Back to the Garden and something I learned about Squash

 My spaghetti squash gets bigger every day and I'm so excited about it! This however is not that first one I told you about, that first one and the four after it, all shriveled up and fell off the vine. That of course left me feeling devastated  and curious as to what could be the problem!?  So I did a little research and discovered that squashes will start to produce a fruit but if it isn't pollinated or isn't properly or sufficiently pollinated it will shrivel up and fall off. For whatever reason we don't get many honey bees around here, so with knowledge I decided that the next female flower that opened was going to get properly pollinated and as I guess you can see my paint brush pollinating skills are excellent! This lovely is only about a week old but I can't wait to eat it!

       Speaking of eating (I'm starving) this morning I pulled up some young potatoes and I plan to bake them with our basketful of yellow cherry tomatoes using this recipe that I found this morning. It looks amazing and I can't wait to try it (I'll tell you how it turned out)! Now if only I had bought the white esparagus at the whole foods store yesterday that be lovely with it! And then I could make some bread ... Okay enough talk of dinner I really am getting too hungry.

       In the garden I also have Cherokee purple heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers, Asian eggplants and cherry tomatoes which are trying to be trees (they're already taller then me and still going). Also because I forgot to show you before here is my little satsuma tree. I got on sale for $15, I wanted a lime, but all they had were Mexican Key Limes and if I ever get a lime I want to buy a kefir lime, so I can use its leaves.

Another Garden topic ... seed saving! These bags are fill with seed pods finishing drying up, I want  leave them out to dry as long as possible but the birds had discovered them, so paper bags is in a cool dry place it is!  I have  radishes (I will never have to buy them again), mustard, cilantro, and arugula or rocket. I also have some that are already finished drying and have been put in little seed pouches.  I also have some tomato seeds fermenting in a baby food jar, which really isn't as hard as it sounds and surprisingly works quite well! When I lived in Harbin I saved a  bunch of tomato seeds, just for something to do and ended up with about 20 tomatoes on my balcony the next summer. I had so many tomato plants I didn't know what to do with them!

Homemade Pita and Hummis

I love baking, but between summer, an easily overheated kitchen and a needy baby who doesn't like  naps, not much has been going on in that department. However, I recently had a craving for pita and Hummis! Now I had made pita before ( also tortillas and Chinese pancakes, all of them basically flat breads) and I knew it wasn't so complicated, but honestly I forgot just how easy it is. All you need is flour, salt, yeast, oil and water (I also added a couple sprigs of chopped rosemary) and this receipie from Smitten Kitchen. They might not get that perfect pocket in them but they are still perfect for ripping up and dipping in hummus. Which is also amazingly easy to make. For a classic hummus all you need is chickpeas, tahini, olive oil, lemon juice and garlic, but there are a million ways to switch it up. Next time I want to try a cucumber and mint Hummus, I'll let you know if it's any good!

A Trellis for my Squash

So the spaghetti squash seeds I planted out (from the inside of an actual squash) have turned out to be viable seeds after all, with the first little baby squash appearing on the vine last week. That meant it was time to do something, a couple somethings actually! First I planted out some petunias to deter the squash bugs. Companion planting has been around for quite a while and it's a well proven fact that plants have friends, as you can probably see we also plant marigolds around the tomatoes. HereHere is a list of veggies that grow good together and here are some flowers that deter pests.Well after all that, it was on to making a trellis. Now of course you could go the traditional rout and just let them grow on the ground, but they can climb and do very well that way with a bit of help, also it looks more fun and leaves more room for other things. So I started planning and yesterday I finally got it done! I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, I even got to use the tool set my dad bought me for my birthday!

Here is that first little squash I told you about, that little thing has caused a hole lot of excitement!

Not to mention all the mustard greens that have gone to seed

And the peas that have been left on the vine to dry out

And this, this is our Cherokee purple tomatoe! We got one last year and they are amazing.

And a surprise gourd, I thought the seeds were too old and wouldn't grow, so I threw them out and a month later tada!

Thoughts on self sufficiency and community

Self sufficiency is another big thing that's started popping up all over the place recently and it takes the idea of green organic living to an entirely new level. Anything from growing your own salads to large kitchen gardens accompanied by chickens and people who make there own of anything they can and try to live off the grid as much as possible. Even if you can't be entirely green and self sufficient, any little bit counts towards living better and less dependent! And while I readily admit this to be a dream of mine I will also admit that in some ways the base of this isn't entirely good.  Now I know perfectly well that the idea is to be able to rely on "yourself" and not " the industry" but we should never be fully self sufficient, if we were to be fully self sufficient we would have no need of others and there would be no community, and though we could do without "the industry" we should never attempt to do without each other, friendship and community are a crucial part of our existence. God said its not right for man to be alone and it's true. We need people, people to love, people to share with, people to help and people to laugh with. People are important and so is community.