Pea-picking time

It must be time to starting picking these sugar snap peas...if for no reason other than they are now escaping from the garden!

Sugar Snap Peas

Somewhere inside all those vines is a pea tower, with the strings for the peas to grow up. When I first planted them, I was afraid of the deer or the bunnies coming along and snacking on the very tender pea shoots, so I put fencing around them to give them a change to grow. As they grew, some of the peas actually started climbing on the fence instead so I never took it down.  I think the fence was holding them up towards the end.

Wednesday, I picked my first batch to have for dinner.

First picking of peas

There were more that were ready to pick but I left them for another day to keep fresh.  I will probably only be able to do that for another couple of days though, I don't want them to get past their prime.

Anyway, my favorite way to eat sugar snap peas, other than raw right off the plant, is very lightly stir fried.  So for Wednesday's dinner, I had some carrots, red onions, asparagus from my farmers market, and baby yellow squash, also from my farmers market.  I also had a little broccoli and some sirloin steak, but less colorful so didn't make the picture!

Stir-fry veggies

For the stir fry sauce, I used the Pioneer Woman's recipe for stir-fried veggies: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/veggie-stir-fry/

It was pretty tasty.  It also helped me figure out how to scale this down to be just enough for 2 people - this was actually enough for 3 people since I put it over rice..

Stir fry

Last night, since I was by myself for dinner, I decide to stir fry some more peas.  For this one, I didn't use a recipe.  I just stir fried some peas and shrimp with garlic and tossed it over home made lemon pepper pasta that I got from the Wednesday farmers market.  A sprinkle of parm on top and this was amazing!!!

And since I cooked up the whole pound of pasta, I might even do this again tonight!

Shrimp and Sugar Snap Pea Pasta Stir-fry

And the Battle begins

Sometimes having a garden seems like a season-long battle. Battle against weeds, battle against animals, battle for my time....

I have taken steps to win the battle for my time but the weeds and the animals....well, they are quite persistent.  This morning, when I made my usual visit to the garden, I discovered this:

First Casualty

I'm not sure what did this, or even how it was done. I would think if it was a bunny, he would have nibbled on the little seedling.  It almost looks like something was passing through and stepped on it.  Or, even more worrisome, a mole who might have eaten just the root.

I do have some repellent spray that I bought this year so once today's rain is over, I will try treating them.  For now, I put a cage over 3 of the other zucchini's to try to identify if the attack came from above or below.

And, of course, since it is so early in the season, and I have many seeds left over, I replanted in this spot.  You can never have too much zucchini...oh wait, maybe you can...

On a better note, I am thinking that in a day or 2, I will be ready to start to pick my sugar snap peas. I planted these guys on March 22 and expected to be harvesting a week or so ago.  But we had such a cold and wet spring, they sat in the ground for quite some time...little tiny sprouts that refused to do much of anything.  They are a couple of weeks behind, but welcome nonetheless!!

Sugar Snap Peas

Finally, and somewhat surprisingly, 9 of my butternut squash seeds have already sprouted.  Most of the squashes, both summer and winter, have already started with their first set of real leaves as well.  I guess the really hot weather last week did a good job of warming the soil, and the last few days of spotty rain added the needed moisture.  It is amazing to me the changes I can see each day.

Now to stand guard over all these new plants.

Butternut Squash

Garden 2016

The last time I posted to this blog was in 2010.  Yep, 6 full years ago.  So, clearly I don't really have time to blog, or enough desire, or who knows what else.  So, why start again now?

The primary reason is really to allow my family to check on the status of my garden this year.  Now, I don't actually think anyone cares about it except me.  In fact, I think everyone would be quite happy with a weekly or biweekly status that said things were growing fine.  However, in the rare event that anyone develops a strong desire to see just what IS growing in Lucketts - and to keep me from filling up email boxes in several states with pictures - I thought I would just post pictures here.

A secondary reason, surprisingly, was that when I resurrected this blog, I found that I actually enjoyed looking back on my garden attempts of the past.  So even if no one else looks at it, I suspect I will get enjoyment in October looking back on how the garden progressed this year.

And finally, the main reason - although not the only reason -  my gardening efforts failed in years past was the presence of an extremely all-consuming job.  That job has moved to the back seat in 2016 making me optimistic about the long term prospects of this garden!

So, let's get started.

As of Memorial Day 2016, all the beds had been cleared and planted.  This week, the very beginning of June, everything except the butternut squash has sprouted.

Garden 2016

This is my herb bed.  All of these plants came as seedlings.  I have parsley, cilantro, basil, chives, rosemary, sage, oregano and thyme.  Pretty much all the herbs I usually cook with.

Herb bed

The tomato cages have cucumbers planted on all 4 sides.  I am going to try to grow them up the cages to save garden space.  The other half of the bed has zucchini.  I know, I know, 5 zucchini plants is too many and I will be drowning in zucchini....but I do have my handy dandy spiralizer and last year we ate A LOT of zucchini.  And I can always make and freeze zucchini bread if I have to.

Cukes and Zukes

This bed has 2 cherry tomatoes and one brandwine tomato plant, also seedlings.  There is one jalapeno plant and one poblano plant.  Also, a random, last minute spontaneous purchase - 3 green bean plants.  Not sure if 3 plants will provide enough beans to make it worth it but they seem really happy in this spot!

Tomatoes, peppers and beans

And finally, this bed has spaghetti squash.  All together is has 16 plants (from seed).  That does seem like a lot but they can be stored in the basement for quite a while - in fact, long enough for me to forget that they are there!  And spaghetti squash is one of our favorite, very quick dinners.

Spaghetti squash

There are 2 more packs of seeds coming in the mail, but for now, the garden is off to a good start!!!