Friday, July 8, 2016

Fruits and Vegetables, and a Few Nuts.

What's been going on in my head this week is hardly light and fluffy stuff.

Shootings, by police officers, and of police officers, fill the news. Being black in America is dangerous. So is being a cop when nut cases get guns. 

 When it's not that, it's politics. Yes, I am glad that Hillary Clinton was not indicted. One would hope that would be the end of "those damn e-mails", but no, the Republicans are so disappointed that they can't send Hillary to prison that they will keep trying, just to keep her name negatively in the news.  

So I baked banana bread.

Do you stage your bananas? I try to. We share a large banana every morning as part of our breakfast. I buy green ones as the last purchased batch is ripening, hoping the overlap is perfectly timed. This week is wasn't, so I baked banana bread. 

I'll probably wrap it up and put it in the freezer, since I am once again trying to lose weight, after indulging over the 4th of July put me over the tipping point. 

These problems are much easier to deal with than those big ones that fill the news. 

About the vegetables. They are growing in our garden. 

The rooster rules the herb patch, which includes caged catnip. Have you ever seen what a cat can do to unprotected catnip? 

 Beans and cucumbers are climbing.
 The basil that survived the cold, wet spell is beginning to flourish, bordered by short orange and yellow cosmos. 

 Sweet peas are just beginning to open their buds. 
 Yes, we have as many flowers in our vegetable garden as we do vegetables. 
 Romaine lettuce is forming heads in the company of dahlias, and the butter crunch lettuce has been supplying us with yummy salad greens. Good diet food. 

 The zucchini has erupted, and the crop will soon be hard to keep up with. 

Under the row cover fabric cloche, carrots and beets are growing unmolested by carrot worms and leaf miners. 
And then there's the raspberry patch.
 What? You don't see any raspberries? 
 Well, that's because we took them out. We miss them, of course, but the plants were old and becoming diseased, and the fruit became infested with Asian fruit fly, which lays eggs of the surface of the tiny green fruit. The eggs hatch into tiny white worms which enter the fruit and turn it to mush. Not nice at all.

We will leave the ground fallow for two years and try raspberries again. In the meantime, we have scattered flower seeds with abandon and are loving our pretty patch. 
 It is bordered with sunflowers, including these chocolate sunflowers. 




 Lest you think we are not growing tomatoes, we are. They have their own place in a heat trap on the west side of the garage, 


 and in front of the green house. 

So there you go, a little diversion from the news.

And now it's the weekend. We have plans to have some fun. I hope you do too. 

18 comments:

  1. I love poppies of any color. Sweet peas are also a favorite of mine. Your garden is very attractive. Have to say my heart has been very heavy today. I'm having a hard time with some of the things going on these days. Makes me very sad.

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  2. Your fruit and veggies are just picturesque. Your beds always look so nice. I hope you both have good knees and backs for a long, long time so I can keep enjoying the beauty of your yard.

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  3. I am sick of the senseless killings in this country. Why can't we all get along? So far so good. We don't have that type of violence in Hawaii.

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  4. I'm so envious of your garden. Ours isn't doing so well. We didn't plant until June because we weren't home, and the late start meant we were too late to plant some veggies. Guess I'll be happy with whatever survives and be grateful to not spent the time processing for the freezer.

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  5. A sight for sore eyes, such a beautiful garden. I have never come across a chocolate sunflower.

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  6. Surprisingly, your garden vegetables look to be at about the same stage as mine. We've harvested 5-6 cukes and will harvest a zucchini this coming week. I have many green peppers and tomatoes, but none is close to ripening. When I get an over-abundance of bananas in my kitchen, I peel and freeze them for future smoothies and banana breads. And the violence in this country is beyond frightening.

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  7. What a contrast you have captured in this post. The world at its ugliest and the world as it should be in all its beauty and bounty.

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  8. I am having a hard time watching the news, too. One thing after another. It's much nicer to tour your vegetable garden. I'm glad to know I have company on the trying-to-lose-weight trudge. :-)

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  9. It's a little difficult to get your head away from the news. A lush garden does go a long way to take your mind off a very troubling situation.

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  10. Enjoyed the diversion from all the hate on the news these days. It is nice to see productivity and bounty as a nice contrast.
    Interesting about the catnip. I thought of planting some but didn't think of caging. I keep forgetting about my neighbor's cats.

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  11. I do try to overlap my bananas like you, but when mine get too mushy I make smoothies. The news this week has been horrifying. Your tomatoes look wonderful. I decided not to even try them this year. I just didn't feel like it. I'm thinking of taking out my strawberries. Sometimes edible gardening is more work than I want to do. You know what? I'm just having a very lazy year.

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  12. Your garden looks great, and I'd welcome the banana bread as a distraction from the world.

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  13. Everything is doing so well in your garden. I'm a big fan of mixing flowers and veggies together.

    We eat bananas almost every day and find that at some point too many will be ripe at the same time, esp. in the warmth of a summer kitchen ( we don't have A/C). And, like you, I usually make a banana cake. Yummy.

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  14. Your garden is amazing. I have one sunflower in the garden just like yours. I really want to lose ten pounds and having a hard time getting started! Eating sure is fun. Good luck!

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  15. This was a wonderful diversion from the terrible news we've been inundated with lately. Your garden is an absolute wonder. I can't get over how lush and gorgeous everything is!!! Wow! Totally impressive!

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  16. Thank you for the diversion. The news is heartbreaking. I've been playing with a food dehydrator, buying discounted bananas, slicing them, and voila, fat free banana chips. Your garden is looking amazing!

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