Dangnabbit

Something is missing from this picture, hmmmm....what could it be?

Let's take a closer look...

THIS is what's missing!

Some animal or bird chewed off the flower heads of my two biggest sunflowers. I was upset, to say the least. I still have a few sunflowers left, though - so that's a positive, right?

How To Ruin A Perfectly Good Vegetable

A) Wrap in bacon
B) Fry it

On the left I did a panko-breaded eggplant topped with either a slice of jalapeño or cherry tomato and then wrapped it in bacon, then I baked it for about 20-30 minutes. Delicious.

On the right Jim did flour- and panko-breaded zucchini and fried it in some olive oil on the stove. He topped it with some garlic salt when they were still hot and then we used some garlic roasted garlic marinara (yes, three times the garlic) and it was so so so good.

Everything that I used, with the exception of the bacon and marinara, was fresh from my backyard - so that makes up for the blatant unhealthiness of it all.

Below is one of my annual pots that I filled with sweet potato vine and a couple different varieties of ornamental grasses. Shown here is my favorite: Spiralis. It reminds me of my hair!

And, finally, our favorite intrusive plant - The Beast.

Rotten Plants & Rotten Guts

At the end of July I noticed powdery mildew, a fungal disease, starting in on the zucchini. I did nothing about it so, obviously, it got worse. One big reason for the disease, I'm sure, was the overcrowding. Another reason for it might have been the cold summer we have had. I went in the curcurbit patch last weekend to clean out some of the worst of the diseased leaves but ended up just pulling out a bunch of the plants because they were rotting at the base of the plant. Below is the rubbish I pulled out - and now I only have a partial-plant of summer squash, butternut squash, and a watermelon that hasn't grown in the last two months.

I had to harvest all my zucchinis when I pulled out the plants, but as you can tell it was time to do so anyway...

I went to the State Fair this past Sunday, and here is one of my favorite seed art portraits:

The largest pumpkin came in at 1186 lbs.

I have no idea the weight on this watermelon, but it is humongous.

Below are the zucchinis I would have been competing against. They are much larger than mine, but if I let mine go at the beginning of the season next year I am sure I will have ones these sizes or larger...



I ate way too much food and am still feeling slightly ill a couple of days later. Here is a complete list of the food I tried: corn dog, cheese curds, fresh cut fries, reuben pretzel, chocolate-filled churro w/caramel sauce, corn on the cob, Big Fat Bacon™ on a stick, pork chop on a stick, turkey leg, Spam dog, chocolate ice cream infused w/raspberry wine, honey ice cream, Sweet Martha's cookies, mini-donuts, Summit EPA, and Morgan Creek's Zeitgeist. Yes, no wonder I am sick.

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....