In my summer kitchen

It's my summer vacation! I've been off since Thursday afternoon and I don't go back until next Monday. It's nice to have some time away from work, even when you like your job as much as I do.

I've been busy. I blogged about my new stainless-steel cookware the other day, and several of you asked me to let you know what I think of it. Well, I love it! I'm really glad I took the time to research how to properly use and care for stainless steel, because I've had zero problems! It cooks like a dream, and I've had zero issues with food sticking. The first thing I made was braised short ribs, and they turned out great but it's way too hot for such heavy food. Speaking of hot in the kitchen, and the new pans..

I've taken this from my garden:

 

And this:

And turned it all into this:

I'm ridiculously proud of these jars of salsa and pickled peppers!

From the garden this week

The garden is in full swing, and it's turning out to be a good year for tomatoes. I'm glad I planted some sturdy hybrid determinate types, because they're early and produce a lot of fruit all at once. With the exception of one tiny rain-split Berkeley Tie Dye (middle top on the first photo) all of the tomatoes I've gotten so far have been determinates. But! My eight heirloom plants are also loaded with fruit but taking forever to start ripening. Soon!

Here's what I've picked over the last four or five days:

We've also picked a LOT of green beans; this is just a small handful I got the other day. 

Still going strong.

There are about a dozen cucumbers in the fridge at the moment, but now the vines are almost worn out. It's turning out to be a disappointing year for cucumber production, but I'd rather have a bounty of tomatoes anyway. Last year there were a ton of cucumbers, but the tomatoes did diddly-squat. Now that's disappointing.

So, on to peppers! I haven't picked any yet, because I like to wait until they're mostly orange and red, but there are tons and tons of Jalapenos, Serranoes, Cowhorns, Cayennes, Poblanos, Tabascos, and Giant Marconi peppers...

 

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These pretty Tabasco peppers are our favorite, just for the beauty of the plant. It's hard to get a good photo of them because it's such a low, compact plant. 

And when someone named these peppers "Giant Marconi", they weren't lying! Look at the size of those monsters!

Cowhorns.

A busy start to summer

It's been a busy few weeks around here, but I still find it hard to believe that June is almost half over. Finding time to blog has been a challenge so I've been away for longer that I meant to be. Things should settle down a little now, so I hope to be around more. 

Last weekend my mom came to visit. It was at her insistence, and the first time I'd seen her since the end of 2023 (right before dad died). Things between us have devolved to almost no contact over the last two years, which, actually, is fine with me. I only agreed to see her out of a lingering sense of obligation. As far as I'm concerned, our relationship is pretty much over. That hasn't been an easy decision to come to, but I've decided it's best for my mental health.

So anyway, she came over for a couple of hours and it was okay. I made lunch and put on a polite face, and she was on her best (but still not great) behavior. I breathed a sigh of relief when she left and was glad nothing had been too weird or awkward...haha! Joke's on me! The next night she messaged me with some truly bizarre thoughts and accusations. Crazy stuff. I know she's taken to drinking again over the past few years, and also takes a lot of assorted pills, so maybe she was drunk or high. Or maybe she's having some sort of undiagnosed mental health issue. The next day she deleted the messages and apologized (just as I predicted she would), but instead of taking responsibility for her behavior she blamed (get this!) the fact that she's diabetic for her outburst. I know lots of people with diabetes, and not once has a single one of them come at me with weird accusations and spoiling for a fight! Of course, ever since she was diagnosed a few years back, that's been her go-to excuse for everything so I shouldn't be too surprised. This was only more confirmation that I'm doing the right thing to keep contact with her strictly limited. She wants more from me than I can give her, since it would mean having to sacrifice my mental well-being to maintain a closer relationship. I've worked through most of that, and I'm simply not interested.

On to better and happier stuff. Thursday was my 19th wedding anniversary! I really did good when I picked my husband! :)   I took the day off work, and with my regular summer Friday off, I'm having a four-day weekend! Yesterday we went thrift store shopping, hoping to find a couple of interesting lamps for the house. We didn't have any luck, but it was fun looking around. The actual gift we ended up buying ourselves is mainly a gift for me: a nice set of stainless-steel cookware. It's going to be great to get rid of my old cheap nonstick pots and pans that I've been "making do" with for years! I love to cook, and like everything else it's easier with good tools. Gregg really likes and appreciates my cooking, so he said it benefits him in the end, too. 

We're also making plans to go away for a few days, but not until fall. There are really nice waterfront villas at a state park on Lake Murray (a couple of hours west of here) that we'd like to rent, but you have to make reservations several months out. Apparently, they're very popular and so all booked up for the summer. We prefer to go in the fall anyway, when the weather will be much nicer, so that's not an issue. As fast as the weeks fly by September/October will be here in a flash. 

Speaking of summer, check out a small sample of the stuff I've picked from the garden in the last week!

That's the other thing that's been keeping me busy lately: the garden. There's always something to do out there this time of year, and when I'm not working in it, I'm sitting on the porch admiring it! :)

Garden progress in pictures

 I've very little time for blogging today, but I wanted to post an update on how my garden's coming along. Here are some photos I took over the last several days. xx

Early May in my garden

We're still in the sweet spot, garden-wise, at this point in the year. Everything is growing and thriving, and the heat, bugs, diseases, and general malaise of high summer still seem far away. 

Here are a few pictures from my garden as of this afternoon. I'll start with my current obsession: my baby Eustacia Vye rose! Her first bloom is beginning to open, and I'm in love.

There are nine more flower buds now, too.  It's hard to believe this rose was planted as a bare root at the end of March. 

In other good (but somewhat less exciting) garden updates, here are a few more photos of things I'm growing, all taken this afternoon:

The five blueberry bushes are still fairly small but loaded with berries. The plant growth on all five has been very slow, but this year I've finally started fertilizing on a regular basis. I'm hoping they'll start to take off as a result. As it is, we'll probably get three or four cups of blueberries at the most....and that's if we feel like fighting with the birds and squirrels for them. (Probably not). At least the plants seem healthy, though!

Poppy is a great garden companion. She walks with me while I inspect everything, the tomatoes, peppers, beans, corn...

See the nest box in this next picture? There's currently a bluebird family taking up residence! Mom and Dad work tirelessly all day long bringing food to the babies, and it's a real joy to watch. The current brood are just about ready to fledge. 

After a very late start, my lettuce is finally starting to look like....lettuce! Haha. The carrots planted beside it are finally sprouting but they're not worth taking a picture of yet. Next year I need to get on the ball much, much, much sooner with the lettuce and carrots.

We built a tripod for the cucumbers to climb. They're looking good right now, too.

And finally, the corn. 

Garden Tea

My newfound interest in growing roses and my very expanded vegetable garden have led me down some wild YouTube rabbit holes lately. One of the main topics I've been trying to learn about is composting and using natural, organic methods of building up soil. 

Can you guess what this is?

That, my friends, is a bucket of "tea" made of earthworm poop (!) that I mixed up and used in the garden a couple of weeks ago. I'd read lots of stuff online about how good it is for flowers (specifically roses) and also vegetable gardens. The only problem was I only had access to our city water, which has chemicals in it and isn't good for making the tea. So, I had an idea! I asked the young guy next door (Ms. Luella's grandson, who bought her house) if I could have a 5-gallon bucket of water from his outdoor spigot, because they still have well water. I told him why I wanted it, and of course he said, "Sure, take as much as you need" but I'll bet he thinks I'm kind of nutty! But in any case, I got my non-chlorinated, non-treated water and all the plants seemed to perk up a little when I gave them their first dose of "tea". 

Anyway, last night we finally got some much-needed rain, and I had a plan. I made a rain barrel out of a large, sturdy Rubbermaid trash can and positioned it in a spot where water runs off the roof. It got totally filled up with rainwater! There's a lid to keep out mosquitoes until I'm ready to use it. The next time I want to make Worm Poop Tea I won't have to go ask next door for the water!

The garden's looking good. Last night's rain made a big difference.

The Rattlesnake beans are really getting going now. In the foreground: squash seedlings. Behind and to the left and right of Poppy: the two tiny corn patches.

Tomatoes are looking good. 

I love sipping a Gin and Tonic on the porch after working in the garden. Thanks to Mistress Maddie for inspiring me to use borage flowers in them! 

So pretty. So refreshing.

Garden update

The 2024 garden is coming along, but it looks like it's going to be a disappointing year for tomatoes. So far there are only two or three tiny tomatoes out of 12 plants. For some reason they're just not setting much fruit, and several of them have yellowing bottom branches. I thought at first that the yellowing was from too much rain a couple of weeks ago, but now I'm beginning to wonder if some sort of disease has struck. After pulling off the yellowing branches, there's still lots of vigorous green growth, but not many flowers. Who knows? At least the cherry tomatoes (in a different spot in front of the porch) seem to be doing well. We'll see.

One of the (very few) small tomatoes that's finally forming. That one is a "Mortgage Lifter".

You know what's NOT disappointing, though? Cucumbers and beans! We're getting two or three cucumbers per day, and on Monday I picked the first rattlesnake beans (sent to me by Ms. Moon, thank you Mary!) and cooked them with our dinner. They were so tender and delicious! And there will be more to follow soon. As for the cucumbers, I'm eating large salads everyday for lunch (and sometimes dinner, too) and I still can hardly keep up. I guess I should either attempt pickles, or else start giving them away.

First harvest of beans!

Today's cucumber haul.

Poppy by the bean trellis this afternoon.

The cucumber vines. I'm growing them in large pots. 

We'll soon have peppers! They're planted in front of the tomatoes and doing well. At least something is! 

The borage is about to flower! This is my first time growing borage. I sowed the seed directly in the bed in front of the porch.

And finally, the volunteer zinnias have popped up all throughout the bed, around the borage and sprawling cherry tomatoes. We'll have zinnias very soon! The bees and butterflies will be happy.

The only other thing of note is that the melons are sprawling all over the end of the raised bed, and have tons of flowers, but so far, no baby melons. I'm trying to be patient.