Archive for August, 2010

I never realized how much I like green beans until I started growing them in my garden.  You plant the seeds and they grow.  It’s really that simple.  For the past few years we’ve planted beans, watched them sprout and THEN witnessed the aftermath of hungry deer who ate them almost to the ground.  Luckily, although they were chomped they continued to grow and produce a lovely crop of beans each year.  

I love watching my beans make their way through the dark soil as they seek sunlight.  This year I grew and heirloom variety of bush bean called ‘Contender’.  It’s an early bean, delicious and stringless.

A seedling starts to emerge.

It’s already been a long journey and you can see the leaves start to unfurl.

A proud little bean sprout!

Then deer chomped our beans!  Bummer.

Happy to report that the beans recovered and produced beautiful flowers and beans!

I like to steam my green beans for about 2 minutes and add a little olive oil, salt & pepper, but they are so good I will eat them raw from the garden, too.  How do you prepare your green beans?

We have a fairly short growing season in Vermont, but once August comes around things are in full bloom.  Sure, I can’t plant outside until late May or early June and sure, deer have come by and chomped my beans immediately after they’ve sprouted the past 3 years, and yes, there has been a lot of rain that has caused some blight and botritis for 2 seasons, but as a gardener there is a sense of satisfaction that can only be had when you are harvesting the fruits of your labor.

There has been an abundance of fresh produce from zucchini to beans and now my tomatoes are showing their true colors.  I love heirloom tomatoes.  I love the idea of them being passed down through family farming.  I love the look of them.  I love how hardy they are in my garden.  I love the way they taste.

My favorites are the ‘green zebras’ which are green even when ripe with some striping (hence the “zebra”), ‘yellow brandywine’ which I think has a slightly smokey taste and a truly beautiful golden skin, and ‘mortgage lifter’ which produces huge fruit.  I also grow ‘sun gold’ cherry tomatoes that I usually eat right off the stem which means my husband doesn’t see them until there are more than I can possibly eat while picking.  I have harvested about a quart a day over the past week or so!

Green zebra’s on the vine.  (You may notice some spots from early blight.)

Yellow brandywine, mortgage lifter (red), green zebra and sun gold cherry tomatoes.

Because of our 3 month window for reliable gardening I buy my tomato plants in 3″ pots instead of starting them from seed.  I do very little to maintain them other than adding some tomato trellises or cages and lots of compost and water.  Try these varieties in your garden and see what you think.  I am sure you will love them!

Last week I shared a recipe for chocolate chip zucchini muffins to help you make good use of all that zucchini in your garden so today I thought I’d share a few pictures from my garden.  Our zucchini was abundant this year as usual.  We only plant 1 plant each year because it makes more than enough squash for the two of us…and if you ask my husband it makes WAY more than enough!…it’s not his favorite veggie.  Although technically the zucchini is a fruit since it develops from a flower (as you can see in my photos).

Zucchini has both male and female flowers on the same plant which is why I can get away with only having one plant and still having lots and lots of fruit…err, veggies.  When you see stuffed zucchini blossoms on a menu (or if you’re real fancy when you make them yourself!) they are male flowers because the female flowers will turn into an actual zucchini and the male flowers simply fall off so there is no zucchini harmed in the making of stuffed blossoms.

What is your favorite way to eat zucchini?