First Yield

Having a mini-farm and still having to buy produce at the farmers market is irritating, but it's too hard to bring myself to eat food that isn't fresh this time of year.  My local farmers market surprised me on Friday with the most fragrant strawberries -- I could smell them wafting from 20 feet away.  So I bought them.  As well as meat and tomatoes and some fine looking zucchinis.  At home I made this low-carb feast that had me full to the tip top and singing the praises of the zucchinis.

That's a salad from my lettuce!  My lettuce!  THIS lettuce!

And a grass-fed burger with egg and cheese on top.  But the highlight of the meal was the zucchini.  I sliced them into medallions, put them on a baking sheet, added a can of organic diced tomatoes with juice, and grated fontinella cheese and a light sprinkling of feta on top, baked at 375º for about 45 minutes, and the result was quite possibly one of the best things I've ever put in my mouth.  I cannot wait for more zucchinis!  I'm going to make this every week until I run myself out of zucchinis!

Bring it, baby!  Bring me some zucchinis!

The broccoli, too, is almost ready to be harvested.  YAY!

There are a couple pumpkins coming up from the seeds I shoved in the dirt in desperation.  I'm not too hopeful.  No watermelons showed up.  A few peas have popped out of the dirt from seed, and I think two green beans.  No nasturtiums.  Not the heaps of results I hoped for, but I'm pushing it for time at this point.  My sunflowers are starting to peek up, as are the wildflowers.  The onions that came up are doing awesomely, but not even half came up.

Transplant-wise, the few things that made it from the house to the soil are doing okay.  Marigolds are starting to bloom, which I was hoping for because everyone is complaining about rabbits eating their veggies right now and I (knock on wood) have not experienced any critters yet.  A couple of the tomatoes and peppers are doing okay, but they're so far behind I don't know if they'll yield anything.  This makes me angry, but I'm breathing deep and encouraging them to c'mon up, enjoy what life they will have.  The lupine made it.  That's rather amazing to me, particularly given what I've learned about their extremely deep root system and now I'll have three squares of lupine in my garden forever.  Pretty cool.

Last week we had a couple days of rain, kept me out of the garden, but when it stopped my garden was full of weeds.

I'd been waiting for the seedlings to come up before I mulched, but with this many weeds I had no choice but to pluck and protect.  It took a couple days and I'm still working with certain sections, but I got it mostly mulched and it's doing better.  My back is the color of walnut from being out in the sun bent over so much.  I think this must be how my ancestors looked and it makes me happy.

Tonight may be the night I go home and have broccoli and a salad from the yard, and some chicken from the store.  One day we'll be able to have chickens too, and I'll be one happy girl when that happens.