Garden Update – July

Somehow it’s already July! For those fellow Canadians out there, Happy Canada Day! For the rest of you…I hope you’re having a great day. The garden has really grown in the past few weeks, I thought I’d share some photos. I would also really love some advice from you, I’m learning but have had some issues…

The peas are fantastic; about 8 feet tall and producing over a handful every day. I planted both snow peas and snap peas, both of which are doing well.

Snap peas growing rapidly!

I planted about 10 onion bulbs…most of them got rather moldy and limp so I pulled them. I have 3 remaining. This is my largest. I have high hopes but honestly I don’t think it’s doing too well. Have you grown onions? Any tips?

Next are the 8 tomato plants which have taken off. As you can see they were quite small when I planted them. 7 of my tomatoes are doing well, still have yet to produce a tomato…soon! Grow babies, grow!

1 of the stems has an issue…so tomato planting friends I need some help!!! What has happened to my delightful tomato plant? It looks like something has eaten it out…suggestions?

The carrots are HUGE, the stems at least. I dug down to see how big the actual vegetable is and it’s about an inch wide(probably less), so they’re tiny still. I’m getting impatient with those carrots! I have a feeling carrots are one of those veggies that’s just not worth growing – a lot of waiting and not a ton of yield. Thoughts on that?

I’ve just planted some more bokchoy since the last batch was so successful and yielded SO many luscious leaves for us to gobble up. We ate bokchoy at every meal for weeks. I also planted a few beet seeds just to see what happens.

I’ve never planted beets, have you had success? How are your vegetables coming along? Have you ever had success/failures with any of these plants? What should I grow next? Happy growing, garden friends!

PS enjoy my calendula plant that FINALLY grew a flower. Bumble bumble bumble, come to my garden, bees!

 

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A meal from the garden

Sounds perfect, doesn’t it? Today I made spot prawns with bokchoy and peas from my garden. OK the prawns were from the ocean but you know, the vegetable part was grown by me;)

A few of you have asked me how to use bokchoy (aka: pac choi) so I’m here to tell you!

In this case my bokchoy bolted so I haven’t been eating the stem as its very fibreous, better off for a nice animal with large teeth. Instead I’ve been peeling the leaves off and frying them.

It’s a lot like spinach in that it shrinks down and goes a bit limp when you heat it. I added some water and soy sauce and fried them up for about 5 minutes. I added my lovely snow peas in at the end.

This is what the end result looked like!

I’m generally NOT the type of person to take photos of my food but I don’t buy expensive seafood everyday, and this was my first pea harvest…so I had to!

Are your vegetables harvesting? What’s your favorite meal to cook? What do you make with the food from your garden? Happy eating and growing, blogger friends 😄🌱🍴

Bokchoy Friday

Ahh more harvesting! While I was away for a few days my bokchoy, aka pac choi, BOLTED. As you can see in the pictures the stems did not bulk up as I thought they would, instead the stems grew in height and grew pretty yellow flowers. I attribute the bolting to the weather. It was very warm, then very cold.

The yellow flowers are delicious though! And the leaves are fantastic and taste incredibly like store bought bokchoy (but 100 times better).

How are your gardens coming along? Has anything bolted? Failures? What have you harvested?

Garden update!

It’s time for a garden update! I was away for the weekend and came home to quite the treat…radishes!!! These radishes are the first harvest of the year, besides the onion some creature dug up.

I’ve also taken photos of my other veggies to show you all how they’re coming along.

First, the tomatoes are about the same size, likely due to lack of heat…boo, hopefully they pick up soon. Come to us, sunshine! 🍅🍅

Below you can see our onions are very floppy…the green stems resemble fainting goats. Does anyone know if this is a normal thing for growing onions to do?

Floppy yellow onions

The bokchoy is tall, but thin. I assume the stems are on the cusp of bulking up. Here’s hoping! Unfortunately as you can see something is eating the bokchoy leaves (damn you creatures, damn you!). There’s many wood bugs roaming around…perhaps they are the culprits?

Carrots, oh yes carrots! They’re doing well, looking more like carrots everyday. They are about 4 inches tall. All I want is one purple carrot ☺

Not pictured are my beautiful and lively pea plants which are about 5 feet tall.

How is your garden coming along? Have you harvested anything in the last week? I am so excited to hear about your garden adventures and maybe learn something from you as well! I can’t explain the feeling of excitement when these radishes came out of the ground; so rewarding! 🌱🌱

Dehydrator: sundried tomato recipe

Sundried tomatoes are one of my all time favorite foods. I’ve put them in all sorts of dishes and I will often be caught eating them strait from the jar. But they’re so expensive…even at costco a jar costs upwards of $9.

Anyway as a few of you know I’ve been searching for a new hobby. I knew I love food and cooking and the other day I had some salmon jerky…and ka-ching! I want to try making dehydrated foods.

I opted to buy a new machine since I got paid and it’s 2016 so why not treat myself right? I spent $64 at Canadian Tire for a Salton Food Dehydrator.

Firstly I knew I wanted to experiment since this is a new hobby and I want to have fun. Therefore I tried the tomatoes three different ways: 1) I cut them lengthwise in half 2) I cut them in half, not lengthwise and 3) I quartered them. With this I’ve created my own (very basic) recipe. Here it is:

Ingredients:
Tomatoes: I used cherry tomatoes because I love them
Optional: salt, pepper, basil, olive oil

Instructions:
Cut tomatoes, put in a bowl, toss in a small amount of olive oil, a pinch or two of salt, pepper, basil as desired. Next lay them in your dehydrator with the skin of the tomato down so the wet seedy part is facing upwards.

Very simple, I know.

They turned out wonderfully. However I did learn that the best cut of tomato is horizontally…quarters were much too small. Good luck!

Have you ever dehydrated food? Looking forward to hearing from you all.