Not the Biggest

I decided not to bring in my zucchini to the State Fair because, although large, I know it will not compare to the other ones. I picked zucchinis out of my garden about this big back in July. If I had let them keep growing then I might have had a contender. Our neighbor called it Hercules...it did come in at about 18 inches though!

We have a bunch of morning glories growing in our tomato plot but I let them go because there are so many bare spots.

I want to harvest all of our basil and make a ton of pesto and freeze it.

I love this plant because up close it looks like lizard legs. If you click to enlarge it you may be able to see what I'm talking about. It has grown so much this summer, if you look back on the posts you will see how small it once was. The flowers bloom in the afternoon and the bees love it.

Jim loves this plant...

Robbie Bobbie!

More Booty

I brought this small harvest with me to my visit to the new raw vegan place, Pure Market Express, in Chaska - this - along with two huge bags of kale. There are so many ground cherries on the ground right now and what I harvested above was only about five minutes of work. I also picked one of the huge cayenne peppers and a ho chi minh. Also in there are the sweet purple marconi peppers, two different varieties of eggplant, green pepper, and a summer squash. When I got to the store I was instantly greeted by the Chef and owner, Rebecca. She ran back into her kitchen only to return with a raw donut hole. Oh my god delicious. I took a few things home with me to eat for supper that night - my favorite being the cilantro jalapeño cheese on top of some of the raw crackers. I would have been happy to have that as my entire meal but I had half a piece of lasagna and half a serving of Spicy Peanut Noodles (the leftovers were for Jim). Everything was so good and it just reminded me that we really need to get back to a more raw lifestyle again. Except we'll have to wait until after the State Fair and my birthday, right?

This morning I decided to start juicing again before the summer is over. So I picked some more kale and a beet and put that in the juicer along with a cucumber, broccoli, strawberries, apples and a pear - which I got from the fridge, not the garden. Yum!

Big & Bigger

The eggplant in the middle definitely could be harvested but I have been mildy obsessed with seeing how large some of my vegetables can get...

A couple of sunflowers have started blooming but unfortunately I do not think my mammoth will be blooming in time for me to submit any of them into the State Fair for the largest circumference competition.

The kale is now as tall as the fence.

The Front

Most of the ornamental grass I put in this Spring is doing well and all of the hosta I transplanted are thriving.

This little annual plot is to the right of the front door. I don't normally even buy annuals but they work, and look, well here....

State Fair

Yesterday I registered to enter some of my veggies into the Minnesota State Fair. I have never even been to the State Fair! So below is the zucchini I am going to nurture for the next couple weeks - I am wanting to enter it for the largest zucchini category.

I harvested a butternut squash this morning and gave it to a co-worker, not this one though...

This is my first year growing celery and it looks great so far.

My stevia is growing well but I have no idea what to do with it.

Kale, kale, and more kale:

There's some beauty in this beast...

Booty!

Almost...almost!

A couple of the sunflowers have grown about another foot in just a matter of days - nature continues to amaze me. The flower heads, although they haven't peaked out yet, are about the size of a fist.

The next two photos show my bumper crop of Thai basil. Tonight I will be making my specialty - spicy Thai basil chicken - for my husband and ex-roommate. They can both handle my level of heat, almost!


My pepper garden is getting a bit overgrown with some of the lilies and The Beast and weeds and Morning Glories. I've had to tie up a couple of the pepper plants because they grew so tall and thin that they can't hold up the weight of their fruit. The cayenne peppers are HUGE! When I harvest them I'll make sure to post pictures...

The beets should have been completely harvested weeks ago. At this point they are probably too woody to eat, so we'll most likely juice them - which is not so awful...

Here are the tomatoes...we lost a couple plants to disease...

This is just two of our basil plants...we're gonna be making a lot of pesto this fall!

I love succulents! Love them. I found this cute hen & chick plant at the Mpls Farmers Market at the beginning of the season and its been sprouting up chicks all over the place. I didn't know how well they transplanted so I experimented a few weeks ago - I plucked a few of the chicks out and just stuck them in another plant I had sitting outside. It wasn't long before they took and started getting bigger. So yesterday afternoon I plucked out a bunch and put them in a new planter.

I like ending with a pretty flower picture. This plant has been flowering all year - the name eludes me at the moment, but I will be sure to pick one of these up again next year.