Big Tomato Harvest at PAR Davies!

HARVEST WEDNESDAY 186 lbs

TOTAL TO DATE 773 lbs

Tomato harvest from last Saturday

There were a lot of early birds at the garden last Wednesday trying to beat the heat. Gardeners were Susan, G.A., Jamie, Martha, Ann A., Lauren, Larry Crawford (first timer), Karen, Melba, J.J., Bob and Virginia V., and myself. We had a GREAT harvest. As Susan says, "It makes all our hard work worth it." We picked cucumbers, bell peppers, squash (yellow and zucchini), eggplant, misc. peppers, green beans, speckled butter beans, tomatillos, basil, carrots, and a whopping harvest of tomatoes. Some of the tomatoes were saved for the Tomato Tasting at the MAMG meeting onThursday night, and the rest were sent to the shelter. Martha generously offered to drop off the produce.

The majority of the work was the harvest, which we all participated in. Jamie as usual was tending to the watering, and he visits the garden during the week to make sure nothing dries up. G.A. and Jamie worked on replacing the broken faucet/hose connection, which is not a small task.  G.A. bought the replacement part, and the plan is to get it fixed asap.

Larry checking out the water pipe

We discovered and squished a few squash bug eggs, the first this year. Here we are in the middle of July and we aren't inundated with squash bugs. That is some kind of miracle. I have noticed in my home garden that there are fewer, too. We will have to remember each workday to look for squash bugs and their eggs. After the Bt injections last week, the squash plants all still look healthy. We will have to wait to see how long the plants last before we declare our experiment a success or failure. I would love to be able harvest some of the 'Fall Sweet' squash. We have harvested 52 lbs. of zucchini and yellow squash so far--not bad, and they are still producing.

'Fall Sweet' squash bed. The leaves are beautifully variegated

One of the good-sized squash from the above bed

The tomatoes were tied up and suckers were pinched off. The vines are loaded with tomatoes and they are not being taken over with bugs or disease. What a blessing. I should have taken a picture of our tomatillos. We were finally able to harvest over 3 lbs this week. The bug/worm problem seems to be abating to where we are able to get a good many nice clean tomatillos. We should have many more weeks of picking on these plants.

We planted a lot of different kinds of cucumbers this year. The long Japanese and Camilla cukes were planted to grow up on tomato cages. These both get at least one foot long. One of the other varieties was 'Collier,' and you can see what it looks like on the link below. It is planted in the far end of Bed 12. Check it out, because you might think that there is something wrong with these cucumbers if you don't know what they are supposed to look like. Lauren said they were very tender and tasted really good and fresh. These were some more of Julie's treasures from Seed Savers Exchange.

Karen by one of our cucumber towers

Lauren sampling the 'Collier' cucumber

The purple hull peas that had the aphid/ant infestation last week have cleared up and the bushes are starting to put out blossoms. However, the ants and their buddies have now moved over onto the pole beans. Ugh! They just don't give up. We also spied some Japanese beetles on the pole beans. Karen and Lauren took care of that bed by thumping the beetles into a bucket of soapy water (see Karen's bucket above) and the aphid/ant infestations were sprayed with mild soapy water.

Susan saw an okra pod ready to pick, so we might start getting some next week. 

The Saturday crew of Sally, Karen, Barbara H., Peggy G., Michelle, Elizabeth B., and Rita D - led by the intrepid Mary Elizabeth - harvested, tied up tomatoes & tomatillos, picked off beetles and eggs from beans and squash and just generally did everything on the rather extensive list that I gave them!  What troopers!  

Here is a recipe from Cooking Light that I sent to the shelter which uses a lot of the produce that we sent today. Perhaps if you have an abundance of the same in your gardens, you'd like to try it. 

Tomato, Squash, and Red Pepper Gratin - yum!

'Til later,

Dianne

Cobb Salad with Green Goddess Dressing

Cobb Salad with Green Goddess Dressing from Cooking Light

I just wanted to share one of my favorite dinner salads with you.  We had it last night and I remembered how much I like it.  The dressing has several ingredients, but you just dump everything into your blender or food processor, so it's not a big deal.  I put in cooked, crumbled bacon instead of the chicken, but you can add almost anything you like.  It's the dressing that phenomenal!  It's from Cooking Light - enjoy!

Rainbow Chard

Rainbow Chard from Dianne's garden

Suzanne, I had to show you the beautiful rainbow chard from the seeds you gave me.  I used it in this recipe for Asian Noodle Bowl.  I had some of the ingredients in the garden…. scallions, snow peas, cilantro, and I used the chard because the pan choy had gone to seed.  It was very good.  Thank you for the seeds.  Someone told me that the white chard is much better than the rainbow, but I don't think so. 

  --Dianne

Cooking with herbs: Tarragon

I love the taste of tarragon.  I know some people don't care for it, but if you do, here's a recipe I adapted from a Cooking Light recipe.  The original called for asparagus, but (gasp) I'm kinda tired of asparagus.  Plus my wonderful husband likes "protein" in every meal, so I added some chicken.  Here's what I did:

• Tarragon Pasta Salad with Prosciutto, Chicken, and Romano
• 8 ounces uncooked cavatappi pasta or elbow macaroni (I used rotini)
• 3 teaspoons olive oil, divided
• 3 ounces prosciutto, chopped
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced shallots
• 1 cup diced tomato
• 2 chicken breasts
• 6 tablespoons light mayonnaise
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper plus more for chicken
•  Kosher salt
• 1 1/2 ounces pecorino Romano cheese, grated (about 1/3 cup packed)
• 
  
• Preparation
• 1. Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and rinse under cold water; drain.
• 2. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add 1 teaspoon olive oil to pan, and swirl to coat. Add prosciutto, and cook for 6 minutes or until crisp, stirring occasionally. Remove prosciutto from pan using a slotted spoon, leaving drippings in pan. Drain prosciutto on paper towels. Add the shallots to drippings in pan; cook over medium heat for 1 minute or until shallots are tender, stirring frequently.
• 3.  Add remaining olive oil to skillet.  Flatten chicken breasts to even thickness between two sheets of plastic wrap.  Sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper and kosher salt.  Cook chicken about 5 minutes or until browned; turn and cook on other side until brown.  Chicken should be just barely done.  Remove from pan, wrap in aluminum foil and let sit for 5 minutes.  Remove from foil and chop.
• 4. Combine mayonnaise, lemon rind, tarragon, juice, pepper, and salt in a large bowl; stir well. Add pasta, prosciutto, shallots, tomato, chopped chicken, and cheese; toss well to coat. 

1. I don't have a picture of the finished dish, so here's a picture that a friend of ours took recently in North Carolina.  It's pretty.

Bass Lake, Blowing Rock, NC