It’s a humid, warm and foggy morning here in the southern parts of New Jersey.. and I can hear the birds waking up. Chirping and whistling can be heard through the thick clouds of moisture. I can also hear the hum of a train engine 2 1/2 miles away. It is amazing how sound carries through the heavy mist. I pour myself a cup of coffee and head outdoors anyway, to take a walk to the garden to see how things are growing. The veggies growing there don’t seem to care much about the fog or the noise. All they really seem to want is the sunshine, the warmth and an occasional sprinkle of rain to keep their feet wet. At first glance, they appear to be quite happy.
I pulled back the leaves of our zucchini plant to reveal the seasons first harvestable vegetable. A nice plump, perfectly green zucchini. If I would’ve left it on any longer, it would’ve gotten too big to eat. It always amazes me how fast the vegetables can go from perfect to too big to eat, in a matter of a day.
A gentle twist, and the vegetable snaps at the stem and is removed from the mother plant. At the time, I was concocting a dozen ways to utilize this first very first vegetable from our garden. I did settle on the perfect way to utilize it and will share that with you a bit later.
The yellow squash plant is also looking good. It looks like I will be picking one of those very shortly. (Update: I did end up picking a yellow squash) I counted well over a dozen small squash that are forming. It looks like the flowers have been fertilized, and vegetables are growing. I can foresee that we will have more than enough to eat, and will probably get tired of eating squash by the middle of July. I’m sure I’ll be giving away some of these vegetables to our neighbors.
We are also growing some burpless, seedless cucumbers. I purchased only one plant knowing that one plant usually produces a ton of cucumbers. No way will I eat that many cucumbers. So far the plant looks good and I see at least five or six cucumbers already taking form. One is very close to needing to be picked.
This year we purchased all of our plants from our local high school. The school has a horticultural program where the kids, including my niece, raised these vegetable plants. I figured this is a great way to support the local youth/school/program. Maybe they weren’t the best looking plants, but they are growing fine and filling out nicely.
Along with the squash and zucchini, I Purchased, roughly 8 string bean plants. They didn’t look too hot at all, but they are beginning to hit their stride. I see a bunch of flowers on the plant and even a few early beans can be seen. Looks like it won’t be long until we even have an enough beans for a meal. I can’t wait because fresh beans from the garden always taste so much better than the frozen store-bought type.
I never really gave it much thought but these string bean flowers, although simple, are quite pretty. They almost look like a little purple purse. They are by no means a flashy flower at all, however, they have the perfect charm to to make their subtle statement in our garden.
The temperatures have been rising, and Molly is quite content laying on the couch in an among her blankets and pillows, where it is cool and quiet. She will occasionally venture outside to do her business, and acts like she likes it out there, but soon returns home, panting from the heat. We keep her refreshed with plenty of water, and make sure the air conditioning is keeping the interior of our home at a more acceptable temperature for a puppy her age. She can’t spend too much time in the sun anyhow, due to the high levels of steroids that she is on for her Addison’s disease. Her skin will burn rather quickly, and she has very thin hair to begin with.
It’s not long before she jumps off of the couch and comes into the kitchen where she hears me preparing tonight’s meal.
She quietly stands and stares up at me, wanting a hand out.. However, I know everything that I put down for her to eat, she will turn her tiny black nose away from. She always wants some, but is always hoping for something better than what I have to share. The vegetables were no different than anything else.
So what did I decide to cook up with our freshly picked veggies?
After thoroughly washing our zucchini and squash, I shredded them into spaghetti like pieces. and because our garden didn’t contain every single thing we wanted on our pizza, we had to take a trip to the store, where we purchased some sweet tomatoes, baby spinach, red onion, broccoli, and of course, pizza dough.
I worked right on the counter, spread out some flour and began kneading the pizza dough into a nice almost round shape. I had all my cups filled with the shredded zucchini, shredded squash, red onion, cut tomato, and broccoli. Most of these items I pre-cooked on the stove top in order to soften them up. We like our vegetables on the softer side so we pre-cook them. If you’d like them a little crunchy, then you may just want to throw them on top as is.
We made two white pizzas with fresh mozzarella.. After about five or 10 minutes on the hot grill …
For the rest of us who don’t eat pizza, and most certainly do not eat onion, ICE CREAM was served!
A cool treat on a hot day sounds perfect.. At least to Molly it does. By the way, the other day, she told me to ditch the garden and buy a cow. And here all along, I didn’t think she really knew what you needed in order to make ice cream.
“A garden without (dogs), it will be generally agreed, can scarcely deserve to be called a garden at all...much of the magic of the heather beds would vanish if, as we bent over them, there was no chance that we might hear a faint rustle among the blossoms, and find ourselves staring into a pair of sleepy (brown) eyes.”
― Beverley Nichols, Garden Open Tomorrow
