We picked and ate our spaghetti squash last night. It was really fun to be able to grab dinner from the back yard. We baked it, scrapped out the innards, and cooked it in a skillet with some butter, garlic, and parsley (also from the garden).
Spaghetti squash
Now what to do with our two eggplants here. We’ve tried roasted and grilled so far, but neither of us were too impressed. Maybe Eggplant Parmesan or Babaganoush is in our future.
Eggplants
I’m finally growing Brussels Sprouts, which I absolutely love. Drew has no faith in them actually producing anything, but I am taking on his challenge! At least they have spouted.
Brussels Sprouts
In other news, the cucumber plants are officially done. At least, that is, the main two plants that we’ve cared for. There are two more out front that were not attacked by the cucumber beetle but never reached the size of the ones in the back. I bet we’ll get several more from those.
It appears we may have more raspberries. 
I’m also impressed at the size of the tomatoes and eggplants coming along.
Tomato
Listada Eggplant
I’m excited that our harvest is branching out from cucumbers and we are starting to get more of a variety. It appears that we planted too many jalapenos and not enough bell peppers. I think the bell peppers may not be performing well because they are in the shade of the tomato plants. Another thing to note for next year.
One of the free plants we received was the husk cherry tomato. It is pretty interesting because it is so different from everything else. We’ve learned that when the husk turns a papery light brown they are ready to be picked. I tried one and it reminded me of Trix cereal oddly enough. These are even smaller than they look in the picture. About the size of a marble.
I was up to 5 lbs. i
n cucumbers, meaning it was time to make a bunch more pickles. I even got Drew in on the action to help me out.
My coworker brought me a bag full of squash that they had grown. So while waiting on the pickles to soak, I made zucchini bread and sliced, blanched, and froze the rest of the squash to use later. I’m ready for nap and I haven’t even processed the pickles yet.
Zucchini bread
Boiling squash
I believe our cucumber plants have a problem. For the past week or so they have been getting droopy leaves that seems to get worse everyday. Eventually they crinkle up and die.
I did a little research and found that there is a cucumber beetle (I’ve seen the yellow and black spotted variety) that can infect your cucumber plants with bacterial wilt. Once they do this, there is really no way to save the plant. I’m just happy that we’ve already gotten 56 cucumbers. I’ve also seen the squash bug on our cucumbers, which apparently does damage as well. Well, it’s been a good run. Maybe next year we will cover our plants until they bloom to keep these guys from laying eggs on the leaves.
I just picked a few okra. I think I let two of them get a bit too long. Since I’ve never cooked okra before I may go ahead and freeze these to buy me some time while I figure out what to do with them and wait for more to be ready for harvest.
Our beans went out this weekend. I started them inside and sprinkled them with pepper after transplanting them outside hoping that will keep the vole/chipmunk/varmint from eating them like they did our corn crop.
Beans
I picked a bunch of cucumbers and our very first eggplant today. Time to make a cucumber salad.
One thing I’ve been loving is making my own chicken broth. It is practically free because we would have bought chicken to eat anyways. I finally found a place that has free range chicken. It’s called A Place on Earth CSA in Henry County and they said they process their chickens in June. I ordered 5 chickens just to try it out and I made our first roast chicken last night.
I took all the drippings from the roasting pan and the leftover bones and bits, threw it in the crock pot last night, and filled it with water. This morning I woke to chicken broth.
I ended up with 10 cups of broth which I freeze in glass jars that I’ve collected from tomato sauce, apple sauce, sauerkraut, etc. Super easy and super free.
Back in early March, Drew threw together this grow light set up. He built the wooden frame and we bought the light from a hardware store. It allows me to change the chain length as the plants grow.
Now we are working on beans and squash. The beans are doing great but only 1 out of 3 squash has sprouted.
They’re getting big! We got them on April 17th when they were just a day or two old. That means they are about 2 months and 2 weeks old. I read that chickens start laying eggs between their 16th and 24th week.
