Monday, July 16, 2018

Zig-Zag Log Cabin & Redneck Mulch (with Zucchini Report #1)

This quilt has all the appearance of a Rail Fence, but it's actually made from Log Cabin blocks.

Quilted with a simple leaf design in a gorgeous turquoise thread.  Yum.

THE GARDEN
I have a love/love relationship with my summer garden.  I have a love/hate relationship with weeding. 
I kind of like weeding in the spring when I've been cooped up in the house all winter.  I love the smell of dirt, and the different fragrances from vegetation.  By now though, two and a half months in, I am pretty darned sick of weeding, and my elbow is killing me.  Why do they call it Tennis Elbow when in my case it clearly has nothing to do with a lah-di-dah leisure activity?
That will explain my dependence on what I like to call Redneck Mulch.  It's just several layers of newspaper, topped with grass clippings.  A few weeds are pretty determined and will poke out through the joins, where they might actually get a bit of light.  But they pull out sooo easily.  AND they are very sparse.  Where I do still need to pay some attention is right around the stem of whatever veggie is growing, since there is a substantially larger opening there.  The weeds take advantage of that.  (Ignore the Timmies cups.  Those were the 'pots' I used for the tomato seedlings, and the variety is written on the side of the cup.)

Tomatoes:  This year I planted 8 Romas, 4 PF Hybrid, 4 Big Beef, and 3 Sweet 100.  I will pick my first Sw. 100 in a few days, I think - one is partly red.

Every year, some of the potatoes that we missed when we were digging in the fall manage to overwinter and sprout.  I transplanted the first 5 volunteers into the proper potato patch (say that three times, fast. 😀) but the rest I've just left to grow where they sprouted.  There's at least 10 plants now.

Today I noticed there are peppers on the pepper plants.  Yay!  The beans didn't amount to a hill of beans (groan) so I had to replant them.  It'll be another month at least before I get any beans.  The stuff with white flowers that you're seeing in most of these pics is Cilantro.  Another volunteer which is just as invasive as dill.  Although I love cilantro, so it's ok.  I leave some to go to seed, then whiz the seeds in the (clean) coffee grinder for Coriander spice.

We planted three different varieties of potatoes - an early, a mid season, and a late.  So far DH has dug enough from the 'earlies' for boiled potatoes with butter (OMG, sooo good), AND a potato salad.

The asparagus is resting now until next spring, just building energy so it can feed me again.  In the photo it looks kind of white - that's from our well water.  Disgusting stuff, but there's been no rain to speak of for quite some time.  The county has a burn ban posted, and the Grand River Watershed has requested a 10% reduction in water use.

And now, what you've all been waiting for...
THE ZUCCHINI REPORT

Picked this week:  16
Picked YTD:          16
Gave away:            10
DH was horrified the day I showed him my basket with SEVEN zucchinis.  He must have a horseshoe up his butt though - a customer that day was happy to take all seven off my hands.
In other humourous Zucchini News, the newsletter editor for one of my guilds asked me if I had any zucchini recipes I could share for the newsletter.  Hahahahahaha.... I have a million recipes.
And in MORE humourous Zucchini News, my nephew (the foodie) posted on his Instagram page a clip of him making stuffed zucchini blossoms.  I had to resort to that a few years ago when I had so much zucchini I thought DH was going to leave home.  And in today's newspaper there is a recipe featuring stuffed zucchini blossoms.  I guess that's going to the the summer's hot food item.

2 comments:

  1. Love the zucchini report - and your husband's reaction! Made me laugh anyway. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. DH is in luck with u on trend...this weeks fortino's ad has blossoms $4.99 for 20g....plus recipe....Marie

    ReplyDelete

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