Abundance!

Summer is about abundance, is it not?  I love how it goes in phases.  After all the planting and weeding and watering.  Then comes the watching.  What will come up first?  What will thrive?  What will we have to re-think for next year?

First, it was the early lettuces and spinach.  We enjoyed our salads daily, let me tell you!  As those got old and bitter, they were ripped out of the garden and offered to the chickens.  (Yum, says they.)

Then, and still, Carrots, Carrots and More Carrots.

So we're eating tons of the things, in soups, muffins and just by themselves.  We keep planting more.  We should have carrots until Christmas.  And then we'll be sick of them.  But then we won't have them again until June when we'll WANT them again.  And so it goes...

I'm also pulling a crazy amount of New Zealand Spinach out.  Well, picking a lot of leaves and pulling a lot of plants.  Have you ever grown NZ Spinach?  If you have, you know of what I speak.  We still have some in the freezer from last summer.  You'd think I would learn.  Nope.  I planted a row of "regular" NZ, a row of organic, and 2 rows of transplants from the little volunteers in the beds it was in last year.  Ugh.  Now it's crowding out the peppers, onions and eggplants, and spilling over the sides of the bed!  Good thing the chickens all like it!  That said, it really is wonderful stuff.  Full of goodness and freezes Awesome-ly!  (Is that even a word?)  I usually pick a huge bowl of it, wash it in cool water, stuff it into a pillow case and chuck it into the washing machine on "spin".  No, I'm not kidding.  Works like a dream!  Brilliant suggestions from my dear pal Lisa from Urban Harvest.  Then into Ziploc freezer bags - whole leaves.  Let it freeze, then crush it and it takes up 1/2 the space.  It's a hardy plant, loves the sun without bolting, and not really a spinach at all.  I don't like it in salads, as it's too "thick" for my liking, but in sauces and pestos, it's amazing.

I harvested all my cabbages too.  All 3 of them.  These awful little bugs got the rest:

A lot of cursing going on as I found all the holes in the cabbage due to this...this... thing.  If anyone knows the name of this little green monster, I'd love to hear it, as well as any tips to eradicate the beastie from my future cabbages.

More later!