Ah! Ok then

 Walking through the gardens yesterday and today I noticed that a few plants just looked way to familiar to be where they were.  I mean not that I have any say in what grows where most of the time but still.

Can you tell?

How about in this picture?  Corn.  Yup Mother Nature has struck with her humor again and decided that the end of October is a great time to start growing some corn in the middle of my yard.  Personally I just don't quite understand why they would have even sprouted let along continue to grow to the point of recognition.

Do you have anything growing in your yard that shouldn't be?  Whether it's in the wrong place or wrong season?  I wonder how many fellow gardeners have this going on?

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.

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 - Knee high by the 4th of July

Earlier this week was the 4th of July.  An old saying of "Knee high by the 4th of July", refer's to the quality of a tall growing crop.  Crops that are long growing and tall are said to be healthy if they are knee high around the beginning of July.  Normally this is used for corn and sometime cotton but it is an old saying. This Thriving Thursday though I am using it for it's literal meaning.   What plants of yours are thriving to the point of being knee high today?

 My corn is more than knee high already.  I certainly hope that this means I will have a good crop.

After our trip my gardens were so much bigger than I remembered and my Echinacea is still blooming.  And   this guy is more than knee high.  The big leaves at the bottom of the picture are Eggplant and they too are also knee high.

 My young Rose of Sharon bushes are back to over knee high as well as the flower stalks to the hosta's.

After a lot of rough starts my morning glory plants are finally getting to be over knee high

So what is knee high in your garden this week?  What is truly Thriving this Thursday?  Post and add your link so we can all see.

I love to hear what others think so feel free to leave a comment even if you don't leave a link.

The way I measure

We all have out ways of measuring the height of our plants.  Be it a stick placed next to it.  A ruler.  Or like me, family members

Last year it was Buddy dog.  Sitting still allowing me to show off the height of my corn.  Realizing of course that not everyone knows Buddy but that many do understand the height of a Chocolate lab that at the time was 4 years old.

Earlier this spring I decided to use my son instead as I can have him stand next to what I wish to measure and stand a certain way.  Much easier to control a picture with a walking and talking 4 year old boy than a 4 year old dog.

I took this picture today.  Hard to believe that this picture was taken 1 month and 2 days after the one above.  Guess we know what grows faster around this house.  Clearly I am not feeding my son the right stuff.  Wait if he grew this fast I wouldn't have money for my garden as it would go for his clothes.

Long beautiful hair...

Nope not going to break into song....I am going to talk about Corn....and all it's hairy parts.

Buddy dog here is a 4 year old Pure breed Chocolate lab. He was kind enough to sit for me so I could take a picture to show the height of the corn compaired to him.

Next to him the corn is just begining to show signs of progress other than getting tall. The top tassle like part that is actually very important to pollination is just starting to grow out from the middle of the leaves. Untill this point all we have been seeing is new leaves growing and growing and growing....and the corn getting quite tall. Infact it is now over 5ft tall....actually it's over 5'5" tall....as I am 5'4" and it is taller than me.

Next in the stage of growth is where we begin to see something between the stalk and leaves but not at the top but part way down...almost the middle for some.

Just below this new development you can see a very destinctive bulge in the stalk....on the opposite side of the new growth. Almost kinda looks like the Corn stalk is pregnant.

The kids are now standing next to the very tall corn looking at the progress and seeing that the top tassle parts are now fully uncovered and even spread apart. Pollinisation of the corn has begun. It won't be a whole lot longer before we will get to enjoy the ears.

And now to the title of the post....Hair has begun to show it's self as well as the husks of the ear. Long and beautiful a sure sign that it's almost time. As of now we have 6 ears that are in the process of developing. So far only one per stalk. Hopeing for the rest to start and or one of the stalks produce more than one.

Here you can see the beautiful hair along with the stalk and the bulge below.

Although this picture is a double it allows me to show some of the things that we have learned this year. Although clearly the corn is doing very well you can see that the stalks to the left in the picture are much shorter than those to the right. The ones on the right get more unfiltered sun through out the day. The others do get sun all day but part of the day it does get filtered thru the greenhouse. So not quite direct sunlight. And also due simply by location of the house and this garden the ones to the left....expecially the ones not in the picture are the first to loose the afternoon sun to the shade of the house. Next year we are going to plant our corn in another spot. One that will get more sun unfiltered in anyway and this way all the corn will loose the afternoon sun basically the same time.

So far (knocking on wood) we have been lucky in that we have not had any major pest issues. Whether it is due to the companion planting of Garlic Chives in with the corn or pure beginers luck I have no idea.

Another thing that I have learned with this is the spacing requirements on the seed packets are indeed there for a reason. Although my corn is doing well they do seem to be a little crowded...at least at the top. When the harvest is done and I till the garden I will see for sure with the root system. As long as pollination still happends and the roots don't seem to be crowding then I will know better how to plant next year.

Spacing and layout.

Spacing is important when it comes to planning a garden of any kind. A vegetable garden has a little more need for it. 8'x8' seems like a pretty big area to plant stuff and if these were flowering plants sure....it would be more than enough. But I have vegetables. Each Veggi has a required bubble of sorts. Some it is as simple as just spacing between each plant...others need between each plant and in rows so far apart.

Take the corn for instance. Each plant needs to be 6-8" apart but in rows 2-3' apart and it is recomended that there is at least 4 rows so they can be proper pollinated.

Tomato plants are different. They do have requirements but it's not the same, and it depends on the hybrid you have. For the ones that I have here they are considered a patio plant. Meaning they need very little growing room other than up. It is recomended for these to have something to help support the main stem though.

The Green Beans are very different in that they only need to be at least 6" apart from each other.

The Broccoli likes more room to play than the Green Beans....they like at least 16" between them.

Now another question that I had in planning what to plant, where, and how is....well where. Can I plant one veggi next to another? Will it look ok? Then of course I realized that looks isn't what matters in a vegetable garden...unless you are looking at the product it's self. A vegetable garden doesn't take as much planning as a flower garden may but it does still take some planning. You don't want to many next to each other or too far apart. It this plant better outside the greenhouse or does it matter. Take the corn again....in the Greenhouse at 5' is where the walls begin to form the roof....corn stalks can get to be over 5' tall so they wouldn't work too well in the greenhouse...unless that was the only way to grow them. Another thing to remember when planning a vegetable garden I found out the hard way. Don't sow too many of each seed. Unless it says to plant in a mound or grouping only 1 should be in each spot. When starting seeds usually it is done by placing 2-3 seeds into a single spot...then thinning them out. Me I didn't want to thin out some of them....they all looked so healthy and cute....but now I have more than I need as most of them sprouted.

1st Transplant

After 2 days in the Green house these little ones needed to be planted outside. The sweet Corn is now ready to keep on growing. Although Corn is one of those Direct sow crops I decieded to start it in the Jiffy Greenhouse to give them the best chance I could. The majority of the corn is properly spaced. 6" apart in Rows 2' apart. Because of the shape of the boxed in area they are in rows of 2. Yes there are some that are inbetween the spaced ones but since I had to thin the pods I just really didn't want to throw any away. They are my babies I have to give them a chance. They recomend that the corn is planted with at least 4 rows. A total of 22 seedlings were transplanted. Lets see who makes it and who doesn't.

Progress everywhere.

The Jiffy Greenhouse:

After just shy of 24 hours in the Green house these little gems have taken off. The growth is just amazing. Granted this is the time for them to be growing but hey.

Sweet Corn..

..Green Beans

Cauliflower..

..Broccoli

Green Pepper..

..Peas

The Outside Garden:

The Garden off the kitchen has also shown a lot of progress over night. I am sure that the rain storm last night helped. The Rhubarb is starting to get it's trademark color. And the Onions are popping up all over. The onions that were already showing are just getting taller....off to a good start.

Jiffy Greenhouse

On May 26th I started 70 pods of seeds. 6 different seeds each all in a row.
Green Pepper
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Green Bean
Peas
Sweet Corn



On May 30th Seedlings started to appear.

Broccoli

Cauliflower

Green Beans

Peas

Sweet Corn