Squash

Summer squash

I talked about zucchini plants in a pot in a former post. Here they are!

We were waiting to see how they were doing. I decided to try them in containers, every year squash bugs would just destroy the plant from the roots. I am hoping the bugs live in the soil and won't find the plant, I used potting soil and compost from a nursery. I purchased 25 gallon pots made from degradable fabric containers on eBay. ( they were really cheap ) Zucchini need a lot of space. 

They are doing great for now and are about to bloom. I planted some Italian zucchini and some round zucchini, I like those to cook them stuffed in the oven.

Winter squash

I know it is hard to think of the fall while anxiously watching your tomato plants and wanting the fruit to be ready but you will be so happy to enjoy your winter squash!

This year we planted some “potimarron” or "potiron".  They are a gourd that kind of look like a pumpkin but the “meat” is quite different.  They preserve well too. We brought seeds back from France last year.

We are also planting butternut and acorn squash.

As they take up a lot of room we are planting only one plant of each kind, squash are insect-pollinated but they have the male and female flower parts in separate flowers on the same plant, insects transfer pollen from male flowers to female flowers while going from flower to flower. Some people recommend to help them by hand-pollinating them but I will trust the bees.

It makes me come back to the idea of having a bee-hive.

Did you plant any squash ? Which ones ?

Black currant

Last fall I purchased this black currant bush, it is doing really well! We’ll be trying to make our own “crème de cassis.“ Or maybe we’ll just add a few in a fruit salad. For those who have a lot of them you can also make some jelly. Yum ! 

 

              This week, while baby was asleep, I planted some seeds, spinach, zucchini, radicchio and basil by reusing the planters I get with the starts from the nursery.

Zucchini have been such a disaster the last few years.  As soon as we get some delicious zucchinis a bunch of bugs start to devour the plant… We tried everything  with no success. So I will plant them in a large pot and see what happens. 

Here are my lily of the valley, it’s a special plant for me, not only because it’s a purple variety, it’s also a plant I took from my grandfather’s garden in France and brought here in my suitcase ( it was worse the risk  ) It survived and is spreading nicely.

                 I found this dried sunflower in the backyard.

I love muscari. It has been nice out, still a little chilly especially at night. Soon it will be really warm and it won’t bother me at all.

abundance

The late summer garden means baskets full of food and crowded kitchen counters. Our dining table makes me claustrophobic lately, covered with bowls of tomatoes and zucchini squash and not always enough time to deal with it as quickly as I should. I won't even talk about the fridge full of beans and cucumbers. I won't lie, it's a little overwhelming sometimes.

This week I hope to do some canning, but in the mean time we've been as creative with meals as time allows, and loving the fact that produce never enters our grocery bags.

I wanted to share a few tasty things we've been especially enjoying recently.

Our favorite summer treat is slow roasted tomatoes, which we add to sandwiches, pasta, pizza, and anything else we can think of. Seriously, we talk about roasted tomatoes all year long, in anticipation of the next tomato harvest.  They're a little bit like bites of ketchup (did you add ketchup to everything when you were a kid, too?) only 6.9 million times better. Natalie talked about her method here last week.

I was turned on to a recipe for zucchini pizza crust recently, and have since made it twice. I doubled the batch the first time, and tripled it the next. It's a great way to use up a couple large summer squashes, and it makes a delicious, moist-yet-crispy crust. Make extra because leftover pizza is always a great idea.

The recipe seems pretty forgiving, and flour substitutions have worked well for me. I use a combination of brown rice flour and flax meal, in place of the almond meal called for.

I've also been blending up improv tomato sauces. This one was made with a mix of fresh and roasted tomatoes (mostly orange, hence the color), fresh picked Walla Walla sweet onion, ground sunflower seeds, sea salt, dulse and fresh oregano, thyme and savory. This particular sauce was pretty thick, making it a versatile sauce or spread.

So in the end, I guess growing a garden all comes down to pizza (just kidding). But really, these have been some of the most satisfying pizza pies I've ever made. Almost completely home grown, and so representative of the season right now. And one single place to combine all our favorite things. Don't forget the pesto!

What are your favorite summer meals?
(And, any favorite ways to preserve green beans?)