All that zucchini in the garden! Great way to savor the flavor throughout the winter months is to shred or grate zucchini when fresh and freeze it! You can put it into lasagna, breads, sauces, and more! Here is my favorite zucchini bread recipe that I have been altering over the past few years to get it juuuust right. Hope your family loves it as much as mine!!

Meg's BEST Zucchini Bread*one loaf, 375 degrees F

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups shredded zucchini
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. allspice
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1 Tbls. lemon juice
1 tsp. vanilla
6 Tbls. melted butter

Directions:
Pre-heat oven. Combine dry ingredients, mix. Set aside. Combine wet ingredients in seperate bowl, mix. Fold the dry ingredient into the wet ingredients. Dip a paper towel into butter and wipe down the sides of a 5 x 9 loaf pan. Sprinkle flour into the pan and coat all sides. get rid of excess flour (tap into sink). Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a knive inserted into middle ALMOST comes out
clean- you will have a little residue on the knife, if it is completely clean, it is not as moist. Cool for 10 minutes, take out of pan and cool another 30 minutes. Stores well for up to 4 days- trust me, it won’t last that long. Pour a cup of coffee and ENJOY. 

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There's lots of garden activity going on in the neighborhood.  Plants are leaving the nurseries in droves. I have just planted the tomatoes and bell peppers at Terra Nova Gardens. Next week the cucumbers, zucchini and corn will be planted.  My neighbor across the street from where I live at the Urban Ranch asked for some space at Terra Nova Gardens for watermelons and pumpkins.  He now has three hills of watermelons and three hills of pumpkins planted.  The rest of the open garden will be planted in sweet corn and five rows of companion planting called three sisters.  I expect most of you know what that is but for those that don't it's a combination of corn, pole beans, and vined squash planted in the same area.  The pole beans will climb up the corn and the squash will cover the ground to keep down the weeds and deter the raccoon.  The raccoons don't like stepping on the squash vines.  So I've read.  So we will see.

Here's the almost finished beds. Two more bales of straw covered the rest of the area. Once again this is not what the garden looks like. By the time I get to blog a couple days have gone by and things look much different. I guess that I really should take more pictures during the work days.

Here's the plan for this year. The grand plan has changed so many times that I couldn't tell you what issue this is. The overall plan has changed as well. I've decided to have half the garden be an open garden without a fence. Raised garden beds are great but just not for vined plants like acorn squash, watermelons, pumpkins, or sweet corn. There's a need for both. So half will be fenced and half will be open. Do turkeys like pumpkins or watermelons? I guess I'll find out.

Mean while back at the Urban Ranch, the backyard gardens have been severely neglected this year. Time in the backyard will be a must next week. The main rain water storage tank is full and I will ask my friend who has a source for unlimited plastic 55 gallon drums to snag me a couple more. I would like to continue to store up water for the backyard gardens as much as I can. Before the last rain I integrated one 55 gallon drum but it's overflowing and I had to close off the fill line for now. The dribble in the main water storage tank has all but stopped. The water loss has gone from 18 gallons a day to practically negligible. I'm not sure why but I'll except it and move on.

I have installed a water fountain in the main water storage tank. I don't want the water to become a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Before too long I plan to have fish caught from the local ponds in the tank as well so a little aeration is also needed. The cover for the tank used to be part of another project from 10 years ago and has been recycled as a tank cover to keep curious neighborhood from falling in the tank and to help to prevent algae growth. This project has come a long way since that first anchor concrete block was laid for the foundation. This is third year for working on the project. Last year only a few tweaks in the watering system were needed. This year I expect it to function as well as last year. So many projects and never enough time.

That's it for this week but there's another week coming with new and exciting adventures. I better rest up today so I can get started bright and early tomorrow. I'm glad you could sit a spell and read about the antics of old Dave and his gardening experiences. Until the next time keep those garden tools sharp and working. One hour a day in the garden is better than two at the fitness center.  

 If you are like me, you are thinking about what to grow in your vegetable garden this year. Maybe you’ve already ordered all of your seeds, or like me, are doing it in batches. We’ve got most of it ordered, some already received, but still have some decisions to make for the rest.

The subject of zucchini came up the other day. How many plants do we want? We have an amazing harvest last year. Evidently so did most of the region, as we got truckloads upon truckloads to feed to the critters, too. By the end of the season, even covering them up with yogurt wouldn’t get them eaten. The sheep hung in a little longer than the pigs, but by the end of the summer, we were all DONE!

It got me to do lots of new things to preserve them, though. As I sit hear snacking on curry-flavored zucchini chips, I’m thinking that several of these new things are keepers.

• Slice them length-wise with a mandolin and dry in the dehydrator. This is quick to do during your busy season. We pick ones that are the same width as our mandolin and fill up all dozen trays of our deydrator. It usually takes about 12 hours to dry them. Then we put into plastic bags that we seal on our vacuum sealer. (We found zip bags inadequate at keeping them dry during the summer -- rotting zukes is one of the most disgusting smells around, just for the record. Vacuum seal or freeze. Trust me.) All winter I’ve been adding those strips to things like lasagna and potato gratins.  If I cook noodles of some flavor, I’ll add a handful of zuke strips to the pot as well.  
• Slice into rounds and flavor with spices, salt, pepper. Again, we use the mandolin to quickly slice up the zukes. Then put the slices into a big bowl and toss with the spice mixture. I did curry powder this year for one batch. Chili powder on another. Garlic and onion powder on another. Then spread them out of the dehydrator sheets and let them dry until they are crispy. Store in a vacuum sealed bag or in the freezer. I use canning jars in the freezer. We nibble on them like chips all year long.  I like them with a little sour cream dip, but Frank likes them straight out of the bag. I like to take them in the truck with me when I have a long drive to make. It keeps me from stopping somewhere and buying crap. (Oh, a couple of times when I was doing a bread crumb / parm cheese topping, I whirred up some zuke chips in the food processor and added them to the mix. Yummy topping on mac and cheese, tuna casserole.)
• Shred on a box grater. Every year, I do at least a dozen gallon size freezer bags filled with zuke shreddings. I shred onto a cookie sheet covered in parchment paper. I cover it about an inch thick all over, then stick it into the freezer over night. The next day, I break it up and pack into gallon plastic bags. It makes it really easy to grab cup fulls as I need them for quick breads. I’ll add handfuls to regular yeasted bread sometimes, too. Also, chocolate chip or oatmeal cookies, brownies, chocolate cake.  It’s good promise! Zucchini goes really well with chocolate, or cinnamon, really.  I like zucchini muffins and bread, too. Oh, and meatloaf. I almost always add a cup or two to meatloaves, and it makes them so moist and yummy. And we have an orzo and zucchini dish that was featured in Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle that works really well with both fresh and frozen shredded zucchini. It’s additively good. 
• Puree and freeze. I roughly chop up cubes of zucchinis until I fill my biggest crockpot. Turn it on high, and after about two hours, hit it with your stick blender. I fill pint size canning jars and pressure-can. I use this mixture when I’m making soups all winter. It goes really well in potato soups, both regular white potatoes but also surprisingly well with sweet potatoes, too. It’s a quick way to thicken beef and lamb stews, too. 

Even after going through all of that, I think I’m only going to plant a few plants this year. Last year was a bit much!

I thought it might be time for a quick garden update!

The garden (containers, raised beds, and rows) all got a late start this year. But I am determined to make something of it – even with central Texas heat!

First of all, the cucumbers! They're growing, and even producing fruit!

There are fruits of all sizes on the plants -- some are near harvest size, some itty bitty, and some in between. Much of the vine has small cucumbers just starting out. I am so pleased with the progress of the two plants we have growing that I put a few more seeds in the ground for a later harvest. Hopefully we'll have plenty of cucumbers; I would like to give a couple of pickling recipes a try.

A few weeks ago I put in another row of beans (pole, and bush). They're coming in nicely. I'm looking forward to fresh picked green beans for supper. I recently purchased a FoodSaver, and plan to freeze the beans we don't eat immediately. With nearly 50' of beans planted, I hope we have LOTS of beans to harvest!

There is one section of the bean row (one week younger than the others) where I continue to battle the armadillo. Each night, he turns over 6-12" of soil. Each morning, I put the soil back in place. Thankfully he has only turned a couple of plants... although, I wonder if he has helped himself to a couple of seeds – I am suspect of a "gap" in the bean plants. It's the only section of the garden he has bothered. I'm hoping as the plants fill in, he moves on to other areas of the farm (just not the garden).

This is the first year I've attempted to grow melons. So far, they look like they're doing alright. I wasn't sure they would do well being planted in a container. I've even spotted a few small melons on the vine! How exciting!

A few weeks ago I put some pumpkin seeds in the ground. The Big Max plants are growing nicely, and so are the small decor pumpkin plants. I planted a few other varieties, and hope to get at least a couple of pumpkins off the vines. Unfortunately, the area I created the pumpkin mounds in gets a bit more shade than I expected this time of year. But even so, they're able to soak up the afternoon and evening sun and seem to be doing just fine.

I put some zucchini squash plants in for a late summer harvest, and just put a few more seeds in the ground, too. I really had to mulch the mounds to keep the hot sun from drying out the soil too quickly. It took the plants a bit of time to settle in, but now they seem to be noticably larger with each day. Alan's father isn't a fan of zucchini (I think he even said something about zucchini being a "waste of good soil"), but I happen to LOVE it and think the more, the better! Even with the late start to the garden this year, I've harvested about 12 pounds of zucchini from the three larger plants I have planted in containers. Here's hoping for more, more, MORE!

Finally, the zinnias are blooming! There is a variety of colors, and their bright, cheery faces add a sweet spot of color to the place.

Thanks for checking in on the garden with me! As always, you are invited to read more about our life on the farm.

We have had our gardening ups and downs this year. You may have heard that it has rained almost every day this summer in Massachusetts, so our poor waterlogged plants haven’t had much of a chance. But we are beginning to reap the benefits of our home garden. We’re getting a bowl full of Sun Gold cherry tomatoes every day. At first every ripe tomato went directly into Ella’s mouth, but finally there are enough to share. We have tons of other unripe tomatoes on the vine waiting for some sun to ripen. We have some yellow leaves, so we’re praying they don’t get hit by the late blight, which is wiping out whole fields of tomatoes around here.

We’re also getting quite a few zucchini, which seem to grow about four inches overnight. Fortunately, we are big fans of the secret placement of zucchini in everything from cookies to bread to smoothies, so we are happy. Ella has even rewritten the Raffi song, “I like to Eat Apples and Bananas” to be “I like to Eat Apples and Zucchinis.” Of course, she doesn’t really like to eat zucchini that much at all, but we’re hoping the song will sink in. We also started a whole host of other squash, pumpkin, and gourds, which we forgot to label, so now we are watching every day to see what they will turn out to be. 

Our bean crop had a few disadvantages going in. First we mixed up our beans and planted the pole beans in the garden and the bush beans by the fence. Next we actually followed the directions on the package that said to plant them 6 inches apart. So we only planted like 12 plants. We could have planted them a couple of inches apart and actually produced more than two servings of beans. Good to know for next year. The Royal Purple Pod Beans did win the most interesting vegetable from the garden though. We love the color combo of the dark purple with the vivid green when you break them. Of course, when you cook them, they turn just plain old green.

We’ve also got peppers, cucumbers, carrots, onions, our second planting of lettuce, tons of basil and other herbs including lemongrass.

Our biggest surprises were our berry crops. The good surprise is we actually have strawberries on the plants Brent grew from seed. Our friend who works on an organic farm said we should probably pick them off so the plants will produce next year, but we just couldn’t do it. Our first strawberries!

The less good surprise was that the very prolific huckleberry bushes we also started from seed are not the wild huckleberries that grew on LeAnna’s grandparents’ farm in Kentucky, but are actually garden huckleberries, which don’t actually taste very good. Any ideas for what we can do with them?

We’ve definitely learned a few things in our garden experiment. First, we need to plant a lot more to feed our family for the summer and be able to can. Second: it seems to benefit most anything to start it from seed before planting it in the ground. Third: We miss our CSA more than we thought we would, especially those giant u-pick fields. Depending on how the rest of the month goes, we’re thinking about joining a local college’s Fall Semester CSA and trying to take advantage of the u-pick and seeing what we can preserve. Until then we’re supplementing our diet with lots of free, foraged berries and local fruit and produce from farmstands. How has your garden been growing?