Squash Out the Wazoo

I love that our garden is giving us an abundance of produce but, let’s face it, it can be pretty boring eating the same ol’ veggies all the time.  I finally decided to blanch and freeze some of it before it went bad, but I also don’t want to be limited to a specific way of preparing them since they can get mushy once frozen. 

It seems I was in the same quandry last year, and sure enough, I had bookmarked a whole bunch of ideas for using up Summer squash and zucchini.  I thought I’d share just in case some of you are looking for some fresh ideas…

For the Love of Cooking’s Vegetable Tian

Curious Country Cook’s Zucchini Tots

Kayotic Kitchen’s Stuffed Zucchini

Cooking.com’s Oven-Fried Zucchini Sticks

Etsy’s Spicy Zucchini Pickles

Martha Stewart’s Zucchini-Scallion Fritters

Cooking With My Kid’s Squash Blossom Quesadillas

Lick the Bowl Good’s Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Simple Bite’s Wheat Zucchini Bread with Cinnamon & Dark Chocolate Chunks

What are some of your favorite ways to prepare squash? 

Expanding the Garden

I love the idea of being self-sustaining – growing and raising our own food, living off the land so we’re eating the freshest, healthiest foods and not answering to someone else’s standard of living.  We’re still contemplating raising chickens, maybe even goats for milk one day, but we’re not ready for that yet.  Baby steps. 

Last year we had three raised beds, and while we thoroughly enjoyed the resulting crops, we didn’t get enough to put any produce away.  We pretty much ate it as it ripened, although we did give some of it away here and there. 

This year Phil built five more raised beds making two rows of four; though I believe he really just wanted to borrow his friend’s backhoe as an excuse to play around and tear up the yard.  The kiddos drove around with him in that thing for over an hour! 

Our side yard looks completely different now.  A big tree was cut down, a side garden uprooted and transplanted (we haven’t really committed to flower gardens yet since we know we’re not done with the yard), and the beds added.  The kiddos were a big help raking the dirt.

 

There are always folks around here with manure for the taking so we scored a load and got to work mixing it in with the soil.  As you can see, Josiah is Daddy’s Big Helper.  I had to laugh when I saw the two of them; apparently, Phil had taken off his shirt while he was working and Josiah promptly followed suit. 

 

Another trip to get some free (I love free!) mulch and we filled in the ground between the beds. 

One day last month Phil told me we should be able to start planting soon.  Not two days later he said we’d better hurry up, his mother already had her garden planted!  I didn’t realize it was a competition. :)  So he got his butt in gear, printed out a planting schedule, and we got to work with a first planting of spinach, lettuce and peas. 

On the left you can see the beginnings of what is now our new compost pile and on the right is our camper, next to which we have a nice section of rhubarb, complements of my grandmother’s old garden.  The kids were very excited to help plant the seeds and bulbs and it provides such a great learning experience for them.

 

 

Whenever I tell them we’re eating fresh food from our garden, it’s one of the best feelings in the world.  And when we ate the first of the asparagus – ohmigoodness, the stuff in the stores just doesn’t compare!  I swear all vegetables are sweet when freshly picked.  I can’t wait to try bacon-wrapped asparagus…

 

Poking their heads up we’ve got the asparagus, two types of lettuce, spinach and peas.  This year we also hope to have tomatoes (a couple different kinds – I think plum and some sort of hot for salsa), squash (summer, butternut and zucchini), peppers, potatoes, onions and garlic.  After last year’s carrots I’m not too keen on growing them again, but Phil said we might as well try.  I feel the same way about broccoli. 

My sister-in-law gave me Canning for a New Generation for my birthday last year and I’m excited to try some of the recipes.  I’m already looking forward to filling in the fruit gaps picking peaches and blueberries this summer, too.

The Garden Experiment

In the past Phil and I have done a tiny garden, tomatoes in a pot, container herbs… but this year is the Garden Experiment.  We decided to build three raised beds with a variety of vegetables (mostly from seed) and see how they fare. 

 
 

The kids quickly decided this was their new playground/sandbox.  What fun it was trying to keep ‘em out once we actually planted seeds.  Especially Josiah, whose main goal in life is to get as dirty as possible. 

 

Phil rigged some metal fencing as climbing posts for the eventual squash plants – but the kiddos saw its true potential.  They love tunnels.  A good ol’ cushion and blanket tunnel will keep them happily occupied while I do the laundry.  Or the dishes. 

Now I don’t have much of a green thumb, so just getting green shoots to come out of the ground is sweet victory to me. 

Sweet Victory…

 

Early on we enjoyed spinach and lettuce greens, and a couple weeks ago I was thrilled to notice some peas ready for the pickin’.  I hadn’t noticed them because they blend right into the greenery or hide behind the leaves.   

 
 

We enjoyed them straight from the vine, and I’m afraid the plant has since been picked clean. We love fresh peas!  I excitedly started checking the other plants, and found a whole slew of baby veggies which are getting bigger and bigger each day.  Just like the kiddos! *sniff sniff*  Many of the veggies have beautiful flowers that bloom before the veggies grow, and I love the little curly vines that – which just a little coaxing – hang onto the trellis for support. 

 
 
 

I’ve been very anxious at the state of my rainbow carrots, but every time I take a peek underneath the soil they’re still so tiny, despite a plethora of carrot greens growing above-ground.  We finally decided to thin them out yesterday so they would have more room to grow.  Some of them are so small, they can’t even be considered baby carrots.  I call them fetal carrots.  So sad, I hope they survive.  We did find one good-sized, beautiful red carrot.  It was delicious, but I was disappointed that the inside is orange like a traditional carrot.

 

In addition to the greens and peas, we’ve also picked some beans, potatoes, and onions.  It feels so good to be grow food from seed, take care of it, and enjoy its bounty.  Talk about health food!  I try to imagine what it was like when living off the land was the norm for people. 

So far, the verdict is that we need more garden space, so we’ll probably add three to four more raised beds next year.  This is a learning process for me, from deciding what, when, and how to plant, to taking care of the plants and deciding how to harvest them (pick from the bottom, top, pinch off the top before it flowers?).  In the beginning I was picking the spinach and lettuce while still small, but decided to leave them alone for a while and see if they thrived.  Now, the spinach is tall but I’m not sure how much more I’ll get from it and the lettuce is in abundance, but the bigger it gets the more bitter it tastes.  I need to find a happy medium!

I’m excited see what ripens next.  Besides adding fresh produce to our meals, I hope to try some new recipes for canning and freezing.  Put ‘em Up!, a canning and preserving book I got from the library, has some excellent ideas that I hope to try - including rhubarb pickles, of all things.  I’ll probably end up making salsa, ketchup, and sauce with the tomatoes, and pickles from the cukes.  And I’m dying to try zucchini relish, but need to get the recipe from a friend.  Do you have any favorite canning/preserving recipes?  Do share.  

While I was in the yard yesterday, I happened upon this butterfly enjoying the flower gardens.