So Much Veg!

Now that we’re deep into the summer, it seems like everything is coming ripe in the garden. This evening I picked tomatoes, cucumbers, garden peas, beans, zucchini and some chives. It had been two whole days since I picked anything so of course we had a pair of Moby Dills (aka overgrown cucumbers.)

Thar she blows!

Every day I can come from the garden with a handful of beans. I’ve started to plan meals around what is ready to pick. Tonight’s dinner was tuna sandwiches with fresh early girl tomato slices and green beans and pear tomatoes on the side. The other day I picked beans, tomatoes and tarragon for a nicoise salad. Lunches have been random mixtures of whatever veggies are on hand on top of lettuce or rice depending on if I feel like a hot or cold lunch. Snacks are snap peas and cucumber slices with hummus.

At the moment we are hovering on the edge of having more veg than I know what to do with. There are five zucchini in the fridge along with a quart bag of beans, another of snap peas, a bowl of shelled peas, large sacks of cucumbers, turnips and beets and a small bag of chard. The chard still in the garden is actually bouncing back from the fungal infection. I had to trim out a lot of infected leaves but those that are still standing look good. I would cut some more but there is still so much other greenery already picked that needs to be eaten.

The colors are so lovely!

I am hesitant to start freezing things for a couple of reasons. First of all it is in the high 80s this week. It doesn’t take that long to blanch some veggies but I cannot bring myself to heating up the house any more than I have to. Second, I really like the taste of fresh vegetables. Things like zucchini and snap peas freeze well enough but they are never quite the same when thawed. Green beans and greens like chard are just as good after freezing but, again, I don’t want to heat up the house getting them prepped for storage. And, of course, cucumbers can’t be frozen at all. I plan on making some pickles eventually when it cools down a bit. So, for the foreseeable future, every meal and snack will be filled with fresh veggies. That’s not so bad.

Other garden updates: the corn is tasseling out and the ground around the potatoes is pushing up and cracking. We pulled out all the kale. I tempted fate and didn’t bother with row covers so the cabbage worms got their fill. The fennel is starting to put on a good show. I don’t know if it’ll have time to bulk up though. The rattlesnake beans are going crazy. We’re going to use them as shell beans. The eggplant and peppers are finally starting to put on flowers and the strawberries are doing their best to fill their entire bed. So far, so good. I think my garden’s first year is well on its way to be called a success.

Rattlesnake beans

Tiny pepper

Tiny spider

Beefsteak tomatoes

Robins!

Strawberries ready to take over the world

Huh?

Rabbit family out for an evening bask

Rain, Rain Go Away!

The other night we got over two inches of rain in an hour or so. There were also heavy winds. The report from my husband that night was that the garden was flattened. I didn’t worry too much, though. I know that plants bounce back and they did for the most part. The beefsteak tomato plant had to be restaked and I had to move the zucchini off the eggplants. The potatoes looked like something had been laying on them but they have since perked up too.

Flattened potatoes

The rattlesnake beans have reached and exceeded the top of their trellis. The whole thing was a bit saggy after the storm but I think that was caused just as much by the weight of the plants as by the wind and heavy rain. I thought that next year I might make a taller trellis but I don’t want to have to bring a ladder into the garden to pick the beans.

Rattlesnake beans topping out their trellis

 The high amount of rain we’ve been getting this summer hasn’t been too bad for the garden in general. Drainage seems to be good and I haven’t had to water since probably May when I first planted. The chard, however, is suffering. It has been infected with cercospora leaf spot. The fungal disease attacks chard, spinach and beets. Favorable conditions are high heat, high humidity, and prolonged leaf wetness at night. It can survive in the soil for up to two years. Infected plants should be buried to keep it from spreading.

Chard infected with cercospora leaf spot

I’ve been able to salvage a few leaves of chard that hadn’t gotten any spots yet but I think the rest is a loss. I harvested the spinach before it became an issue and it hasn’t seemed to cause too much trouble with the beets. I don’t eat the beet greens, anyway, and we’re not in the business of selling beetroot by the pound. In severe cases, the fungus keeps the beetroot from growing to full size. So, I’ll bury the infected plants and choose another bed for the chard, beets and spinach next year. I’m certainly glad this is just a home hobby garden for me and not a commercial enterprise.

Here are a few more pictures from in and around the garden:

Two honeybees working in an acorn squash blossom

Redneck rabbit

Rattlesnake bean flower

Baby lettuce leaves

Mama deer

Lovely pink turnip

I’m out of town for three days and this happens…

 

I went to the Adirondacks on a brief visit and when I got back it was like the garden had gone crazy while I was gone. A few warm, sunny days after a bunch of rain will do that. The lettuce seeds I planted have started. There are dozens of tomatoes just waiting to turn red. The zucchini, cucumber and pumpkin plants are all starting to set fruit. The pole beans and the bush beans are in blossom. I picked a good handful of snap peas yesterday evening for dinner and today I picked turnips and beets. I imagine that soon I will have more produce than I know what to do with. I love it when that happens!

zucchini

pumpkin

beans

turnips

beets

There was one unfortunate occurrence that will account for the ominous title of this post. The daylilies by the porch were just on the brink of fully blossoming when I left town. Just before I got back one of the several deer that frequent our yard nipped off the majority of the buds. Sigh. I knew that could happen. I just hoped it wouldn’t. There are some buds remaining so I might get to enjoy some flowers. At least I got some pictures of the earliest blooms.

Before the deer came in for a snack

Om nom nom, daylilies

 And here are some more pictures from the garden and around the yard.

Chard and Goat Cheese Tart "Recipe"

I love cooking with things that I have grown myself. Chard is especially nice. It is so versatile. You can eat it in salads as a baby green. You can sauté it with a little olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper. You can add to soup. You can pretty much do anything with chard that you can do with spinach. And don’t listen to anyone who says to cut off and discard the stems. They are very tasty cooked on their own or cut into smaller pieces and mixed right into the chopped chard leaves. 

Neon lights chard tastes as good at it looks!

Years ago I came across a recipe for a rustic chard and goat cheese tart. Try as I might, I was not able to find the recipe again. I do have a vague memory of what it looked like and I’m comfortable cooking without a recipe so I decided to go ahead and try to make the tart from vague memory. (I’m sure I could have found a comparable recipe online but where’s the fun in that?) Here, then, is my “recipe.”

1. Go out into the garden and pick a good-sized bunch of chard. Rinse well, making sure to get all the grit out of the stems. There’s nothing worse than gritty chard. It makes my teeth ache just thinking about it.

Some rinsed chard with stems removed - just removed! You will use them in this “recipe.”

2. Chop up the chard leaves and stems and put into a frying pan with a little bit of water. Add a package of mushrooms cut into smaller pieces. Season with salt and freshly-ground pepper. Cook until it looks done. (Hey, I warned you this was just a “recipe.”) Keep a lid on the pan early on to help the vegetables steam then take off the lid to let the remaining liquid evaporate.

Chard and mushrooms in the pan ready to cook

3. Make a single pie crust or use a premade crust. I don’t really use a recipe for my pie crust. My dad taught me how to make pies when I was little. I used about a cup of flour, 1/3-ish cup of shortening, a little salt and enough water to make it come together for this crust. Lay the pie dough out flat on a baking sheet. Spread the chard mushroom mixture onto it and top with crumbled goat cheese. Fold the edges a couple of inches in all around.
 

Tart ready for the oven

4. Bake the tart in an oven preheated to 350 degrees for twenty minutes.

5. Realize that pie crust, no matter how thin the pie, is not pizza dough. Up the temperature to 375 degrees and bake for another 35 minutes or until crust is golden brown.

There it is!

It took a bit longer than expected but my improvised chard and goat cheese tart tasted really good. It was a bit dry, though. If I make it again in the future I’ll have to come up with a way to remedy that. Maybe I could add eggs. Of course, if I was adding eggs, I might as well make a chard and goat cheese quiche. Mmm…quiche.