Gifts From a Not So Great Garden

Our garden was incredibly sad this year. INCREDIBLY!  From seeds not sprouting, to not enough rain, to deer and raccoon, to lack of attention, and on and on.  Anyway. . . Incredibly. Sad. Garden.  The good news is, we are getting some gifts from said garden, I suppose it is trying to redeem itself, or beg us to not give up on it.

One of the things I really wanted from the garden this year was for all of my salsa fixin's to be ready at the same time.  Jalapeños are doing awesome, green onions this year are doing spectacular, but tomatoes and cilantro - not so much.  Cilantro is one of the items that I kept re-planting and it just would not sprout.  After about three or four rounds of planting and waiting I got maybe 5 or 6 plants.  So I used some and I just let some go.  Now, I am just waiting on the coriander to be ready, then I can use some of that and keep the seeds for next year and through the winter.  A little gift from the garden.


Cilantro blossoms.

Cilantro Seeds/Coriander

The bumble bees are loving the flowers right now.

Another gift from the garden is the one thing I could not find this year.  Tomatillos.  J. loves his green salsa.  Last year we had a bumper crop of them.  This year I was never at the right nursery at the right time.  But leave the garden alone for a week or two and it gives you a lovely little present wrapped in green crepe paper!


Tomatillo

Green Onions!

It is also giving us lovely little things to look at.  Like grape vines that look like little green snakes.

I know I am so far behind.  I promise I will catch up.  School is starting soon so life will slow down a tiny notch or two for me.  Stay tuned for what we have been busy with this past month!

Beautiful, Busy Day

Have I mentioned our green bean issue?  Yes, I know - but really, it is crazy the amount of green beans we have picked and the plants are just getting started.  Monday we picked a 7 gallon bucket FULL of them.  So yesterday we headed over to our local canning expert (a.k.a. Aunt Carol) and got to work.  We washed, cut, canned, and pressure cooked for hours.  All told we canned 9 1/2 quarts of green beans.  Tomorrow, we get to start all over again - yeay us!

I also froze some corn yesterday.  And of course we ate some for dinner.  Sooooo yummy that fresh corn is!  Dad also went with a couple of brothers tonight to a farm in Stanton where the farmer lets people pick for free.  Yes FREE!  He walked in the door and I said how much work did you bring home for me.  His reply?  "Lots"  and he was not kidding.  Three 5-gallon buckets full of corn.  Ugh!  So tomorrow A. and I will be busy with green beans AND corn.  I shouldn't complain.  We will be eating good this winter.

Today we went and picked up the green beans and dropped off a couple of worker bees to help Aunt Carol and Uncle Larry.  Then Z. and I headed home for chores of our own.  Top of my list was tackling the $5 bookcase I picked up at a yard sale.  I will be posting picks of that tomorrow.

On the way home Zack and I stopped at the Winchester Dam to checkout these massive mushrooms and the plentiful flowers.

These mushroom were really big and they grew in a large circle.  Pretty awesome until Z. decided that they would make great footballs.  Boys!!!

These pretty little flowers are growing all over the place, along the edges of the roads and out in the fiels.  Can you spot the two creatures feasting on its bounty?

Funny thing about these little wildflowers.  I stopped and snapped a picture because these little blue flowers are so pretty.  They bloomed once and then disappeared and I was so disappointed that I missed them.  But they came back.  I stopped along the road on the way home in front of this house where a lot of them were growing.  Didn't think much about it until I drove back by that same house a few hours later and they had come out and mowed them all down.  I hope they didn't think I was taking photos to report them.  Ooops.

And the latest and greatest from the garden.  The tomatillo plants are going crazy but we have only gotten a couple of tomatillos to date.  They are getting close though.  Today I pulled these little beauties off.  I guess J. can get a tiny little bowl of his green salsa he has been anxiously awaiting.

It has been a beautiful, busy day and we all got a lot accomplished.  Yeay for all of us.  Boo for having to get up and start all over again tomorrow.  Bring on the blizzards this winter so we have an excuse to sit around a fire with a mug of hot cocoa!