Garden Magic

The jungle

We are long overdue for a garden update. Looking at the photos on the last post, from a month ago, I can barely relate those neat little rows of plants to the raucous leaf-riot that the back yard has become. We spent the last week on the Pennsylvania/New York border for a family reunion and when we got back it seemed that everything had grown about a foot. What is it about gardens that every time you turn your back the plants shoot up, multiply their fruit, and magically transform button-sized squash into two-pound behemoths? It's all tied in to that "watched pot never boils" law, so that the garden only seems to grow when we stop looking.

As you might have noticed, we changed our header photo to our latest harvest. All told there was about six pounds of zucchini, including these two who were non-existent a week ago:

Me at 6 am on our first morning back. We couldn't wait to get out into the garden

I believe these monsters officially qualify as "marrows," which are excellent stuffed and baked. My favorite recipe is from the Moosewood cookbook, where the little boats are creatively dubbed "Zucchanoes" and stuffed with a mixture of sauteed onions, zucchini innards, mushrooms, quinoa, eggs, cottage cheese, wheat germ, herbs and lemon juice. Then they are covered with grated cheese and baked for 45 min until golden and tender.

Harvest, including our first yellow pear tomatoes (fabulous!) and, from L-R, Sweet, Citrus, and Cinnamon Basil

Remembering the delicious courgette pickles from Sabine in NZ, I sought out a recipe to make some of our own. I found one from the Zuni Cafe which looked super easy and yummy. The trick is to have very even, and super-thin slices of zucchini, which according to most sources can only be done with a tool called a mandoline. Not possessing such a thing, I had to improvise and had near-perfect results from the long side of a box grater. Success!

My first pickles. Tomorrow will be the taste test!

The basil had also grown out of control and our trimming-back efforts yielded large bowlfuls of each of the three types we are growing. I spent all morning yesterday mixing up different kinds of pesto to freeze. The cinnamon and sweet basil were made into traditional pesto, sans cheese, and neatly frozen in flattened ziplock bags. The citrus basil, which has a wonderful lemony aroma, was simply blended with garlic, olive oil and salt and frozen for a future fish marinade.

Cinnamon Basil -- its flower and stem have a lovely, distinct purple hue, in addition to a sweet cinnamony scent


Cornsilk! On plants that now reach over 6 feet in height


The beans are on their way. Once they dry, we'll harvest and shell them to eat and save for next year's seed