Gardening Gaffes…and Triumphs

My garden is breaking my heart. At least, the squash borers are.

At first, all was well- my babies were growing big and strong, and I had big dreams-dreams of boxes of zucchini, pumpkins in fall, and all sorts of bounty, all grown on my front lawn. Then, after all this rain, it seemed the stems started rotting on all my squash plants- and after getting only one or two beautiful zucchinis. Smelling mildew and suspecting fungus, I sprayed those puppies with a milk spray(yes, milk is a recognized organic anti-fungal) every day-to no avail. Today, I got the news-it’s not a fungus, but a bug. Bleah.

While the future looks bleak for what are supposed to be the easiest crops to grow, we did eat our first garden-grown cucumber tonight, as a salad that John made on the fly.Yes, it was good-so good we ate it without taking pictures. But here is the cuke as of yesterday, in all its glory on the stem:

OK, and I’ll give you the ridiculously easy recipe for it. We’ll call it:

John’s Sort-of-Asian Spicy Hot Cuke Salad

1 cucumber, washed and sliced
1 cup of chopped hot vinegar peppers (in the jar)
1/4 cup of the same pepper juice
2 Tbsp. of Toasted Sesame Oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Toss all ingredients together and let sit for at least 15 minutes to blend. Enjoy!

Of course, we have been getting green beans, sweet and crisp. Note to self: plant more next year so you get more than a handful at a time.

Still waiting on the tomatoes with great anticipation…some of the smaller ones are just ripening, and visions of tomatoes and mozzarella are dancing in my head.

I got a bit impatient and pulled some of my onions- they were mostly greens with very little bulb. I can’t tell if they just need to grow more or they have too much nitrogen in the soil. No matter- they may be small, but they taste SO awesome freshly dug, washed, and cut up for a salad or tossed into a saute.

Not enough of my carrots sprouted, so I didn’t “thin” them (rip out some sprouts) in order to space them out as garden guides recommend. No, I was crazy enough to dig them up and transplant them around the bed like an obsessed madwoman. In 100+ degree heat I might add. But you know, some of them just might make it…

And here are some tiny, baby watermelon, I can’t believe how cute they are…

Oh, and I’ve got herbs, herbs, herbs, coming out my ears. I love herbs, they’re really weeds and hard to kill. I can’t help but feel so culinarily sophisticated tromping out to my garden to snip off a few whenever I need them for a dish.

All in all, I’m still glad we decided to eat our lawn. Even if I have to share it with devil spawn-ahem-I mean squash bugs.

-Lisa