Fall is the season that most reminds me why I love living in California so much. The days are still warm, the markets are still loaded with summer favorites (eggplants, tomatoes, zucchini), right up next to the cool-weather crops that are just starting to emerge. I get lost in still believing its summer, until BAM! – daylight savings. As the long hours of evening darkness descend, I do my best to embrace it instead of feeling sad that my daylight play hours are getting cut short. This year, a surprising figure aided in my transition to recovery: the persimmon.

A few Saturdays ago, I walked past a house downtown with a loaded persimmon tree. A woman had set up a table with a wheelbarrow full of Hachiya persimmons next to her, selling them 3/$1.oo. I picked out three, and she told me not to eat them until they were completely softened  (Fuyu, another variety, should be eaten when its relatively hard). For a week, I checked them every day for texture. And then finally- the first was soft! I  put it in the refrigerator, and that afternoon I timidly sunk my teeth in… and was completely blown away by the explosion of flavor in my mouth! Cold refreshing sweetness, no mushy grainy-ness, just pure juice.  And ever since, my heart lifts a bit every time I see a persimmon.

Santa Barbara has many wonders, but I am constantly surprised by the number of what I would have previously thought of as “exotic” or at the very least, somewhat rare, fruits and vegetables that are grown here. Citrus, avocado, passion fruit, persimmons, and… pineapple guavas! Somehow the pineapple guava (also known as  Feijoa) made its  way into “ornamental plant”  category, as there are bushes all over town lately dropping fruit, free for the taking.  The flowers are stunning (and edible!!), and the fruit is both sweet and tart. We do actually have a bush in our yard – last year we had a great harvest, and this year for some reason we  got zero!

Last, but not least… this past weekend Matt and I hosted our neighborhood’s monthly garden exchange. There is usually at least one exchange going every weekend, somewhere in the city. People come with anything from their garden – vegetables, fruit, succulent clippings, flowers, herbs, eggs, etc – and then take whatever they like from the accumulated pile. Kind of like a mini-farmer’s market. We had a great turnout – probably around 30 people! We had a worm bin demo, and  Oscar of Healing Grounds plant nursery brought a ton of vegetable starts. I  made to-die-for carrot cake  (recipe disclosure pending), and our exchange table was pretty loaded for being November!

There are still a few plants from the summer hanging around our garden, but we’ve mostly transitioned into cool weather stuff -  lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, bok choy, cilantro, kale, strawberries, celery, cauliflower, onions, potatoes, beets, carrots…They’re still small,  so there isn’t a huge harvest going on. But there’s enough to keep the creativity going, and to keep me excited for the winter months to come…

Posted in Uncategorized ]]> http://dubberley.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/fall-treasures/feed/ 1 Charity PumpkinandSpaghettiSquash Persimmon Feijoa blossom Guava Exchange table Carrot Cake Radicchio http://dubberley.wordpress.com/2009/10/26/gorgeous-eggplants/ http://dubberley.wordpress.com/2009/10/26/gorgeous-eggplants/#comments Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:08:46 +0000 Charity http://dubberley.wordpress.com/?p=419 ]]>

I suppose I should begin with somewhat of an explanation why its been over a month since I last posted. To begin with, I spent 10 days in Italy with my dad and husband. It was fantastic – hiking, climbing, via feratta, and of course- delicious food! I never tired of the brick-oven pizzas or fresh pasta. We even stumbled across a farmer’s market in Venice – trays of mushrooms, chanterelles in abundance, and stacks of sun-dried tomatoes.

Next was a brief stop in Philadelphia for a friend’s wedding reception and then a few weekend climbing trips away – Yosemite (last of the season) and Joshua Tree (first of many for the season). And finally – a weekend HOME! The garden is transitioning to fall – lots of greens planted, most of the tomato plants gone, and just a few lingering plants. You can see the massive eggplants and also some celery plants in the front portion of the beds below.

Remember the monarch butterfly caterpillar our friends gave us? Before we left for Italy, I noticed he was no longer on the milkweed plant. Saddened, I thought he may have been plucked away by a hungry bird. But when we got back from our travels, I noticed there were 6 tiny caterpillars on the milkweed plant!! They pretty much decimated all the leaves, but we harvested the seeds so hopefully we’ll have more milkweed coming soon.

Also – remember this summer, when I was raving about the white eggplants I found at the market? Well shortly after that, I bought a few plants in the hopes that I could grow at least a few before the season was out. And I was duly rewarded with a beautiful, lavender-blushed specimen, with a few more still ripening on the plant. In addition, our other eggplant bushes are gigantic, and still exploding with deep purple and zebra-striped varieties. This may well be the crowning success of my summer (fall, now?), as I have never been able to get eggplant to really take and produce in years past.

As always, my favorite way to prepare eggplant is to grill them. It never gets old! I like having leftover grilled eggplant so I can make sandwiches or put it on pizza. If you don’t have a grill, you could also saute them. The texture won’t be the same, but with good eggplant it will still be delicious!

With this recipe, I did decide to go a step further and serve it with couscous flavored with pesto, and a fresh tomato white-bean sauce. The results – stellar. Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures of the finished product – either time that I made it. But the fact that it made its way to the table multiple times speaks pretty highly.

Grilled Eggplant with Pesto Couscous and Fresh Tomato White-bean Sauce

4-5 small eggplants

1 cup couscous (prepared with 1 c water)

1-2 tbsp pesto

1 can white beans, rinsed

4-5 tomatoes, cut into chunks (or 1 can diced tomatoes)

1 basil pesto (fully cooked) chicken sausage, sliced (you can use other flavors of chicken sausage, or omit)

Handful of chard, cut into ribbons (optional)

Slice eggplants into 1/4-1/2″ thick slices. Salt and leave out for 10-20 minutes. Blot off the water, and toss with olive oil, salt and pepper. Grill over medium heat, both sides, until done (usually ~5 minutes on each side).

Saute garlic for 30 seconds in olive oil, add the tomatoes and saute until they begin to break up a bit. Add in the sausage, and then add the beans. Season with salt, let simmer for awhile until its the consistency you like (10-20 minutes). If using chard, add in the last 5 minutes.

While the tomatoes are sauteing, add hot water to couscous and let it sit for 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork, and toss with the pesto.

To serve, mound couscous on each plate, add a few eggplant slices, and spoon sauce mixture on top. Serve with goat cheese or parmesan cheese if desired.

This weekend we did the biggest harvest yet! Pounds of potatoes, beets, carrots, eggplant, bell peppers, celery, green beans, and of course, tomatoes. I’d say at least 20-30 pounds of tomatoes, easy. Fortunately, we had lots of friends to share with, so it didn’t go to waste! On Saturday we had a few friends over for dinner, and it was amazing to look at the table and realize that we grew every single thing that we ate. (Okay, maybe not the wine or cheese) Yum!

Our friends Mark and Gina also brought us a “monarch milkweed” plant, in bloom, complete with a swallowtail butterfly caterpillar attached! He’s pretty cute, and still out there munching the leaves.

I decided to slow-roast a big batch of the tomatoes to preserve them. I didn’t want to make a sauce out of the heirlooms, because the flavor is too delicate, so instead I roasted them in the oven for 6 hours at 275, with a few springs of thyme scattered about. They’re in the fridge covered in olive oil, so they’ll keep for ~4 months that way. I also froze some for later use. One of the plants has produced a few 1 lb, 5 oz tomatoes – they’re huge and misshapen and I love them!

Whenever we have people over to the house, we usually send them home with a spaghetti squash from the pile outside. Our favorite way to prepare it is to roast it in the oven, scrape out the fleshy strands with a fork, and top it with a tomato sauce of some kind. Before the tomatoes started ripening up, I would just use a jar of pre-made spaghetti sauce. But I feel immensely guilty doing that with so many ripe tomatoes around now, so I usually make the Spicy Tomato Sauce I featured here.

Spaghetti Squash

Cut in half, scoop out seeds, roast cut side down for 45 minutes at 375. Scoop out the flesh with a fork to form long strands.

Sauce

1 can Diced tomatoes mixed in with 1/2 jar Marinara Sauce (you can also just use one jar of your favorite sauce)

Oregano, Basil, Marjoram – chopped

One bunch Chard, chopped

Chicken Apple Sausage, chopped

Feta or parmesan cheese

Saute sausage until heated and browned, then add chard into sauce pan and heat over medium-high until wilted. Add tomatoes/sauce, heat, and stir in herbs. Remove from heat and serve over spaghetti squash, topped with feta or parmesan cheese.

*If you use the Spicy Tomato Sauce, goat cheese is a great topping!

These last few weeks have just blown by me! I went to a week-long workshop called “the Mind of Mentoring” up north of Santa Cruz, and now we’re already well into September! Over Labor Day weekend, my brother and his family came to visit us. There were two enormous zucchinis in the garden, so we decided to stuff them for dinner one night (my nephew Caleb is in the picture above).

I think this could easily go vegetarian by dropping the meat and just leaving the rice- or you could substitute couscous or quinoa for the rice for a different twist. You could also add in other vegetables – kale, chard, sauteed carrots or eggplant? Lots of room for experimentation!

On another note – remember the last watermelon we picked that was completely not ripe yet? Well – this weekend I checked the watermelon that had been growing, and it had a hole in the side and was bubbling… it was so overripe that it was fermenting in the hot sun! Needless to say- not edible. But right after I cut that one off the plant, a new one has started growing.. so maybe this time we’ll get it right! We also harvested a few honeylopes that are delicious. I had saved the seeds from one I bought at the market last year, so these melons came from those seeds. They’re quite a bit smaller, but still tasted great!

Stuffed Zucchini
2 really large zucchini (ours were 2 and 3 lbs)
1 lb mixture ground beef, pork, or turkey
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
1 can stewed tomatoes (or 1-2 cups tomatoes chopped and sauteed with the meat/onions)
2-3 cups rice, cooked
Handful oregano, thyme
~3/4 cup cheese – we used garlic jack and cheddar

Heat oven to 375. Slice zucchini in half length-wise, scoop out seeds. Put on baking sheet and bake for ~20 minutes or so. Saute ground meat mixture and onion, and drain out any excess oil. Add in tomatoes, cut into pieces, and heat up a bit. Combine in a large bowl with the rice, herbs, and cheese. Spoon into the zucchinis, and grate some extra cheese on top. Bake for another 10-15 minutes, until heated through and cheese is bubbly.

Tonight we went to a Homegrown Tomato contest, and it was great to see the variety of tomatoes that people brought from their gardens. It was very professionally judged by three knowledgeable guys who KNOW tomatoes, and the winners truly were amazing on flavor and aesthetic! No our cherry tomatoes didn’t win anything, but as Matt said – cherry tomatoes generally taste pretty good, its the larger ones that can be a lot harder. We have tons of green tomatoes in the garden, and lots of ripening cherry tomatoes. I can’t WAIT for some of the heirlooms to start coming in!

I did a version of this dish awhile back for my friend Kate – we trade food and sport massages, so I assembled a casserole of polenta, eggplant, zucchini, mozzerella, pesto, and marinara sauce. I didn’t have all those ingredients on hand last week though, so instead I made stacks. And not only were they a great, fast dinner, but a fantastic lunch the next day!

A few weeks ago we pulled all the squash plants out of the garden- they were dying/dead from powdery mildew. So I actually bought squash at the market on Tuesday – four eight-ball zucchinis, two pale and two dark green. They were the perfect diameter of the polenta roll and white eggplants I had. We also had loads of cherry tomatoes, so I whipped up a 20-minute sauce (thanks to my friend Sherri’s recipe, which I had just read the day before on her new blog PhillyFresh). The sauce was really tangy- I think because they were cherry tomatoes instead of something milder. But a layer of goat cheese melted into the sauce beautifully to make it creamy and delicious. I actually think this would be even BETTER with pesto to really bring out the basil flavors, but I didn’t have enough basil growing to make into pesto… so next time!

Grilled Vegetable Polenta Stacks

1 roll of polenta (Trader Joe’s), sliced into 1/4-1/2″ thick rounds

4 eight-ball zucchini, sliced into similar thickness as polenta

2 small-medium white eggplant, sliced into similar thickness as polenta

Goat cheese

Basil leaves, cut or torn into pieces

Olive oil/salt/pepper

Spicy Tomato Sauce:

1 minced garlic clove

1/4 tsp (or less) dried red pepper flakes

4-6 tbsp olive oil

~1 lb cherry tomatoes

1/2 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

Heat the olive oil in a skillet with the garlic and red pepper flakes over medium heat for ~3o seconds. Add the tomatoes, sugar and salt and simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened – 15-20 minutes.

While the sauce simmers, coat the polenta, zucchini and eggplant with olive oil, salt, and pepper (do the polenta separately as its more fragile). Heat the grill and lay the slices over medium-high heat (it might help to brush some olive oil on the grill where the polenta will be to prevent sticking). Turn slices over after 3-4 minutes, grill for another 3-4 minutes until done. Place on a plate for assembly.

Lay a slice of polenta on a dinner plate. Put a slice of zucchini on top, spoon some tomato sauce on, and lay a few crumbles of goat cheese on top. Place a slice of eggplant on top of that, spoon a little more sauce, and top with more goat cheese and some basil. Enjoy!

First of all, I’d like to apologize for taking such a long hiatus from posting. Things just seemed to get really busy – Matt sprained his ankle while climbing (its much better now), coordinating things for my new job, we were in Austin, TX for 5 days for a wedding, then I was trying to catch up once we got back, the garden needed a lot of work, etc. I will do my best to get back to 1x a week though! I also realized I have yet to post a dessert recipe on this blog – which seems odd given that we’re definitely a household of desserts. But I think this one will be a perfect first!

Last summer, we were inspired to plant a plum tree by our friends Zach and Heather. We were lucky enough to indulge in some of their tree’s harvest (several plum crisps worth), and it was so delicious that I decided I wanted a plum tree too! The blossoms came in March/April, and then the little green plums starting showing up – hard to believe that was four months ago. We got a respectable amount of plums for our first harvest – perhaps 30? And they ripened over ~two weeks so I wasn’t too overwhelmed.

I made a few desserts with the plums, although there were never quite enough to make something like a crisp or cobbler. One of the better recipes I found was for a tender cake flecked with orange and topped with plum halves tucked into the batter. The original recipe called for lemon zest, but I only had an orange on hand, which probably made the cake slightly sweeter. Our plums are a little on the tart side, and they got even tarter when cooked, so I think a different variety might be better. This could also probably work with other stone fruits – nectarines, peaches, cherries?

Dimply Plum Cake

1 1/2 cups flour (I used a mix of all purpose and whole wheat pastry flour)

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground cardamom

5 tbsp unsalted butter

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

2 eggs

1/3 cup oil

grated zest of one orange (original recipe calls for lemon zest)

2 tsp vanilla extract

8 plums, halved and pitted

Preheat oven to 350. Butter an 8×8 baking pan flour the bottom and sides, and set aside. Using a hand mixer (or stand mixer if you own one), cream the butter with the brown sugar. Add the eggs, beating well, then the oil, orange zest and vanilla. Reduce speed and add the flour, baking powder, salt, and cardamom, and mix only until just incorporated.

Pour the batter in the prepared dish, smooth top, and arrange the plums on top, cut side up. Bake for about 40 minutes or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean and the top is brown with the plums set well into the cake.

Let cool for at least 15 minutes (the juices of the plums will get sucked back into the fleshy parts of the fruit) before loosening the edges of the cake with a knife and inverting the cake on a baking rack. Return the cake to face up and cool the rest of the way.

Original recipe is from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours

One of the few vegetables I allow myself to buy at the farmer’s market is eggplant. Our plants haven’t really started producing yet (see above picture – I *think* that’s an eggplant bud), and its one of my favorite vegetables! Last week I finally decided to try white eggplant. I don’t know why I was so dubious about it before – but the gal at the market said they were less bitter, much creamier, and if I hadn’t tried them yet I DEFINITELY needed to! And she was so right!! I’ll still buy the purple ones too, or even the zebra-striped, but the white had a noticeably creamier texture to them that I really liked. Its too bad that cooked eggplant isn’t all that photo-friendly – it doesn’t retain its coloring very well. But it is high on taste so I guess that is the more important factor!

I can’t remember how I found this eggplant recipe – probably through Tastespotting, which I regularly peruse for inspiration (and occasionally have submissions accepted!). But this recipe is now destined to be part of my repertoire, because it is easy, requires ingredients I always have, and is versatile for many uses. I made it last week to go with grilled zucchini, tilapia, and basil/parsley flecked couscous. And I made it again the next day (I still had 2 eggplants left) but instead of grilling it, I sauteed it and mixed it with chard, rice, white beans, and feta for a wrap. I’ll include that recipe too!

Honey Garlic Grilled Eggplant

(Original recipe here)

2 small/medium eggplants
1 Tbsp honey
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 minced garlic cloves
1 tsp paprika
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
Salt/pepper

Slice eggplant into ½ inch thick circles. Sprinkle eggplant generously with salt on both sides and lay out on a colander. The eggplant will release a lot of liquid. This will help get rid of bitterness (if any) and make the eggplant more succulent and less watery after it’s cooked. Let sit for 15 minutes, then dry both sides well.

In a large bowl, mix honey, olive oil, garlic, paprika, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper to taste. Dunk both sides of each eggplant slice into this marinade.

Preheat the grill to high. Grab a wad of paper towel with tongs, dip it in oil, and brush it on the grill. Place the eggplant slices on the grill, cover, and turn down the heat to medium. Grill until marked, about 3 minutes. Turn 90 degrees to make cross-hatch grill marks. Grill until marked, about 3 more minutes. Brush the slices with remaining marinade, flip and repeat the grilling procedure on the other side. Regulate heat so that the eggplant is browning, but not burning. Remove to a plate, and drizzle with olive oil.

Eggplant-Chard-White Bean Wrap

1 recipe Honey Garlic Grilled Eggplant (see above)

One bunch chard, central rib removed and torn into smallish pieces

1 Can White Beans, drained

Salt/pepper

3 servings cooked rice (I used a pre-cooked package from Trader Joe’s)

Feta cheese

Whole Wheat Tortillas

Either grill eggplant as above, or slice eggplant into bite-size pieces and saute until nearly done. Add the chard and cook until wilted. Mix in the rice and beans, salt/pepper to taste, and heat until warm. Wrap it up with feta cheese (and some lettuce/tomato too if you’re inclined!)

At that same Tour de France potluck last week, our host Ben made up a great dish consisting of beets, carrots, dill, and Trader Joe’s Harvest Grains Blend (Israeli couscous, baby garbanzo beans, and red quinoa). On Tuesday, as I was roasting up some vegetables from the garden, I decided to use Ben’s dish as a basis for design. I roasted three kinds of beets – Early Wonder (deep red), Golden, and Chiogga (red and white stripes).

I also roasted some carrots and green beans, and cooked up the beet greens. It turned out very colorful and tasty. The red beets bleed into the couscous a bit, so by day three it was quite pink! I also used some dill from the garden, which has started to flower.

On a completely unrelated note, yesterday we picked the first ears of corn! They didn’t quite develop uniformly plump kernels, so we ended up just eating the cobs on the spot without cooking them. I’m pretty sure I’ve never had corn that fresh! (Corn is something else that would go well in the beet couscous.)

Roasted Beet, Carrot and Israeli Couscous

6-8 beets, approx. same size (larger beets should be cut into similar-size pieces)

10 small-medium carrots, cut into similar sized pieces

Beet greens, stalks removed (could also use chard or kale)

Large handful or two green beans, ends snapped off

Olive oil

1/2 package Trader Joe’s Harvest Grains Blend (or 1 cup Israeli couscous, prepared with vegetable broth)

Balsamic vinegar, several splashes

Salt/pepper to taste

Handful dill, chopped

Preheat oven to 400. Toss the beets in olive oil/salt/pepper, then spread them onto a baking sheet. Golf-ball-ish sized beets usually take ~50 minutes. After 15-20 minutes, toss the carrots in olive oil/salt/pepper and add them onto the baking sheet (they usually take ~30 min). When you have 20 minutes left, toss the green beans in olive oil/salt/pepper and add them onto the baking sheet too. Once all vegetables are finished, allow them to cool.

Prepare couscous per directions. Once it is ready, put it into a large bowl. You can use the same saucepan to steam the beet greens – just put a little water in the bottom, add the greens and a lid, and heat over medium heat for a few minutes until they wilt. Drain and chop into small pieces, then add to the couscous.

When the beets are cool enough to handle, slip off the skins. Slice beets and carrots into bite-sized pieces, and slice the green beans in 2-3 pieces. Mix beets and carrots into the couscous mixture, along with a few splashes of balsamic vinegar and the chopped dill. Taste, and add salt/pepper or more balsamic/dill as neessary.

Last week I volunteered at a kids day camp with Wilderness Youth Project. I spent 5 days at Goleta Beach, exploring the beach and slough with 12 6-9 year-olds! It was great to spend so much consistent time with the kids and really see them get more comfortable in the water and with each other, and I think I got just as much out of it as they did! But boy, was I wiped out by the end of the week!

On Friday we went to a hastily-planned potluck to watch the Tour de France, so I needed to throw together a dish quickly.  Because we had a few cucumbers, I quickly sliced them and then coated them with a lemon juice/olive oil/salt mixture – light and refreshing!

Then on to the main course – I found this recipe for “Saffron, Zucchini and Herb Couscous” from the Food Network that seemed simple enough, but with subtle additions to make it interesting. I added swiss chard and garbanzo beans (for a little protein), which made it more filling but not heavy by any means! Like most recipes, I think other vegetables could be easily substituted, and if you don’t have saffron on hand, you could leave it out. I really liked the basil and parsley addition, and I thought the couscous was even better the next day after the flavors had time to meld!

Zucchini-Chard Couscous with Herbs

1 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable broth

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1/4 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp saffron threads

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp unsalted butter

2 zucchini, large dice

1 bunch chard, chopped into ribbons

1 can garbanzo beans, drained

1 1/2 cups whole wheat couscous

1 cup chopped basil leaves

1 cup chopped parsley leaves

Bring the stock to a boil in a small saucepan, and turn off the head. Add the salt, pepper, cumin, and saffron threads and allow to steep for at least 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil and melt the butter in a saute pan. Add the zucchini and cook for 5 minutes, or until lightly browned. Add the chard and cover with a lid until wilted. Turn off heat. Bring the stock just back to a boil. Place the couscous in a large bowl and add the garbanzo beans. Pour the hot stock over them. Cover the bowl tightly with a lid or plastic wrap and allow to stand at room temperature for 15 minutes. Add the zucchini and chard, basil and parsley. Toss with a fork and serve warm or at room temperature.

(original recipe is here)

Last week, Matt and I took off to the Eastern Sierras for a backpacking/rock-climbing adventure at Temple Crag, where we would attempt a 1,500′ climb (~20 pitches) that ended at 13,000 feet. I’ll save you the technical details (unless you really want them!), but the short story is that we backpacked in on Thursday afternoon, left camp at 6am Friday for the climb, successfully made it to the top, and got back to camp ~10pm (thank goodness for headlamps!). Beautiful perfect Sierras weather and views, great rock and climb , and, minus a raging headcold I acquired on the drive up there (oh and some voracious mosquitoes), a fantastic experience!

I’ve always been a little stymied when it comes to backpacking food, because you want to eat well without adding too much weight to your pack (since you have to carry it, and in the Sierras you usually need a bear canister), you don’t have refrigeration, and being smushed in a pack means your food needs to take a little abuse. There are all kinds of freeze-dried, dehydrated, backpacking-specific options out there, but… we like to eat fresh fruit and vegetables. They do take up more space, but once they’re gone your pack is just that much lighter. We pretty consistently take bananas, oranges/apples – and other great vegetable contenders are cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, onions, and if you can protect them, avocados or tomatoes.

We of course had vegetables from the garden, so I took a bag of green/purple beans and some zucchini/yellow squash.  After a quick saute over the backpacking stove, I mixed in a can of tuna and one of those Trader Joe’s pre-cooked multigrain pilafs. Not the best combo in the world, but it would have been a lot more boring without the fresh veggies! Pasta, rice or couscous would also work well – I like couscous because it cooks so quickly. Anyone else have suggestions?

Since this isn’t a recipe post, persay, I thought I’d share some photos from the garden. We took out the yellow squash plants this week because they were all covered in powdery mildew (kind of a relief – I was getting tired of yellow squash!). We did a fairly large harvest on Sunday since we’d been gone for a few days on our adventure. We got our first cucumbers, and the green beans have been coming in fast and furious!

The plums are starting to ripen up for eating, and the strawberry plants perked up again with a new crop. The two peaches on our tree were ripe today so I will be enjoying those in the morning!  One of my favorite things to watch is the watermelon plant – in just a week it went from the size of a marble to softball size!