Making a Cucumber Trellis

Our Summer garden is in full swing!  This year we only planted tomatoes and cucumbers, since I really enjoyed making my homemade pickles last year.

Last summer the cucumbers were out of control! Growing all over the trellis and ground.  So I knew we needed a better trellis of some type for the cucumbers. After doing some research, I decided to construct a trellis out of PVC pipes and twine.

We started out by driving about 2 feet of rebar into the ground.

Then we cut our 3/4'' PVC to about 8ft long and placed it over the rebar.

We repeated this for all 4 pieces of PVC. Then I used PVC elbows to connect horizontal pieces of PVC at the top.

Then we used jute twine and tied it horizontally around 3 sides of the "cube".  

I left one side open so I could walk inside to pick the cucumbers.

So far we added 3 rows of twine, but as the plants grow we will add more.

I'm excited to see how this works out!  Hopefully we will get better shaped cucumbers and be able to pick them all easily.

Quick Mailbox Makeover

In the 3 years I've lived in my house, my mailbox has been hit at least 3 times. After the 2nd time, we cemented the post into the ground and painted the post to match the house.  I even planted some flowers at the base.

Unfortunately the flowers didn't last long.  My mailbox gets direct sunlight and I didn't water them enough. 

So I started looking for mailbox garden ideas. A friend told me about their neighbor who had a large pot that their mailbox post was in.  I decided to try it for my mail box.

I purchased a large (22"+) wine barrel that I cut a small hole in the base.  This was so I could put it over my mailbox post, since my post was cemented in the ground. I had to remove the cross post and my mail box in order to position the pot.  This was fairly easy since we had screwed the posts together.

I filled the bottom of the pot with gravel to help with drainage, and I also filled in around the pot with gravel to fend off weeds.

I am very pleased with the end result!  I'm hoping that the potting soil (and the pot) will help keep more moisture for the plants.  My mailbox is now one of a kind!

Zucchini Boats

Since the garden has been producing loads of veggies, I've had to get creative with my recipes.

Average Daily Pickings

So with all the zucchini, I decided to try a stuffed zucchini boat recipe. 

I started by sauteing some onions and garlic in some EVOO.  I cut the zucchini's length wise, and scooped out the insides with a spoon.  I then added the zucchini insides to the saute pan.  

In a separate bowl I combined one package of fat free cream cheese, salt, pepper, and a little grated Pecorino Romano cheese.  Then I mixed in the sauteed onions, garlic and zucchini. 

At this point I realized I had more filling than zucchinis, so I decided to stuff some Anaheim peppers as well. I split the peppers on one side to remove the seeds and ribs.

Then I filled the zucchinis and Anaheim peppers with the cream cheesy goodness. 

I had some turkey bacon on hand, so I wrapped the peppers each with one piece of bacon to help keep them closed.

I baked them  at 400° on a cooling rack on top of a baking sheet for 15 minutes, until they were browned on top and the peppers were slightly charred. 

It was very delicious!  I've made these at least 3 times already! It's an easy and healthy way to eat your home grown veggies.

Zuchinni Bread

So what do you do when you find zuchinnis this big in your garden?

You make Zuchinni Bread of course!

I've never had zuchinni bread before, so I was a little hesitant about how it would taste.  But I looked up a Paula Dean Zuchinni Bread Recipe and I thought I'd give it a try.

The only bad part about zuchinni bread is that it only uses 2 cups of zuchinni, which isn't a lot when you have tons of zuchinni to use up.

So I grated about 3 zuchinni which gave me 4 cups. (I made 2 batches not knowing each batch made 2 loaves!)

The first batch's dough looked soupy, so for the second batch I wrung out the zuchinni to remove of some of the water.

I was pleasantly surprised when I tasted these muffins!  They were great! Like a super moist spice muffin.  

I've read you can even make a chocolate zuchinni cake!  I think I will definitively continue experimenting with zuchinni in my baking!

Homemade Pickles

Our garden is doing very well this summer.  So good that we have so many cucumbers we didn't know what to do with them!

So I decided to make my own pickles! I figured it was better than letting all these cucumbers go bad.

I got some jars, pickling spices, and vinegar and researched some recipes. A lot of recipes called for boiling the jars, and needing tongs to take them out or having to wait weeks before you could enjoy your pickles.  I finally found an easy method that makes delicious pickles ready to eat in 24 hours.

I decided to pickle cucumbers, banana peppers and onions.

You can either buy a pickling season mix, or create your own using pickling salt, mustard seed, coriander seed, cloves, all spice and other spices - it's really up to your own taste preference.

You combine the seasoning mix with vinegar and water and simmer.

Warning - This is very strong smelling, make sure you open a window or ventilate or your house will smell for days.

Once it's simmering you just pour it over the cucumbers in the jars. I used a ladle and the mess was minimal.

I used Ball Jars with lids and bands (same you would use for making jams.) Then you refrigerate for 24 hours.  Because you are putting a hot liquid straight into the cold, the jars seal themselves.

I was so excited that the pickles turned out crisp and flavorful! We ate a whole jar (1 pint) in just 2 days!

I'm ready to make more and share with friends!

Butterfly in the Sky...

A few years ago, my aunt planted a Butterfly garden at my grandparents house. She ordered some caterpillars and in a few months they had hundreds of butterflies! 

It was really neat to watch the caterpillars triple in size, make cocoons and then turn into beautiful Monarch butterflies. Since then I've wanted to have my own butterfly garden.

We started planning for the garden a few weeks go.  I already had a Butterfly Bush, so I wanted to make that the focus of the garden.

Butterfly Bush

I added Salvia and Hibiscus to the garden, plants that butterflies like to drink nectar from.

Salvia

Hibiscus

I finally found Milk Weed (or Butterfly Weed) at Lowes this past weekend.  This is essential for any Butterfly garden.  The caterpillars eat the leaves and the Butterflies drink the nectar from the flowers and lay their eggs here.

Milk Weed

We finished it off with some mulch and cute white fencing to keep Lola out.

Now I just need to order some caterpillars!

Our Summer Garden

We have finally planted everything in our summer garden!  It's twice the size of last years, so we are trying some new plants!

This summer we are growing two types of tomatoes, cucumber, zucchini, bell peppers, Cajun bell peppers, banana peppers, Anaheim peppers and green beans!

I planted the green beans from seeds about 3 weeks ago and look how much they have grown! 

I can't wait to see how our garden grows this summer!

Herb Garden

After building our deck, I found these neat hanging pots at Target.  I thought they would be perfect for herbs!  

They hang nicely along the side of our deck.  We started off with 2 but we quickly wanted more and now we have 7 different herbs!  We also have a Rosemary plant that's not pictured below.

The Original Herbs: Oregano & Lemon Thyme.

Basil and Curly Parsley.

Dill and Chive (seeds right now).

Michael cooked a chicken and veggies with some of our herbs and it tasted amazing!  I can't wait to use them some more!

I am also thinking about getting a few more of these pots to use on my front porch for flowers! They come in all the bright summer colors!

Fall Garden Harvest

Back in October we planted our Fall garden.  We doubled the size of our garden from the summer, and I was excited to see how our plants would do.

Here is a list of everything we've harvested:
4 heads of Broccoli plus many broccoli florets
2 heads of Cauliflower with one more we are about to pick
A salad's amount of lettuce - there was more but we didn't pick it all
We have a cabbage but we are waiting for it to get bigger to pick

All in all not too bad.

What I learned from this is that carrots are really hard to grow!  After nearly 4 months in the ground ours only got this big!

We are still waiting on our brussel spouts, maybe by next Thanksgiving!

Fall Garden

The first weekend of October we planted our fall garden.  Since we did so well with our summer crops we decided to double our garden area.

We planted Cabbage, Brocolli, Cauliflower, Lettuce, Brussel Sprouts and Carrots.  I am so excited about these veggies, they are all so delicious and I could eat them everyday.  Hopefully they will yield as much as our summer garden did.

We started the Carrots from seed, and after a little over a week they have started sprouting!  I'm hoping this is a good sign!

I think most of these veggies will be ready for picking at the end of November, right in time for Thanksgiving! Hopefully I can cook some cabbage for New Years to instill some good luck for 2012!

Weekend Project

This weekend Michael and I decided to build a Compost Corral.  We had been talking about creating something to hold our organic waste, grass clippings and leaves for a while now.  And the compost will be great to add to our soil when we expand our garden in the fall.

We recently watched an episode of P. Allen Smith GardenHome and saw he had built his own Compost Corral.

We got all the supplies from Lowes for only $25.  We opted to build a 4' x 4' corral so we saved some money and only purchased (8) 8 foot landscape timbers.

Basically, you use blocks to raise the corral (so you can scoop the compost out from the bottom).  Then you make a base of landscaping timbers, drill a hole halfway through the ends and place the rebar in the timbers.

Then it's just like "Lincoln Logs", you just add a log to opposite sides and build all the way up.

But it can get a little cumbersome if the holes aren't exact.

This project only took us an hour!  It was extremely easily and I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a way to 'corral' your compost.

I can't wait for our next weekend project, a Custom Pergola!

I hate tomatoes

Michael was brought up with a knack for gardening.  So when he suggested we start our own garden this year, I was excited but afraid because I don't have a green thumb.  I have quite the opposite, I usually kill plants just by being near them.

We discovered that here on the Northshore we have bad soil.  I'm not sure I would even call it soil, more like a clay/rock combo.  So after much debate we built a small semi raised garden.

So that was our garden back in March.  We planted 3 different types of Tomato (Creole, Roma and Pink Lady), eggplant, banana and cayenne pepper, corn and cucumbers.  I figured the more plants we had the better odds they would have to survive! Maybe we would get a few of each vegetable.

Boy was I wrong.  Our little garden defied all odds- bad soil, my un-green thumb, Louisiana heat, and no space!  Now our garden is exploding at the seams!

At first we had so many cayenne peppers I didn't know what to do!

 

But atleast I like peppers... Now we have so many tomatoes its ridiculous...

 

And I don't even like tomatoes!

So if anyone has any good recipes for tomato sauce, or salsa or anything with tomatoes please share them with me!