Squash

The last things from the garden we are harvesting are hubbard squash and cheese pumpkins. We'll roast these up and freeze them for later use in pumpkin pies, pumpkin bread, everything pumpkin for fall.

Hubbard Squash

Cheese Pumpkin

That evening we had dinner with the other grad students and David cooked up ribs for the first time. Delicious. 

My Balcony Garden

I showed a picture of my balcony a while back, but now I have a new and improved version.

David made this table and it is perfect for holding my plants outside and generally making the balcony area look homier. 

I've never had much success growing herbs indoors, but this shady area helps me realize all of my culinary dreams of having fresh herbs on hand. 

I think I'm in love with my basil

And look at this CUTE tomato

My balcony is screened in to keep the bugs out (which is great) but not not so great when I need my veggies pollinated. I had to pollinate my tomatoes with a Q-tip and try to fool the plant into thinking I was a bee. Likely this is the only tomato I will see on the plant but I was so excited that my experiment of pollinating tomatoes actually worked, at least on one of them!

For the Love of Tomatoes

I think that most gardeners/normal human beings agree that nothing is better than a tomato straight from the garden. Every time I have a summer tomato I wonder why I even bother buying them the rest of the year. Now that the tomato plants are fruiting its like Christmas.

Here is one of the ways I've eaten my tomatoes this week

I sliced up one of my giant heirlooms and topped it with a little low fat mozzarella (fresh would have been better buy I used what was on hand).  Then I put it in the oven at 350 for probably about 7 minutes and broiled the tomatoes for another two. This made the cheese pretty and golden! Finally I topped the cheesy tomatoes with basil from my balcony and a little balsamic vinegar. 

Since the tomatoes were roasted for a few minutes they were super sweet by the end. Melted cheese on anything never fails; try this take on a Caprese salad :)

Farmers

Can you guess what this is?

This is one of the creations grown from our garden. Any guesses yet???

It's a cucumber. 

When David and I were doing our latest vegetable gathering we found our first cucumber. None of the others had been successful. And this one could hardly be called a success. This cucumber had some sort of disease which caused it to grow in this creative and entertaining shape. We planted a lot of different vegetables this season, which has led to many successes and failures. Bugs, disease, fungus, and many other factors have contributed to quite a large loss of our veggies. 

This cucumber in particular made me very thankful for farmers. I'm glad someone can make that perfect cucumber that we like to see in grocery stores, farmers markets, wherever. My bachelor's and master's degrees were about agriculture, my job is the Farm to School coordinator. Even with all of that I barely appreciate all of the work that goes into producing food. It's mind boggling to me that thousands of people are involved with the food I eat in one meal. Thank you farmers! And everyone in between. 

Harvest

This past weekend was harvest time for David and I. We did some weeding and other maintenance of our garden. We made ourselves do all the weeding first and then pull out the vegetables that were ready at the end. There is something so fun about harvesting homegrown foods. I'm beginning to think you haven't lived until you've pulled a turnip out of the ground. 

The "before" weed wacking picture. I forgot to take an after, so just imagine a more cleaned up garden.

However I did get an "after" weed wacking picture of David. 

Our harvest for the day. We made zucchini bread that evening with the giant one pictured.

On Sunday we started our wedding registry. I did enjoy picking out all kinds of kitchen and dining stuff in the stores but it was actually somewhat exhausting. It must have been boring for the lady at Bed, Bath, and Beyond helping us around the store to listen to us discuss the pros and cons of one pair of tongs over another, etc. At Kohls the highlight for David was definitely using the scanner. He kept shooting me with it and making Star Trek jokes. 

Gardening and more

 Here are a few snapshots of what I have been up to lately

This is me mulberry picking after a meeting. One of the many moments that makes me love my job.

David and I on top of a lighthouse on Key Biscayne, we had a day where we went to the beach with all the grad students and interns from his research station.

We were happily surprised that the day we visited Key Biscayne there were historical people and exhibits around.

This picture represents one of our most inventive moments of the day. We played Bocce Ball with coconuts and other round shell things we found on the beach. With the supplies we had we needed to use the coconut as what is traditionally the small ball. This almost ended in catastrophe when one of the guys nearly hurled the coconut into a couple that was peacefully tanning on the beach.

Here is a look at one of our garden beds!

David and I are currently learning the ins and outs of gardening in south Florida. (When I say "David and I" I really mean David, he does all the work). There are raised beds available for anyone's use at his research station. This winter to spring we are growing: green beans, zucchini, yellow squash, cheese pumpkins, hubbard squash, basil, cilantro, parsley, kohlrabi, 2 kinds of peppers, green beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, turnips, and flowers. 

Our turnips! I think they are such a pretty color.

Harvesting

The first yellow squash

Plants are cool.

Do you recognize these two beekeepers? David is now managing several of his own hives.