see the butterfly garden to the left, with lavender colored wild bee balm and coneflowers and butterfly bushes and the sunflower/mixed patch to the right.

You can see the string bean rows are wider after the pounding rain, but they do look happy enough.

This picture is mainly to show you the tomatillos that are now as tall as the tomato cages supporting them. They responded to the rain more than anything else. They are in the background of this picture, looking like a hedge.

I am already anticipating eating the first eggplant.

This Australian Jarrahdale squash is growing well. I just love the shape and color of these, both the immature light green skin and the blue-gray skin and the orange interior of the ripe squash.

A growing Jack O'Lantern.

I couldn't resist posting another picture of the coneflowers as they are so pretty.

Here is a little double cosmos I tucked into the herb bed as I only had 2-3 seedlings of it.

And, these are the lovely brown-eyed susans. Just the first few...you can see there are a lot more buds to open!

Now, back to my book =)

Rain and Steamy Heat

So, we did finally get some rain, mainly on the 14th. As you can see from the picture, it fell pretty hard! A lot rushed off as a river down the driveway. It did clean up the plants and give some things a growth spurt like the tomatillos. I know the flower beds benefited greatly too. The 4 o'clocks got knocked over, so I've driven in some stakes to support them. I may need to tie them up some too. The oldest string bean plants got quite flattened out too, but they will be ok. The humidity is still very high and I would like things to dry up a little so we don't get mildew or rot.

Some bird has been pulling up the youngest (3rd sowing) string bean plants and so that's going to be a rather spotty row!

I didn't pick for a couple of days while everything was soggy, but this morning I went out to get caught up. I had to throw some more giant zukes and summer squash in the compost bin, but there are plenty for eating too. And, 5-6 large cukes went in the compost too, but I picked enough nice ones for another batch of pickles!

I am keeping my eye on a lot of green tomatoes and one eggplant that is getting close to picking size. There are a couple of varieties of peppers ready or nearly ready too.

Summery Eats, More Decorating, More Garden Pics

Saturday, I picked so many cucumbers in the garden that I set up to do two batches of pickles! Here are the results, 16 pints of Bread and Butter Pickles. Today, I picked enough cucumbers to do another (single) batch. We have already eaten some ourselves and I have mailed out some to family for a mid-summer treat.

The pickle juice makes a delicious potato salad. I like to whisk together some with Miracle Whip, finely chopped pickles, finely diced sweet onion (like Vidalia) and add the warm, chopped potatoes to that. When I have the stamina and it's not too hot, I also add chopped hard-boiled eggs, but it was too hot for that this time. Here is my latest potato salad alongside the slow cooker which was cooking up pulled pork. Other than picking some zukes to go alongside, dinner is made for a few days!

Over the weekend, in between the pickling stages, I managed to finish cleaning and arranging all of my new EB pottery. I thought I'd post a few more pictures now that the seconds marks are removed from the Hellebore plates, bowls and mugs.

The ivy/holly teapot is at home with some of my little xmas things.

The Hellebores take up most of the bottom shelf in my china cabinet.

We are already making use of it, especially those lovely pasta bowls!

It is so hot and dry in the garden that it's amazing the veggies are doing so well. Sometimes, I have to go pick things that have gotten ahead of me like cukes and zukes and stack them in the compost bin like cord wood!! I think it is thanks to the plastic mulch and the drip lines right at the base of the plants. Here is the vigorous cucumber patch that is providing us with so many pickles.

A view of the tomatoes which are all tied up for the time being. Still only green tomatoes...

String beans, flowers, gourds, pumpkins and squash.

Zinnias.

Some jalapeno peppers ready for picking.

Eggplant, still just flowering, setting fruit.

I let a lot of my herbs 'go by' as I enjoy the flowers, like on this oregano.

It has been so dry for so long here. I checked the weather data for the last 2 months, May 13-July 13, and found we've only had 3.62 inches of rain in that time.

I'm not even sure we had that much as it fell as localized scattered showers and may have skipped over us here. This is the graph showing the distribution of the rainfall for the same time frame.

We may get some rain over the next couple of days, but it is predicted as localized 'heavy' rain and thunder storms. Not what I like. At all. This could make a mess of the garden and knock a lot of things over and erode the powdery soil. I miss the occasional gray summer day with steady light to medium rain that refreshed the air and kept the lawns and plants looking lush with a gentle, deep soaking. It seems like we only get all or nothing in recent years.

Blueberries and the Doggie Cute Act

I've been having my breakfast in the yard lately. Yummy for me...

...and the dogs. Here's Saffy mugging for a treat. How can I resist that face?!

Coneflower and Butterfly

How summery is this? So pretty...

...but a little freaky close up!!!