On My Mind - Giant Zucchini

On My Mind is a feature of Rhonda Jean's blog, "Down to Earth"

On my mind today is giant zucchini...

.....and what to do with it!  This is a real-life sized chair, and a real life sized zucchini! We have grown five or six more almost this size in the past two weeks. Needless to say, we are getting a little tired of zucchini. So I have been looking for new recipes (this weeks favorite so far has to be zucchini hash with potatoes and onion and plain yogurt), giving them away to friends and to our "take some, leave some" produce basket at church (which feels good as I am usually taking produce!), and freezing some for later. To freeze zucchini, you have to blanch it for three minutes first:

Then you dry them with a clean cloth or paper towels if you use them, and put in a ziploc baggie for some delicious ratatouie in winter time!  My next zucchini project, which is inspired by my new favorite cookbook "Nourishing Traditions", will be to can some with some whey and salt - a zucchini and onion version of sauerkraut.

What is on your mind this week?

50 Things in 215 Days - Learning from Gardening Mistakes!

           After years of killing every plant that I have owned, I decided in January that this would be the year I would grow a successful garden. And boy have I tried! My original plans to try with a few plants I had seeds for expanded when Pete's Aunt Jill gave me a bunch of left over seeds she had - cilantro, zuchinni, lots of onions, tomatoes, and squash to name a few. I had little plants growing all over my house in dixie cups this spring - it must have looked like we were growing marijuana to our neighbors. But sadly very few of the poor innocent seedlings survived me forgetting to water them or planting them before they were strong enough to make it on their own. Not much success growing from seed, but I have somehow managed to plant tomatoes on accident under our apricot tree, and keep alive some tomato plants that someone donated to our churches "Leave or Take" box.

       But zuchhini must be hardy plants because they have not only survived but taken over! I planted 6 little zuchinni seedlings in the raised bed Pete built me, and they have grown over the onions and tomatoes, and are suffocating them! 

 Here you can see the tomatoes pushed over the edge of the box by the zuchinni - selfish plants!

    Here are some of the many, many zuchinnis we've harvested this summer. I need to learn how to freeze them because I am actually getting tired of eating them! Aren't they huge?

So from my gardening attempts this summer I have learned that I need to work on spacing my plants :). And I get to cross something off my list:

41. Plant spaghetti squash, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, asain carrots, and butterleaf lettuce
42. Grow these things successfully :) (the tomatoes anyways!)
     

The wonderful thing about San Diego is that I get to try again with gardening this Fall. I think I will leave zuchinni out!

Thursday's Tip from the Green Housewife - Use Scrap Wood to Build a Raised Bed

This year I've started my first ever vegetable garden. My husband's Aunt Jill was dropping off some extra seeds at our house, and after seeing how many gopher's we have, recommended that we build a raised bed. I am determined at some point to try to get rid of the little buggers in some humanitarian way, but for this Spring, a raised bed was the only reasonable solution.
       The first step was to clear a level area for the raised bed to be put on.

       Then my wonderful husband Pete built me the bed. We went to Home Depot and spent 20$ on chicken wire and nails, and our gardening budget was 20$. Then we looked at wood and saw that it was going to be 60$ for good pine wood for a 4'by 8' bed.  The cheaper wood would have been at least 25$, which was still more than we wanted to spend. We decided to ask the nursery which owns the property we rent if we could use wood from their scrap pile, and they said it would be fine. Pete had  to go to a lot of work to nail some boards together in random ways, but the finished result was great! He saved us at least 25$, and saved some trees at the same time. I am in love :). 

 

These are all the plants I have planted so far - I have some growing inside in Dixie cups that are too fragile to plant just yet. I also need to put in more dirt, which I am going to do next week when I get some horse manure from our friends the Werners. So far we have onions, zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, and oregano, with some carrots, cantaloupe, basil, and more tomatoes and cucumbers to come!

Here's a close up of the zucchini:

And the onions:



What are your green or frugal gardening tips?

Window Art

          When I was in college, I went on a mission trip to North Africa and on the way, we stopped over in England for three days. One of my favorite things about England was the window boxes and hanging flower pots in front of all the stores! Ever since I have dreamed of having a house with window boxes, and filling them with beautiful flowers.

          So I was thrilled when we were checking out the one-room-flat-above-the-garage where we now live, and I saw that it has some beautiful window boxes. (Between that and the view, I was sold, even though the house came without an AC!) This will be the year that I fill them with beautiful flowers!

Aren't they charming!

One of my favorite flowers that grow in San Diego are "Grandpa Ottis' Morning Glories". They aren't easy to find in nurseries, and are several dollars a plant, so of course I bought seeds!  I really want them to be spilling over the edges of the window boxes, with some Lavendar and Black-eyed Susan's (which my friend Marie gave me seeds for!) in the background for heighth.  I just planted the Lavendar and Black-eyed Susan seeds today, but I've been growing the morning glories from seed for two month's now. I have about four vines growing successfully. I discovered the first flower today:

Can't you see the flower is singing praise to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost?!

50 Things in 77 Days

 

With all of the changes that have taken place lately in my life (slowly getting back good health and quitting work in order to do so), I have decided to re-evaluate my goals for this year. Some I am modifying, but most I am keeping, and their are others I may add as well.

 As far as writing goals:

1. Blog six days a week - is just too much, because I don't have something to say 6 days a week. I would rather write three really good posts a week than 6 mediocre ones!

2. Write 16th and Island (story about homeless family) - this goal I plan to keep, because I really think this story must be told. But as I will have more time and energy to work on it now, I have a new goal of working on it every day before I forget some crucial details about what happened!

3. Try to get 16th and Island published - this will be a huge mountain to climb, but I intend on giving it my best efforts!

As far as spiritual goals - I just need to get back on track, and I will, starting tonight! I want my relationship with God to be the most important thing in my life, but I tend to work and worry, like Martha, instead of pray!

As far as health goals - #18, Walk 60 miles a month, is just too much right now. So I am revising this goal to thirty miles a month, for now until I can get my stamina back. So far I have walked 19 miles this month!

Gardening goals - are being hampered by birds, earwigs, field mice, and gophers - uggghhh. But I am NOT giving up the dream of having my own garden, so it is time to go to war with these critters!

I have managed to cross # 34 -Learn 3 new calligraphy fonts off my list - I've learned Spencerian, Latin, and Uncial.

What are your plans/ goals for the week?

Question from the Green Housewife - How Do You Keep Birds from Ruining Your Garden?

I have always been a bird lover, since I was a little girl when I would look at pictures of birds in "Audobon's North American Bird's Guide".  Even Alfred Hitcock's movie "Birds" didn't weaken my love for my feathered friends - when I was a teenager, we went camping by the Northern California seaside, and I was so excited to recognize the call of Hitchcocks birds. One of the reasons I love living where we live now, out in the country, is in the Spring you can hear birds singing all day long.
      But lately, these avian creatures have been taking over our yard - they are eating the seeds from my garden, and I had to stop hanging clothes on the line because they keep pooping on our clothes! I caught a beautiful bluebird eating my newly planted squash seeds the other morning:

I do not want to develop the same disdain for birds that Wodehouse's Freddie Widgeon developed for cats, so I am trying to find humane solutions to scaring them away from my garden and my clothesline. So I am going to try moving a scarecrow around the yard (at night so they don't catch on) and see what that does. I sort of expect them to roost on it after a few days, but we shall see.
      How do you keep birds from your garden and clothesline? Any tips would be appreciated!

Thursday's Tip from the Green Housewife - Pick Your Neighbors' Fruit for the Homeless

         In San Diego, there are at least 8,500 homeless people, and 2,200 of them are children. Most of them, obviously enough, do not get adequate nutrition. Meanwhile, many people in San Diego have gorgeous citrus and avocado trees which do not get fully, or even partially, harvested! Within walking distance of my house, I have counted 20 plus citrus trees which are full of fruit falling and rotting on the ground.

         Here are four bags of grapefruit, 1 bag of avocado, and 1 bag of oranges and tangerines "gleaned" from our friends Jennifer's and Heather's trees:

Thanks guys! Pete and I are going to take them tonight to a homeless shelter downtown where a homeless women and children often stay. Hopefully all that vitamin C will help strengthen their immunities during this very difficult cold and flu season.

What are your green or frugal tips?       

Tuesdays Tip from the Green Housewife - Harvest Your Fruit Before It Rots

One of the things that I love most about our carriage house in the country (my Anne Shirley-esqe way of describing our rented-one-bedroom-flat-on-top-of-a-garage) is the orange tree planted next to our front porch. In the spring it provides us with beautiful white blossoms and their distinctively sweet, citrusy fragrance. In the winter it provides us with oranges so juicy they have ruined supermarket oranges for Pete and I forever.

So why are these oranges rotting on the ground?

I haven’t been quick enough this year to pick the oranges - last year when money was tighter, we barely had a single one wasted!  Today I picked about 30 oranges - Pete and I will eat about half of that this week, and the other half will be given away. I plan on picking some of the really ripe ones every day, and giving them away to coworkers, neighbors, and  our "Take it Or Leave It" box at church. I may drop some off at the food bank at Shadow Mountain Community Church, near where Pete and I work.

If you have a fruit tree, harvest the fruit this week before it spoils and use it instead of buying fruit at the grocery store. Whatever is left, give it away! I'm sure that a friend or coworker who is struggling financially,  or a homeless shelter or food bank, would be thrilled to receive it!

What are your green or frugal tips?