morning harvest

Our garden has been loving the hot weather - the tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, and pattypan are very happy. The snap peas have gone by and the green beans are just starting to flower. The garlic is trying its best to dry despite this very, very humid weather we've been having here in NH. The Brussels sprouts were attacked overnight all at once by cabbage worms, and we had to pull the plants - they were decimated (it was a sad moment, yanking those plants up!!). And this morning we picked our first ever yellow crookneck squash, along with the cukes and tomatoes in the photo. We even have a couple little tiny pumpkins on the vine. I don't know if it's too late in the season for them to mature into pick-able fruit, but it's pretty nifty to see them out there trying their best (we've never had success growing pumpkins before, so this is the closest we've come yet to our own little pumpkin patch in the back yard). Happy day!

mo-pug moments

Mo-Pug loves an afternoon nap on the couch -

And her head gets VERY heavy sometimes... good thing she doesn't have to hold it up all on her own!!

monday at the farmers' market

Our squash and cucumber plants in the garden continue to grow and grow - but we have nothing to pick (yet!!). So we headed off to the Durham Farmers' Market this afternoon, where we found treats like these in abundant supply! Yellow squash, zucchini, pattypan squash, cucumbers, green squash... all good!!

When we came home though, I realized we needed garlic to make our pattypan squash casserole - so out into the garden went my son, and in he came with this. Fresh garlic, straight from the backyard raised beds! He was so proud that he helped grow something so wonderful - this is the first bulb we've picked this year (we'll let the rest continue to grow for a few weeks more so they'll be even larger when we harvest, unless we need a couple more for cooking first!). Gardening with kids is definitely rewarding, educational, and wonderful all at the same time!

One more photo to share - speaking of fabulous market treats, this weekend we came across the first new potatoes we'd seen this year at another local market. Roasted new potatoes and local chicken - last night's dinner was a yummy one!!

barrington open farm day

Today we headed to Barrington, NH for Open Farm Day. There's no way I can resist an opportunity to go and see alpacas!!

First we headed to Profile Alpacas - what a beautiful place! They had chickens strutting about -

And adorable Nigerian Dwarf Goats -

And what had to be the world's friendliest llama. He came running over to the fence when we approached, and stood with us for as long as we'd keep rubbing his head and ears. We'd stop - he'd walk away. We'd hold our hand out - he'd come over for more rubs. He even put his head down low so my 7 year old could reach his nose (did I get a picture of that?? No - but trust me, it was a precious moment!!).

Of course they had alpacas too - but the fences were high, so I didn't get any photos except some that were through the bars. No worries though - because the alpacas over at Sallie's Fen were more than happy to have their photo taken -

And one of them in particular, like the friendly llama at Profile, really liked having his head rubbed!! Alpacas are just the sweetest animal - so gentle, and so curious. And when they're happy, they hum. Adorable!!

While we were enjoying the alpacas, we noticed the unusual mulch in the garden at Sallie's Fen - leftover alpaca fiber. Now that makes for an awesome and interesting looking garden!!

It was a great time - I'm already looking forward to next year's Farm Day!

cucurbits gone crazy

I had a little trouble deciding the title of this post.
Sea of Squash came to mind. Or Why I Will Never be Without Rabbits Again.
But then my 7 year old said, on his way in from the back yard where he had been picking snap peas (47 snap peas to be exact - not that he was counting...), "Mom, the cucurbits are going crazy out there!" and I decided that definitely described exactly the situation in our garden. Our cucurbits (that would be our squash and our cucumbers) are definitely growing like nothing I've ever seen in our particular little raised bed gardens!!

This is just some of our squash, with a few cucumber plants mixed in. We never expected them to grow like this - if we had, we'd have planted them with a little more space between! The pattypan (far right) were put in as small seedlings, but the rest were grown from seed sown directly outdoors (we tried starting seeds indoors last year, and our plants all died when we transferred them outdoors - so we didn't try again this year).

I took this photo to try to show how large the leaves are growing - we've taken to calling the plants "prehistoric squash" on account of the leaves reminding us of dinosaur footprints (and on account of it looking like a jungle out there!).

Best of all, here come the baby pattypan squash - once the flowers open and are pollinated by all the bees that are flying around out there, the baby squash will start growing bigger - and soon I'll be having pattypan squash casserole... yum!!

So, why all the excitement over these giant-sized cucurbit plants?? Well, last year, we grew pattypan squash and we had an okay yield, but the plants grew to maybe half the size they are out there now. And our zucchini plants were very small last year, only yielding a handful of baby zucchini before withering away to nothing. Our cucumbers? Oh goodness - they failed miserably.

Over the weekend we were talking about what we'd done differently this year, and the answer is clear - rabbit poop. We've never purchased fertilizers or "inputs" for our gardens, and in the past we've instead used homemade compost (from lawn and garden scraps thrown together to rot in an outdoor composter) and worm compost. These are all good things - but this year we added lots of composted rabbit manure, as well as some non-composted manure (which will continue to break down and feed the garden throughout the summer) to the raised beds. And now, after reading and reading over the last few years about how animals are magical in what they can do for a garden (manure is your friend!!), I've seen the difference with my own eyes in terms of the size and color and health of our plants this year compared to last, and I'm amazed. Indeed, I will never be without rabbits again!!

garlic scape pesto

I've been talking a lot about garlic scapes lately, and wanted to share the recipe (it's a simple one!) for one of my favorite Spring treats - garlic scape pesto. The pesto we made this week had scapes from our own garden, as well as from two local farms, and was made starting with the recipe below and then adjusted for taste (we used less oil and more garlic scapes than the recipe calls for). I enjoy the pesto on toasted homemade bread, crackers, and sometimes pasta. It freezes well, so don't worry about making too much - just throw it in the freezer and continue to enjoy even once garlic scape season has passed!

Garlic Scape Pesto

1/4 lb garlic scapes, cut into pieces
1 cup grated Parmesan
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 cup olive oil
salt

Place garlic scapes and olive oil in food processor, and puree until smooth. Stir in Parmesan and lemon juice, and season to taste.

That's all there is to it! Some people add pine nuts, walnuts, etc. just like with basil pesto - but I like it with just the Parmesan and lemon juice. Whatever suits your taste, go for it and enjoy!!

yard sale treasures and farmers' market fun

The Newmarket, NH farmers' market began its summer season today, and we of course had to go and get garlic scapes (thank you, Wild Miller Gardens!) and broccoli (thank you, Hollister Family Farm!). We'll be making more garlic scape pesto this evening, which is a good thing since I finished our first batch on toast with breakfast this morning... yum!! There were all sorts of other treasures there at the Market too - from meat and eggs to soup and seedlings, they had it all covered! The new location for the market is perfect - it's just next to the Stone Church, instead of in the Stone Church parking lot. This leaves more space for parking - always a good thing for such a busy little market!!

On the way to the market, we stopped at a couple yard sales. I was excited to find a cute cement planter for $1.00 -

And a play-yard that will work just perfectly for Mr Luke so that he and Yoda can be outside hopping about at the same time (they can't share a pen, as they squabble when they get together). Although I'm not excited about bringing too much plastic into the house, I think this play yard was well worth the $5 we paid for it - and I figure if we use it, it doesn't end up in the landfill!

Luke and Yoda were of course more than happy to try out their pens this afternoon...

Our final find for today was a fabulous food mill in near-new condition (the man selling it asked us what it was when we bought it - he said he found it in his mother's closet and had no idea - so he threw it in the 50 cent pile and figured someone would take it home... that'd be us!). It'll be perfect for making tamales from scratch, which my husband likes to do a couple times each year. And since making tamales from scratch means grinding corn, and last time we were grinding corn we burned out our blender (oops!!!) this food mill should make for more physical labor in the cooking process, but less reliance on modern appliances that aren't always up to old-fashioned jobs!!

Hope you're having a great weekend too!!