Walkabout As My Veg Grows

Posted on May 23, 2014 by Our Growing Paynes

I get so excited when our garden comes alive and the blooms burst forth. There is satisfaction to see the veg we plant flourish, especially the seeds we plant as there is always some breath holding until they poke up through the soil. For the most part our garden is doing well. The only issue is our tomatoes went into a bit of a shock because even though I kept an eye out on the nightly temps in the weather reports, the reports were wrong and it got much colder than it was supposed to. It looks like most of them will recover as I really prepped the soil with nutrients but I will have to switch out some with the leftover plants we still have in the greenhouse. It is hard not to worry over them like a mother hen.

Walk with me through our garden…

Our black beans are half an experiment this year as half of the beans that we planted were from beans we harvested. So far so good!

Good old Brussels Sprouts. Once these are ready to harvest I have a few recipes to try for my husband.

I always look forward to the pea flowers. So delicate.

I was beginning to wonder when the potatoes were going to poke through but they finally did and they are growing strong. We just picked one kind this year and gave each bit more space to see if we get a bigger harvest.

These did very well this year. Usually we lose about half of the seedlings but fingers crossed most will keep going. Which will be great for our homemade stock.

I think something has been nibbling the tips of our onions as there are quite a few that are suspiciously flat topped. I’ll have to keep an eye on them. Haven’t seen any telltale footprints though.

This flower is so aptly named. Jumps up everywhere but it is pretty and edible so I let it.

We find the strawberry plants everywhere and we dig them up and put them back in the strawberry patch. A bit like herding cats…

I think these are ready to start cutting and make some crumble or tarts. Which will make our son very happy.

The weather needs to clear as we have a boatload more pepper plants to get into the ground.

Life is good. 🙂

As the days get shorter….

Posted on October 1, 2013 by Our Growing Paynes

When autumn arrives it is so striking how quickly night falls. I wish we could hold onto the longer days with the cooler crisp weather. Instead it is time to start saying goodbye to the garden and get it ready for winter. We were lucky this past weekend, the weather was absolutely perfect. We had a number of tasks to complete but it makes it easier with the warmth of the sun.

We needed to clear out the tomato beds. Given the blight that is prevalent in the area we can’t compost the plants. It seems like such a waste but we have to bag them and bring them to the dump. Each year we get some but we’re getting better at combating the blight.

Those tomato cages can be quite flimsy and bend easily but man some of them did not want to come out of the ground. I was hauling off on them like I was trying to pull up a tree root!

We did one round of peas this year but a few strays tried to give it another go in the bed. If your season is mild enough you can get two harvests but by the time the plants grow large enough our winter gives them what for and we don’t have much luck.

As we had already harvested the black beans we had the kids clear out the bed. Except the one lone kale. Have no idea where that came from! That bed has never had kale planted in it. But up it grew anyway.

The butterfly weed is going to seed. Wonder where it will pop up next year. I generally let it spread as it has such a pretty orange bloom.

Our hops are taking over their little area. We really need to transplant them to the back corner of our garden and let it just go crazy. The poor trellis is crying uncle at this point.

I’m convinced the pepper plants don’t realise it’s autumn! They are still going strong. I’ll have to cart a bunch to the community kitchen as our freezer is quite full and there is only a little space for some frozen peppers. The leaves aren’t as green but there is a bounty of hot peppers.

It will soon be the Brussels Sprouts turn to shine. All they need is a good frost. Though this is the only plant that produced decent sized sprouts. The other 4 grew pea sized ones. Usually they do so well.

It’s time for our bushes to turn colour. I love the red that the blueberry bushes turn. So vibrant. Hopefully they will have a good slumber over the winter so they can give us more than a handful of blueberries that we got this year.

It was just lovely being outside in the garden without melting in the heat and humidity. Wish we could slow this time of year down.

Bacon Dressing and the Revolutionary War

Posted on July 18, 2013 by Our Growing Paynes

Are you a loyalist or a patriot? We were asked that when we went to the kids camp for lunch. Little did he know! My husband said pacifist but apparently back then if you said that people just assumed you were a loyalist and were treated with suspicion. Now my husband doesn’t have any American history in his family but I do. My mum is American and people have been coming over nearly every generation in this family since the early 1600’s. Including me. So it makes for an interesting genealogy. There was a good number of my family that had to high tail it to Canada as they were loyalists. They came back down about fifty years later. You know, when it was safe. 🙂

Not sure if the gentleman playing the father of the camp noticed my Union Jack on the back of my phone! But we were served anyway. Lucky us as the kids did an amazing job. They made blueberry jam, butter, cornbread, pickles and soup. The soup was tasty but a bit much on a very hot day. So I was wilting a bit at the end. Loved the butter and the jam. So yummy. We were impressed with everything they did. And it was hard work keeping the fires going so they could boil the water and keep the tavern guests fed.

After a hot lunch it seemed like a good idea to do a cool dinner. I had some bacon to finish up. I know, tough problem to have. 🙂 But didn’t want it to go to waste. I thought I would have a go at some bacon dressing. Once I started cooking the bacon the dogs got very focused on what I was doing. Boy were they optimistic!

To make the dressing I scraped the bacon fat into a bowl and added some olive oil and white balsamic vinegar. I think I put a bit too much vinegar in. It was tasty but either less vinegar or more bacon drippings. Which would mean cooking more bacon. But it had a brightness to it that went well with the salad.

The genius of salad is you can tailor it to the individual taste. My husband likes beets and onion on his and he’s not a fan of blue cheese. So for his I added some jarlsberg. I love blue cheese and bacon together. A great combo.

Very filling on a hot day and I just love all the fresh flavours of the veg.

And then the rains came…

Posted on June 29, 2013 by Our Growing Paynes

It was a case of be careful of what you wish for. I wanted rain. Just enough to fill the rain barrel. We only have one. Mother Nature thought we had a 100.

The spring started off wonderfully. Some days was like an English summer. We had some rainy days then some wonderful gorgeous spring days. Then it got dry very quickly. The plants were doing well but the soil got so dusty! The wind blew and you got dirt in your eyes. Ugh. So I wished for rain.

And it came! It seems we were on the thunderstorm path with showers and bucketing rain. When it wasn’t raining it was unbelievably muggy and humid. Ick.

The benefactor of all this? Our garden. It is doing amazing. So are the weeds but that’s another story. 🙂

I love our peas. Once they start growing it’s my favourite snack as I walk by. We’re almost to the point where I can start harvesting and freeze the peas for our risotto.

I am debating whether or not to plant broccoli next year. We don’t eat it much but on the flip side the flowers are so pretty. Tiny little yellow flowers just pop in the garden of a ton of green.

I plant kale because you can get a ton out of a very small space. My husband calls it rabbit food. 🙂 It’s become a little family joke “You’re feeding Daddy rabbit food!” LOL But he’s a good sport and if I come up with dishes that incorporate it he’ll eat it. And because so much grows I get to give a nutritious food to the community kitchen. We plant about a 4 x 2 foot spot and the number of meals we get is huge.

I’m looking forward to harvesting the leeks. We usually get 5 foot long leeks and I hope that happens this year. We do all organic gardening. Miracle Grow and other chemicals have nothing on us! I brought one to the community kitchen last year and they looked confused for a couple of minutes when I tried to hand them a 5 foot leek. Wish I had a camera. 🙂 But it’s a great place right round the corner from our house. They do such good work and I really hope there comes a time when what we grow might go to waste because no one is hungry.

Zucchini. Here’s the thing. I am a supertaster. About 25% of the population has some level of this. What that means is we don’t like mushy food, overcooked veg, or some veg like zucchini, squash, or Brussels sprouts. These types of veg taste extremely bitter to supertasters. I keep reading about descriptions of Brussels sprouts being nutty and sweet. They are one of the most bitter things I’ve ever tasted. Most veg that I can’t handle cooked I enjoy raw so something in the cooking process really changes things. Except zucchini. I can not handle that raw! But here’s the thing. I also have to be a good sport. Each year we ask the kids what they want planted and our daughter chose zucchini. I don’t want to discourage them in anyway when it comes to gardening or healthy eating so we planted a bunch and I’ve been pinning recipes for when they are ready. I’m wondering how much cheese is needed to cover the taste!

I can’t wait for harvest time for the peppers. We love to make hot pepper jelly. It is so good on cheddar cheese. I think we have about 6 varieties and 35 plants total in the raised bed. We’ll freeze more when it’s time. They work really well in sauces and chili.

We went a bit crazy with the tomatoes. We planted about 50 plants of 4 varieties. I can not wait for harvest! I love picking them fresh and eating them as I go by just like the peas. And oh the sauce we’ll make! Yum. We do pick a few and make fried green tomatoes. Such a treat.

Last year we did one potato tower and this year we did four. So far they are doing well and once the pile of dirt dries out a bit I need to add more to the towers. You only want 1/3 of the greens sticking out so you add as you go. Of course we’ll have to now figure out a root cellar system because I plan on having a lot of potatoes and I don’t want them going to waste. But there is nothing like a fresh harvested potato.

My son has a neat program as school where they give out cabbages to plant in third grade. He is getting such a kick out of watching it grow. Can’t wait to see how big it gets. 🙂

Our Growing Paynes

A journey about cooking, traveling, gardening, and crafting.

Tag Archives: veg

Walkabout As My Veg Grows

As the days get shorter….

Bacon Dressing and the Revolutionary War

And then the rains came…