What's Growing?

I tried to post this yesterday, but I had trouble downloading the pictures back at the "farm" (my dad's garden) so I emailed myself, and promised I'd get around to it later. Then I had to rant about the Prevention Magazine advertisement last night, and didn't feel like taking several more hours to do another blog. So, without further ado, here's what I wanted to say yesterday:

The peas, earlier this summer:
The last batch of peas (although we may try to plant another crop for fall)
Safely tucked away in the freezer:

Last week I kept busy by picking, shelling, eating, and freezing peas . . . this week is going to be a different story! Michael and I spent the 4th of July weekend in Minneapolis enjoying good company, good food, and good music. Today it was time to head back to the garden. I discovered that my carrots are still not growing, but almost everything else is making up for it. The bush beans are ready to pick, although the pole beans, which were planted two weeks earlier, don't seem to be doing as well. They are climbing like crazy, but don't have any flowers or beans. I finally figured out a little bit about harvesting the onions. The ones with flowers (about a third) should to be picked now and eaten, because they won't store. The kohlrabi, which is completely overgrown (two are bigger than 7 inches across), still tastes very good, and I'll be making a bunch of it for dinner. The turnips are literally popping right out of the earth, but I picked 7 only to discover that four had been eaten by some kind of bug. Also, my zucchini are starting to mature. I picked four today, and will probably be dropping off squash at my neighbors' houses in the dead of night trying to get rid of it before too long - it's taken over the entire corn/bean/squash row!

Today's Haul (partial) I guess I didn't end up taking any pictures of the green beans . . .

(The top picture was taken with my dad's fancy camera, with the flash off, because the flash wasn't working for me in the kitchen - the pictures were coming out mostly white. The bottom picture was taken with Michael's Japanese camera, set to "cuisine" which he discovered during our honeymoon - which was a good thing because we took so many pictures of our food! I'm delighted with this setting for blogging purposes!)

Giant Kohlrabi (peeled and sitting in water because I didn't know what to do with it at the moment . . . my mom cut it up in spears and we dunked it in ranch dressing - yum)

Onions curing on my kitchen counter:


I was going to start pulling down the pea vines, in the hopes that we can get another crop in this summer, but then it started to pour, and I decided that job could wait.

I stopped by at the Hilldale Farmers Market in Madison this afternoon, but didn't bring much cash with me, so I had to pass on the raspberries ($3 or 4 a pint). I did get two tomatoes, some early garlic, and a bunch of purple carrots.

Note: I ended up eating plain yogurt with maple syrup for dinner before book club, then a snack of local popcorn when I got home. The kohlrabi had to wait . . .