Turkey Garden Soup & other recipes

late summer Rudbeckia
my favourite harvest flower

One of the tastiest things I've come up with to do with zucchini has been a snack: a round of zucchini topped with jalapeno havarti and wrapped in philo dusted in a little olive oil & butter. Baked until golden with melted cheese and crispy baked zucchini...yum. I've made a recipe-to-remember double chocolate zucchini cake, came up with another great recipe for Zucchini Pineapple Walnut Spice Cake, made a crustless quiche, muffins... 

I'm not tired of zucchini yet, especially not the pineapple spice cake.

I made more tzatiki than we can eat or give away. I think it's time for pickles.

The jet lag has really got me beat this year. I still feel groggy and off schedule nearly two weeks later. ::excuses, excuses:: Summer has gone by in a blur of gluttony and wine; and it's been wonderful. I always start the season with intentions - good intentions - of documenting the growing, photographing the product, following it all to the kitchen. I thought about that a lot while I baked and ate the zucchini (the Spiced Zucchini Walnut Pineapple Cake mostly to myself). It doesn't help that I left the garden to its own devices for more than a month, but also... I haven't been giving it as much attention on my devices since we returned. I've been too busy eating it and playing real Scrabble (not online!) with old friends. I really have to give it to those people who can stick to updating regularly. 

With its bursting tomato plants and a beanstalk wall, our edible garden is a bit of a mess - at first sight. I've taken out the remains of the peas, spinach and radishes, cleaned a few containers, made room for some fall planting. There are still some weeds, and the unsightly grassy patch which needs a mow - and lord know the dogwood needs to be pruned..but, the bees are indulging and so are we, so a few unsightly edibles doesn't bother me. There are little bits of beautiful everywhere.

a bee favourite

Butterfly Lavender

Tonight leftovers from our recent barbecue turkey dinner are being boiled together with garden herbs, carrots, kale, chard, and beet tops, onions, leeks ...and celery from the store. Turkey Garden Soup. Our little kitchen Bay Laurel supplied some lovely leaves to the pot, along with tarragon, rosemary, sage, and thyme.

Though I hope I'll get around (sooner rather than later) to updating my food blog with my recipes and results, for now this will have to do. As I enjoy the last slice of Zucchini Spice Cake with Pineapple and Walnuts, I nod out the window to the garden and say, thanks.  

Garden Grown Wild

A zucchini has grown into the pine tree, and we have cucumbers appearing everywhere in a garden grown wild. The untamed cucumbers are the size of zucchini people joke about and try to give away. The dogs are loving the fresh garden cucumbers though, and I see a lot of tzatziki and tabouleh in our future.
Returning after more than a month of neglect I found some zucchini the size of Clifford, and made way for more. Thank goodness we have Cindy & Kevin coming to help us eat - and Thanksgiving not far away.  Cakes and muffins are going to feed our weekend guests.

The tomatoes are as abundant - as expected, nearly ripe. Soon we will be making sauces and salsas - and I can't wait. Beans, beets, basil, ..some carrots (though still not as many appeared as I would have hoped), but everything else is thriving. The kale and chard survived the caterpillars and are screaming for soup...yum; and of course our own Brussels Sprouts for Thanksgiving. I'll plant some autumn peas, radishes, and spinach if I ever get over the jet lag.

The fence R built can barely hold it all in. ...not that anything daring enough to grow through it will survive. Four legged nibblers will chew off anything that roams..


All the tomatoes require staking, and a little pruning..had we been here during their peak growth we could have controlled it, but now they're just out of control. Hopefully I can untangle them without losing too much. Next year when we go away I am organizing garden management ..

Clifford finds a shady spot under an Early Girl tomato
to lick the last bits of cucumber of his nose,
while Gromit searches for more.

The Thunbergia is climbing eagerly, 

nearly up to the back balcony railing; 

I can't quite capture how incredible it is.

hostas blooming

Morden Blush

Gardening Australia

Reading Australian gardening magazines is not much different than the Canadian mags. What I find so interesting are the planting times, seasonal differences... Right now, in July, there are daffodils blooming - along side Bird of Paradise flowers and Jade plants in the ground. Rhododendrons grow higher than rooftops, and cherry blossoms are just beginning. Camellias are blooming, and other natives like Pilotus, Callistemon, Pauciflora (Eucalyptus Snow Gum) and Eremophila (Emu Bush) are mentioned. For three years now I've tried studying the plants while I'm here - this year I've taken to wandering through garden centres, taking photos of the plant tags. Some day I hope to know as much about Blue Mountain flora as I do about Northern Ontario.

a book I think our garden needs

and the book ends to hold it

I adore this watering can...
wish I could fit it into my suitcase

Oz Wedding & a Rainbow of Tulips

42 Rainbow Tulips
The Three Sisters, Scenic World Australia

When organizing flowers for a wedding overseas, with email the only form of communication, I put  lot of faith in The Little Flower Shop in Wentworth Falls - and could not have been happier with the result. Louise really did read my mind and my heart. Her arrangements were beautiful, delicate, romantic - perfect. My bouquet, a rainbow of 42 tulips, was incredible. 

Most outstanding were the floral crowns for our nieces, our precious flowergirls - who looked so, so pretty. I wanted their crowns to match in colour, but with flowers other than tulips (which I didn't think would hold up in hair). Their bouquets were tulips - yellow, and Hannah's was white (for my father). The flowers were everything I had imagined and more.

rainbows and ruby slippers

Rohan & Amy
Oz Wedding 29 July 2012

Delphiniums in bloom

20 July 2012

Instagram

#Locomotion #TBay

#home

Dear Garden Diary,

R completed the garden fence on Sunday; allowing me to drill in the final screw. The fence is a work of art, and fills the back yard with the scent of cedar.
It's too bad the garden within has been annihilated by the damn army worms. It's ugly out there - like shrapnel blew through the kale and chard.
The Trichograms are visible in small numbers, not that I've been able to photograph any. I suspect the ants ate more than hatched.

The ridiculous heat of late has kept me from bothering with much of anything in the garden, aside from drought prevention and pea picking. I still have some things to pot, and I have little time to get it all done before we're gone for three weeks. Yipes.

This morning while lying in bed, awake after R left to catch his early  flight, I thought of something profound to write about the garden - or about how I feel about something to do with it. It was good, really good..., but it's gone. I actually got up and partially dressed thinking I would sit down with  pot of coffee and write it all down, then shook my head, threw off my gown and crawled back into bed. There was no way I'd survive the day in the greenhouse on such little sleep. So, I willed myself to remember that profound thought and went back to sleep.
This is why it's important to keep a notebook and pencil at had at all times. I bet if I had I would have something more interesting to write about.

Somebody recently said they loved the idea of keeping a garden blog, but just couldn't imagine having the time to do it. I can't - as a gardener - imagine not doing it. Before my online journals I always kept written journal - still do, sort of. I will always doodle, and keep a pad and pencil in my garden apron - I don't know how to keep track of everything without notes. I note when I plant things, when pests arrive, buds bloom - scribbles and notes on dirty paper. I've been trying to keep better records of all my plants, inspired by the exemplary excel sheet organization of Northern Shade. Mine are coming along. Along with that darned glossary (which I've been "working on" for a few years now..)

Time is a funny thing. Funny how when you're running out of it so much can get done. So much of everything I do is done in pieces. I wish I had ten times the time I have do get things done, started - breathe life into some imagined projects. Ah well, for the time being I'm happy with keep this scattered blog. It's the best record I have of gardens I've known. My desk is covered in years of notebooks and baggies full of plant tags & empty seed packages waiting to be logged. A hoarder of important stuff.

#twopeasinapod

A lot of my time is spent staring through my iPhone, using limited characters and hashtags to write about my garden. My Instagrammed garden journal is simple to keep, simple to share. I often think of them as short abstracts to inspire me when I have the time to write more.
This is why I love photography so much - how so much can be said in a photo, one shot. I framed this one of two peas in a pod to show my engagement & wedding rings, the two peas, R's beautiful garden fence, and our summer garden all over everything. A photo that completely defines 'amy's garden' right now, us: two peas in a pod - with our Australian wedding just around the corner.♥ ♥ ♥

My to-do list is long - starting with: finish planting the poor suffering plants in small greenhouse pots. Reseed some things (spinach, beets)..plant more peas again. (The dogs have enjoyed most of the peas this year...as always). ...and on...

I look forward to seeing it all when we return.

Speaking of which, my most important to-do list item in Australia this year is to garden blog the experience. I had such good intentions of doing it last year. With tulips and daffodils blooming along side woody zonal geranium shrubs, bird of paradise plants lining the highway during Christmas in July in the Mountains. At least I can count on my hashtags to bring me back.

a fork'd radish

radish
1 July 2012

...he was, for all the world, 

like a fork'd radish, 

with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife

          King Henry IV. Part II. Act iii. Sc. 2.

FREE EBOOK 

The Plant-lore & Garden-craft of Shakespeare

by Henry Nicholson Ellacombe

garden gate

gates & pickets
amysgarden 3 July 2012

Peonyography

While photographing the peonies the other morning (after a long shower under the sprinkler) I wondered if I would ever get tired of photographs of these peonies. Their upright bloom time is always so short-lived, and all it takes is one good rainfall to flop them all over; I madly capture them year after year, same pinks, same same droplets, ...same glorious photograph of a blooming peony for the journal. I'm glad I save the moment, and I'll do it again next year.

I cut a good number of them this afternoon, along with some Alchemilla mollis 'Lady's Mantle' blooms - and after meticulously picking at and shaking them free of bugs & worms ...yes: unpleasant... I arranged them for a vase in the kitchen and photographed them again.

 and again

a garden fence

photo by Rohan M.

Rohan built a garden fence. 

It's quite incredible, curving around the existing pathway between the small kitchen garden and the new, larger kitchen garden bed. Cedar pickets, each cut by R himself. Notice the perfectly aligned screws. OCD anyone? Two gates, one near the barbecue patio, the other halfway to the dog run - both with self closing hinges. It just might be the most beautiful garden fence in the world.

I doodled on his photo of the fence in progress; imagining the last of the grass away and our fire-pit in place. It's going to be lovely. Recycled brick will make take the place of the grass - and though we'll have a lot going on in a small space path-wise, that is what makes an adopted garden. 

A neighbourhood cat
strolling through the photo
:)

Stick Amy is in the garden replanting the spinach - as most of the leaves have been nibbled away. I'm counting on some established roots, but along with washed away carrots some new seeds need to be added. 

garden plan 2011
change of plans, no more grass: brick patio instead
things are coming along

Dear Garden Diary,

Rhodochiton
first bloom
25 June 2012

Okay, I'll say it - I can not find any reference to the above pictured plant being a "Rhodochiton"...; and though it resembles the Lophspermum I know, it's not nearly the same.

If anyone can help explain this plant to me, please...

I'm going to miss this plant when we're away this summer. I've waited so long (it seems) for this first bloom; and with more on the way I suspect the magnificence of this plant is only just beginning.

It's so different from the easily searched Rhodochiton we have blooming profusely in the greenhouse:

Also blooming madly is John Davis beside the back door, twirling up the obelisk. I imagined this thirteen years ago; it;s nice to finally see it.

John Davis Explorer Rose
25 June 2012

There's an awful lot of pink in our garden. I pointed that out to R recently, who didn't seem bothered. Morden Blush is blooming in the west side garden, looking so pretty. I think about this plant when I tell customers at the greenhouse that, yes, roses actually are easy. John Davis regularly attracts the aphids, but Morden roses in my garden have never failed - even in the face of army worms. Just a stone of amethyst away is a chewed to pieces Cranesbill geranium ('Wargraves Pink').

Down the way from the Morden Blush, and across the way, is the Campanula persicifolia 'Blue' (Peach Leaf Bellflower) that I planted last year in the rain. First bloom ever, 25 June 2012. Hello.

Peonies are blooming, the Weigela (Red Prince) too

tucked tight in front are some wild Knautia macedonica (Crimson Scabious),

with our special Alchemilla mollis (Lady's Mantle) blooming below 

in lemon-lime

contrasting all those pinks and reds.

The front shade garden is getting a little crowded (not that there are not still places to fill..). The leafeaters haven't got to the lush foliage street side...yet...hopefully never, and with all the rain and humidity we've had this year the ferns and hostas are large and full.

...from the back door:

pea webs

Beneficial Trichograms

I released my Trichogramma in the garden yesterday, leaving the little card of eggs tucked away near the yarrow pot - for shade and shelter. I'm looking forward to watching them develop and devour all the nasty caterpillars who are destroying our leaves.

in the garden this week....

Dianthus
'Raspberry Parfait'
line the small kitchen garden

Achillea millefolium
'Apricot Delight' Yarrow
Globosa Blue Spruce

Gromit Wensleydale
Chief Pea Inspector

peas
pummelled by rain