Bountiful Treasures of The Garden
A Summer Garden Update
Our 2024 summer garden has been thriving! The heat of the summer has encouraged all of the vegetables to grow well. We’ve had a few setbacks but overall the garden is doing well and providing lots of delicious veggies for us to eat. (And give to friends and family!)
The Garden Hauls
We have been blessed with vegetables from the garden this summer. I was a little worried our strawberry plants were not producing but they arrived at the beginning of June and we’ve enjoyed picking them off the plant. My son loves eating fresh strawberries with dinner each night.
Basil is always a success for us, and I’ve had difficulty keeping up with it this year! We’ve made a few pestos with all of the basil from the plant. Our favorite pesto dish: Grilled Cheese with Pesto sandwiches.
Our lunchbox pepper plants have been perfect this year. My son loves eating these with his dinner. I love putting them in salads or just snacking on them. They are delicious with a ranch dip.
My cherry tomatoes have gone nuts lately! I collected two large bowl fulls over the last month and recently added them for a tomato pesto variation to my pesto. They tasted delicious! We had so many of them that I have given a few batches to friends and family.
Our poblano plant is also thriving. We made stuffed peppers a few weeks ago with them but I don’t use them as much as I thought I would. I probably won’t plant them next year and instead replace them with a bell pepper variety.
Our big beef tomatoes started turning red about a month ago. They have the perfect amount of flavor and pair nicely in a salad or in chicken meatball gyros. Lately, I’ve been putting them on toasted bread with mayo for a southern staple. So delicious!
Finally, our yellow squash plants have given us a nice little haul of vegetables. I love roasting these up in the air fryer with seasoning and olive oil.
The Setbacks
In June, I noticed our zucchini leaves were browning excessively. I couldn’t figure out why. With a little research, we discovered that we had squash bugs. They lay eggs on the leaves and then destroy the plant. We lost both of our zucchini plants. It was a huge bummer. Our yellow squash has had some eggs on the leaves but we have been able to maintain the health of it.
This summer, the beetles have been invading our area. No, not the band from Liverpool! These beetles killed a few of our strawberry plant's leaves, but the plant still provides us with strawberries. We have a large spider who has set up shop on our trestles for the strawberries and she has handled the beetles well for us.
As the summer starts winding down, our garden will slow down. We are still trying to decide whether to grow fall/winter vegetables. I guess we will see! In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy a fresh-from-my-garden tomato sandwich with Duke’s Mayo like the southern I am!