The Garden Still Grows

This week's overnight deluge of rain left us with a lot of water damage and rock deposits in our yard.  No water got in the house, so we definitely are thankful it wasn't worse.  And fortunately, it's all stuff we can fix.  Still, we were still sad to see our hard work in creating a gravel base for our vegetable garden torn up by the water. 

Most of the plants are in raised beds and they did fine.  Even the fruit that was lying on the gravel (pumpkins and squash) seem to be in good shape.  Yesterday, Brad and I started repairing the damage you see above, and now it looks good as new.  There's more similar work to be done elsewhere in the garden, and as soon as I finish writing this post I'll head out to work some more on it.

The good news is that the garden goes on.  And look what we got yesterday:  our first canteloupe!  It's a little one, but it's our first-ever.  There's one other one on the vine, even smaller than this guy.  So while I wouldn't call this a huge success, I think we proved we can grow them.  So . . . next year we'll try again and see if we can do better.

This is how much melon you get from such a small fruit.  Not a lot, but enough for a snack.

This morning we had a big harvest.  In addition to more green beans (which got blanched and frozen for later use), we had our first Habanero Hybrid Pepper harvest.  All of the peppers in our garden this year have been superstars.  There are literally dozens more of these guys still on the vine (yet to turn red) and we have enough Jalapenos that I think I'm going to have to make some more jelly this week.  As for these Habaneros, later today I will roast these guys in the oven, then freeze them to use later in soups and sauces.  They're only ever so slightly hot, which makes them perfect for everyday cooking.

Also today was the first harvest of the Acorn Squash.  There are seven in this basket, and I count 14 more on the vines.  So it's been a really good year for this variety.  Last year I tried to store them in the basement, and they rotted.  I've read that one method to avoid this is to dip the squash in a diluted bleach solution before storing, but I think I will play it even safer.  So today I will bake these, scoop out the pulp, and freeze to later use in soups and purees.

And finally, tomatoes.  All we grew this year were Napa Grapes, as we loved them last year and they are just so sweet.  But we can't eat them as fast as they're ripening.  So I looked around online and found a recipe for slow roasting them.  Today I slow roasted two pans of them with olive oil, garlic, rosemary, oregano, and salt and pepper at 225F for about three hours.  They're not totally dry - there's still a bit of juice left.  They are so tasty!  What we don't eat today I will freeze for later.  And of course, I expect to make a few more batches of these before the season's over.