Happy Birthday Honey Pookums!

Guess who turns 34 today!!!



Haaaaaaappy birthday hon!

Sorry!

"Nothing new today!"

Fall Harvest

While the garden may be winding down, there's definitely no shortage of food yet! I think the tomatillos are pretty much done. This is the first time I've grown them at home, and for some reason the two plants didn't crank out as much as I expected. They were LOADED with blooms early on, but of the two plants, one too a LOT longer for those blooms to set fruit. I had enough tomatillos to make a batch of salsa awhile back, but this latest (and probably last) picking may not be enough for a batch of salsa. Bummer....the green stuff is good!


The kale as LOOOOOVED this mild summer. I've never grown this variety before, but will definitely dedicate some space for it in future years. Very hardy, very prolific. Oh, and that white bloom is one of the gourd vines that managed to creep out of their bed and over into the next bed over. Even though Doogie and I have tromped between the two bed plenty of times, AND I've mown through there, I think the vine set root in the second bed and has pretty much become it's own dependent plant!


I've never grown Hubbard squash before (come to think of it, have I ever COOKED or EATEN hubbard squash!? I don't think so!), so I wasn't sure what to expect. The one plant I put in got smothered in corn, tomatoes and weeds - and unlike the pumpkins and butternut squash that managed to grow through all that mess, the hubbard sort of stuck to it's little spot and just put out the one fruit. That's alright - it's cute, it's cool looking, and hopefully it tastes good. I can still make an indentation in the skin with my thumbnail, and the leaves are still green, so I'm guessing this guy has a way to go before picking. I figure I'll set it out with Halloween decorations and then consider cooking it after that...


I've only grown butternut squash once before - my second year of gardening, when I was out at the rental plot - and that didn't go well at all. I decided to give it a go this year, and while the plants disappeared in the corn and tomatoes, they're producing just fine. They were sort of an afterthought - I wasn't sure if I'd put them in, wasn't really sure where they'd go, and only decided to put them in after the great loss of corn plants from the early floods. I've been impressed - I've got a couple big butternuts floating in the air like this, plus a couple smaller ones that may yet develop before frost. As you can see, the vines got really out of control (like the pumpkins), crawled up through the tomato cages, and seem to do well with the fruits just hanging there. I figure that's why this one has such a loooong tapered end - gravity was pulling it down? It's pretty hefty! I'd guess maybe 3-4 lbs? Like the hubbard, the skin's still a little soft - so I won't be picking it for awhile yet. I might just wait and see if it drops off naturally - then I'll KNOW it's ready!

Let's go for a walk!

A couple weekends back we had a skip-weekend for Doogie's Good Manners class. The weather was nice, so we decided to take advantage of the found time and nice weather, and took the pootch for his first trail-walk. The Akron/Cleveland area has soooo many wonderful hiking trails - it's just too bad we live so far from all of them now. Heck, if we're gonna be out all day - we're going to need sustenance! We stopped at a grocery store Brett used to frequent years ago, and Brett had their deli dept fix us up some sandwiches...


He even picked up a little lunch for Doogie. Hey - if he's gonna be out for a long walk, he's going to need energy!


Y'know, before having a dog, I never realized just how many people take their dogs for walks. But when you DO have a dog, you become very aware of it because dogs LOOOOVE to stop and greet each other, and people, and trees, and the grass...you get the idea. This was a GREAT chance to take Doogie out for some socializing AND to work on his focus. Brief stops and visits were ok, but for the walk we were also practicing his loose leash walking (not too much tugging!), and not getting too distracted by too many things. (Oh, who'm I kidding - there was lots of distractions - but that's ok!)


The tow patch has plenty of wonderful sites.... There's even a boardwalk that crosses over a marsh.


Looks kinda yucky, doesn't it?


But hey, even in all that muck, there's plenty of beauty!


Never having been on a boardwalk, Doogie seemed only the slightest bit cautious at first - this was something new...


...and it looked like he'd be on it for awhile! After his first few initial steps, and seeing all the activity, and that we were fine with it, Doogie realized the boardwalk was nothing to be concerned with.


Sometimes when we'd need to stop and check things out (well, when DOOOGIE needed to stop and check things out), Brett would keep walking, knowing we'd catch up to him. Here's one of those times where he got ahead of us, and then decided to stop and get pics...


Uh hey Brett? Doogie's really chugging along now...


We're good to go! You might wanna get out of the way!


BUMP! Hey - I warned ya...


As I said, there's plenty of sites to see, and fun things to stop and sniff. But not drink - no no, don't drink the water - the last thing we need is a puppy with a bad case of Beaver Fever!


And then there's some things that the dog just doesn't appreciate as much as the humans - like these cute turtles all lined up on a log. They were enjoying the nice weather just like we were.


The tow path goes along sections of the old canal system from Lake Erie...so in addition to cool nature sites, there's some man-made things to stop and check out.


This old rotting stump was really cool - depending on where you stood, you could look right through it.


After our walk, we stopped at Szalay's Market, which is right off the path and is VERY popular this time of year.


The owners of this place must be making a killing - the market (which is just off the path) has become a very popular stop for fresh produce during the summer. They also sell decorative stuff, flowers, etc. And it seems now they had two stands set up - one for freshly cooked corn, and one for ice cream. What I didn't get a good picture of was the huuuuge old flatbed cart that has a MOUNTAIN of beautiful, freshly picked corn. People were always surrounding it, loading up their bags of corn, and as we left, there was a new trailer coming in with a fresh batch.


Here's a view of Szalay's from part of the parking lot.


It's even popular with all the bikers.


And finally we were on our way home. Doogie had such a fun, exhausting day that he slept REAL well alllllll afternoon and evening. Hopefully we'll get him out for a few more of these walks before the weather turns too bad.

Big bowl of YUCK!

First let's start with the pickings... There came a day not too long ago where I realized so many of my garden growies were looking soooo great that I really wanted to use them all - right then and there! What's a good way to use more of the things we consider "cool weather" crops? Soup! Mmmm....a good soup might include kale, swiss chard and leeks....and then I can throw in potatoes and we'll see what else happens.

First, let's pick as many veggies as we can - and since they look so cool, I should probably pose with them!


Hm, these didn't seem quite so big and overwhelming out in the garden.


Would you believe the biggest/tallest of the leeks here, from top to bottom, was ALMOST as tall as me!?!?


Alright, how're we looking?


Theeeeeere we go - nothing's falling out, nothing's poking me in the face....CHEESE!


Ok, let's get to choppin'! Just to show how much stuff I picked and chopped up for this soon-to-be-amazing soup, I wanted to provide a little perspective. Wow, that's a lot of swiss chard.


And the Niro di Toscana kale? Yup, got a whole lotta that as well!


So then I started throwing it all together - adding potatoes, salt, pepper, water, chicken broth...


Annnnnd....that's the last picture. Have you ever started making something that seems like it's going to be SO good, but then it turns out tasting like dishwater? This stuff was both lackluster AND gross. Like it kept going back and forth between barely having flavor, and having bad flavor. Now it was meat-free, but that can't have been the issue. This turned into one of those recipes where I kept adding things, and just couldn't get it good. I don't remember if carrots were involved, and I know we were out of celery, but I added some canned beans, some chopped up tomato, more salt, garlic, etc....

Nope, still wasn't good. It LOOKED good - just the taste was all wrong. I'm thinking maybe I went too heavy on the kale and chard, and perhaps those needed something equally strong flavored, like bacon or ham hocks maybe? THANKFULLY most of the stuff in this dish came from the garden (so sort of "free"), and they're heavy producing crops - I've already got way more than I know what to do with re-grown out in the garden. So hey - sometimes you make a great meal...and sometimes it flops.

Better luck next time!

All ready for Halloween...

...even though it's over a month away!

Some of the winter squash and pumpkins are starting to fall off their dying vines....OOOOOR they're really CLOSE to doing that and I can't help nudging them just a wee bit. As the pumpkins come off the vines, I've started moving them up to the deck, trying to make sure they've got plenty of airflow around them to keep them dry. I don't want any of these babies rotting out before Halloween!


This one right here might be one of my new favorites. While the Rumbo's unfortunately haven't produced any pumpkins this year (none that I've FOUND), this Galeuse D'eysines pumpkin, aka Peanut Pumpkin could be a new favorite! Check out those fuuuunky warts! I do wish it was more orange than pink, but that's ok....it's definitely got character. Assuming they don't rot out, I have at least two more of these in the garden covered with warts, and a couple that are showing no signs of warts whatsoever.


Now that the pumpkin leaves are starting to die back, Doogie and I went patrolling for large pumpkins.


I think this is my biggest yet - it weighs in at a whopping 34.2 lbs. Sure, there's MUCH bigger, but those pumpkins are different varieties (this is Howden Biggie), and they're fed more, babied, thinned to only one pumpkin per vine, etc. I didn't bother with any of that hassle, and it looks like I made out pretty good!


The Howden Biggie's haven't stopped producing either! There's two big, fat, DARK green ones in the garden that came on late - and I honestly don't know if they'll be fully orange in time for Halloween. That's ok - they'll still look cool!


Here's one of those warty-minus-the-warts pumpkins, hanging about 3 ft in the air from the tomato cages. Those are cherry tomatoes in the foreground....


I'm going to run out of deck railing before I do pumpkins!


Check out those warts! They're not as hard and scratchy as you'd expect them to be...


They look really cool radiating out of the stem.


Here's a lumina pumpkin - they're usually smooth and off-white (almost blue-ish), but this one must've had a rough time and has a fair amount of scaring. There's two more that are a bit more blemish-free.


I tried growing Knucklehead pumpkins this year, but they really didn't get as lumpy as advertised - not sure what that's all about.




Here's Doogie posing with the big Howden Biggie. This also shows that he's doing pretty well with his sit/stays - although he was getting a bit uncooperative until I pointed out I had ginger snap cookies on me. I almost wonder if I couldn't get him to do flips for ginger snaps?! Hm, that pumpkin doesn't look as big when posing with the dog.


Meanwhile, Tucker's just chilling out thinking Doogie's an idiot for doing as he's told. ;-)

Counting down til the end of summer...

Last Monday was a work-from-home day, and it turned out to be a really nice one! The sun was out, but it wasn't too hot... I worked at the desktop machine all morning, but come lunch time I grabbed the laptop and headed out to the deck with, what else - a BLT!


While we've all griped about losing our tomato plants to the blight this year, I've got some that are holding on as long as they can, and they're even producing some really nice tasting tomatoes. (Don't get me wrong - none of this year's tomatoes have tasted PERFECT....but I'll take what I can get!)


The dahlias are going full force right now as well.... These three colors actually look pretty good together.


That orange one just looks like an explosion in the garden - you can almost feel the heat coming off of it!

And who knew pink could look so good with these other colors? It helps that this particular pink dahlia has some warmer shades in it - there's hints of yellowy orange near the base of each of the petals...