Irene is messing with my tomato's

So although I knew that when the rain and wind came to my area from Irene that my tomato's would be one of the first of the garden casualties but I so hoped I was wrong.

Just look at my poor tomato plant....

Look at parts of the yard....lots of rain....

So how did Irene effect you or is she yet to come your way?

Harvesting Edible Garden Tour - A day late

Sorry all I lost track of what day it was.  Silly me.  Oh well.  So how is your garden growing?  Got anything edible that is harvesting this month?  I did and still do if you count my herbs.  Which for this month I am not.  See this month I want to show off my other harvests.  Yesterday's actually...Sunday I went shopping in the garden and came back with:

Some Corn on the Cob

 A few more cucumbers

 Hot pepper

And a few tomato's.

Not a bad day at the market if you ask me.  So tell me what you harvested this month.  Leave a link below to your post so others can join the tour and see what you harvested.




I can't wait to see how your garden is doing.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - August 2011

Welcome one and all to Irish Gardens on this rainy Bloom Day.  Well at least it's raining here.  It has been raining for the last 3 days.  I know we needed the rain but we need sun too.  It seems we are getting a lot of extremes this year....heat or rain, sun or shade.  So on to the bloom day pictures which surprisingly there is a lot of for a rainy day.

 Rose of Sharon still showing off it's double purple blooms

 Pumpkins are still flowering like crazy...still only one pumpkin so far though

 Beef-master Tomato plants are still flowering up a storm.

 Cucumbers too....lots of yellow orange over by the greenhouse

Even the Watermelons are still flowering still no melons yet though

 Only 1 eggplant harvested as of yet but lots of pretty purple flowers still popping up all over.

 Echinacea is still showing off her pretty purple flowers

 The pretty and delicate marshmallow flowers are still busy opening up.

 Finally some green beans are finally flowering

 A wild flower that was finally identified as Asiatic Day flower a local wild herb.  How cool.  Another herb to add to my collection.

 Blush Satin Rose of Sharon showing off it's beauty as well.

 Finally morning glories are beginning to open

 My new favorite morning glory is this beautiful variegated leaf

 Another beauty is showing off this Bloom Day.

 Poor hydrangea bush is falling over because it is heavy with rain.

 Hibiscus is looking down this morning also heavy with rain.

 Another Rose of Sharon that is showing off it's beauty.

And finally to end my blooming show is this pretty lady the Mandevilla vine...

Let me know what you think.  Head over to Carol's garden and see who else has posted about what is Blooming in their Garden....Gardens all around the world participate.

I'll take a BLT w/ MBC

So who wants to take a guess as to what that mess of letters mean?  I bet you'll get half of them right....maybe more.  Here is a hint.

Almost all the letters are on the table.  How many can you guess?  Give up.  BLT - Bacon Lettuce Tomato sandwich w/ Mayo Basil Chives.  A meal from my garden.  Mayo and bread were the only items on the menu that were not grown here by me.  I added the chives and basil just because.  Well I see basil and tomato all the time together so I thought why not?  Then the garlic chives well I put them on everything.

 Look at the size of that tomato.  I mean really...one slice was all I needed and then some.

Not the best picture in the world but you can mostly see everything.  And let me tell you it tasted a whole lot better than it looks.  So in case you don't know how to make these wonderful sandwiches here is what I used to make them:

1lg Tomato - sliced
1pkg bacon - cooked
2 handful's of lettuce - cut to sandwich size if needed
1 stem basil (about 6 leaves) leaves removed and cut in half
small handful of garlic chives - chopped up
bread
mayo

Put them all together and enjoy.  Although the order doesn't matter it's best to put the mayo on the bread and then all the other ingredients between the slices of bread.  But don't let that stop you either.

My first true meal from the garden

The other day I fixed my first true meal that just about all came from the garden.  Eggplant parmigiana.  Oooohhh baby was it good.  Special thanks go out to my sister Melanie who although helped after the meal was fixed let me know that I did in fact fix it right. So here is the final look of the meal that almost didn't have leftovers:

This was so good.  Silly me forgot to take a picture when it was first done so this is the very last portion....it went to work with the hubby the next day.  You can see the one of ingredients that didn't come from my garden - Cheese.

Yup thats corn on the cob....from my garden.

The meal before preparation.
1 Eggplant
3 Tomatoes (only one shown still had to get others)
Spices
Corn on the cob
Cheese
1 Can paste
1 egg -beaten
flour
oil

First time ever growing eggplant and thanks to some advice the plants were moved into the greenhouse as they are a heat loving plant.  This is the first one to form and it was tasty.

Thats 3 Beefmaster tomato's in there all puree'd up and cooking.  I added the can of paste after this picture because it needed thickening.  My sister informed me after that beefmaster tomato's are great for slicing but not so much for sauce as they are watery.....found that out the wrong way...but you know what?  1 can of paste thickened it up and I still call this meal made from my garden.

My crazy small corn on the cob hanging out in boiling water doing there thing.  So how to fix this meal you are wondering?  Well let me tell you.  The list of ingredients is already listed above so lets not go through that again.


Cut your tomato's how you like it then put into blender set on puree.  Pour into sauce pan and add paste.  Add spices to taste (oregano, basil, sage, thyme, rosemary, parsley to name a few) Italian seasoning is a good one to add.  Cook on low heat tasting often if it tastes bitter sprinkle a little sugar and stir.

Take your corn on the cob and place into boiling water.  By the time the rest of the meal is done they will be as well just keep the heat on low.

Slice the eggplant like you do tomato's....to get circles dip into the egg then coat with flour.  Then fry in a pan with the oil...add more oil as needed.  Just enough to brown on both sides.  It takes about 2-3 min each side. Place cooked eggplant on a plate covered in a paper towel.

Preheat oven to 400.

Once the sauce is to your taste and the eggplant is cooked place the eggplant into a casserole dish in one layer, add grated parmigiana. cheese if wanted then sauce and topped with cheese (mozzarella shredded is good.) Depending on the thickness of the eggplant and sauce together will determine how long in the oven but should be less than 10 min.  For me it took about 5 for them all to be heated through and the cheese melted.

Serve and enjoy.

Thriving Thursday - On a Friday

Another week almost passed me by before I got my Thriving Thursday post out.  If it helps I started it yesterday but things came up and I had to stop.  So on this Friday morning what is Thriving in your gardens?

 I have a pumpkin.....finally a pumpkin that didn't fall off.

 My herb Marshmallow is flowering...pretty white flowers with purple middles....

 The orange froggy dude is doing great in the greenhouse.  He really likes it in there.

 While the White Rose of Sharon bush is flowering it's beauty, the bee's are playing in the pollen.

 Baby spider plants are rooting quite well in water....this guy was potted up to be sold through the other site (www.theirishgardens.com)

And finally Tomato's, Cucumber's, and herbs were thriving and ripening.

So what is Thriving in your neck of the garden blogosphere?  Write about it and add your link below.

Where did the time go?

So I just realized that I missed 2 Thriving Thursdays.  How did I do that? Oh well.  Anyways I have lots to show you all.

Like my Marshmallow plant is now flowering.  Such a pretty delicate flower.

 Blue Chiffon Rose of Sharon is in full bloom. So pretty with the rain drops.

The white Rose of Sharon is also blooming beautifuly this rainy morning.

 My new Rose of Sharon bush is this beautiful Blush Satin.  I love it.

 And the old big double purple Rose of Sharon bush is also flowering.  Can you tell I like Rose of Sharon bushes.  They are just so pretty.

The first of the Rose of Sharon bushes along the driveway have finally bloomed....simple yet pretty.  So far thats 5 different types that are in bloom right now.  I still have at least 1 other variety to bloom.

 Finally a pumpkin to speak of.  Gets bigger every day so thats good.

And the big news of the day other than the pretty blooms around the gardens is my tomatoes are finally starting to turn a color other than green.

Ok so thats not the biggest news of the day.  A few weeks ago I decided that I wanted to start a small business selling my herbs.  See they love the greenhouse and I had started to add cuttings to the compost pile because they were growing so fast I had more than I needed.  I mean I was cutting mint and basil every week and now my dried herb containers are full.  So as of late this past week I received my sales tax licence in the mail so Irish Gardens is now open.  I am so happy and can't wait to really get started.