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.

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!

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!