How Does Your Garden Grow? | August, 2014

Do you remember the acronym Roy G. Biv  from when you were a kid?   It stands for red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet and always helped me remember the order of the colors of the rainbow.  I’m not sure why I needed to name those colors in order or why I even remember this now but I do.  And as I’m writing this, I have a that singsongy nursery rhyme stuck in my head.

“Red and yellow and pink and green


Purple and orange and blue


I can sing a rainbow,


sing a rainbow,


sing a rainbow too…”

And, to confuse matters, the writer of the song threw in the color pink and left out violet and indigo just for fun.  What’s up with that?

Anyway, the garden this time of year is like an edible rainbow — I can eat a rainbow,
 eat a rainbow,
 eat a rainbow too…  I’m still amazed that you can grow all this amazing stuff from teeny-tiny seed.  Most days, I wander around the garden distracted by everything around me.  Sort of geeky, huh?

The weather this year has been almost perfect here.  It’s slowed down the growth of the garden and has allowed us to enjoy everything a little bit at a time.  I already have another planting of beans, cucumbers, squash, and lettuce in the ground so we should be able to enjoy fresh stuff through at least October.

The tomatoes are looking great this year and I’ve been drooling over them for months.  It’s hard to believe that I placed my garden order when there was still snow on the ground!  Names like Bloody Butcher, Indigo Rose, Costoluto Genovese, San Marzano, Sungold, Ramapo, and Carmello, as well as some old time favorites just make me want to bite right in.  I’m whipping up some new tomato recipes and looking forward to sharing them soon!

I’m not sure why but the onions did exceptionally well this year.  I mean really well.  Softball sized beauties in white, red, and yellow.  We’re making a list of the best performers for next year’s garden and so far the Red Zepplins and Ailsa Craig have been the top performers.  What has performed well for you in your garden?

The cucumbers are almost starting to get to that point where they’re out of control.  For a couple weeks during the growing season, I’m usually able to have enough daily to make small batches of dill and bread & butter pickles.  I trellis the cukes so they hang nice and straight.  Another benefit of trellising is the fruit is kept off the ground and they grow more uniformly.  Eggplant!  Yes, please!  I’m working on a quick and easy caponata recipe inspired by my trip to Sicily this past spring.  And, can you believe we’re still getting blueberries?  By now, they’re usually only a delicious memory!  And yellow and zucchini squash seems to make it’s way into just about everything I eat this time of year.

We’re still making progress on the potting cottage and chicken coop.  The floorboards have been painted and ready to install.  Once that happens, the framing should go fairly quickly.  Since the underside will be exposed to the elements, we took the extra step of painting them which took a little more time than expected.

I think it’s about time for me to go make a tomato sandwich — I’ve earned it don’t you think?  Oh, and if you have that song stuck in your head, I’m sorry.  I can sing a rainbow,
 sing a rainbow,
 sing a rainbow too…”