Square Foot Gardening

The first picture was taken yesterday; a bed of squash, cucumber, cantaloupe along with okra, peas, green beans and some flowers in front of a bed of azaleas. The second picture was taken of the same area 6 weeks ago (6/8/09). Most of my vegetable gardening has been in raised beds. This area had been filled with daylilies but was replaced with veggies.

Watermelon from the Mother's Day plant Jonathan gave me is coming right along. It may be hard to tell from this picture but this little melon is almost the size of a tennis ball.

Bees are busy in this bed of various vines getting pollination underway. I planted cucumber and squash along with the watermelon plan but have a cantaloupes and a honeydew, volunteers, that fit right in sprouted from the compost that I'd added at planting time.

Cute little cucumbers...triplets on a vine! In a couple of more beds butternut squash have also come up from the compost. It has been interesting to see these surprise bonus plants. I guess the compost bin NOT being hot enough in its old location has some benefits!

A resource I found after I'd started the raised beds but one you might also find helpful is by Mel Bartholomew, All New Square Foot Gardening.

Pickled Green Tomatoes & Peach Preserves

My favorite helper & favorite hen; Jonathan & Lucy!

A new batch of peach preserves.

Trying new recipes is always fun but today's new kitchen adventure was special, pickling for the first time since I was a kid with 10 year old son. The tomatoes came from my garden, the recipe from the latest issue of my Food Network magazine, Aug/Sept 2009. Iron Chef Michael Symon used regular tomatoes but most of mine are roma & heirloom yellow pear so we'll see if these also work. Jonathan was my sous chef, helping with almost every phase; the picking, washing, slicing and all the measuring. He was exempt for the sterilizing and handling of hot jars. Now is the hard part....waiting until they are at their prime in about 3 months!

Pickled Green Tomatoes Recipe from Michael Symon.

More of my favorite recipes can be found at maryhanks.com on the Food for Thought page.

Biscotti for Breakfast!

Sugar the Hen serving biscotti and Dunkin Donuts coffee for breakfast.

Last week at Whole Foods I tasted a really yummy biscotti, picked up one biscuit to buy but quickly put it back when I saw the price tag....$2.39 for ONE piece.

It didn't take me long to go to Martha Stewart website, search and find a couple of recipes to try. Double Chocolate Pistachio Biscotti and Pecan Cranberry Biscotti were the ones that I made.Loved them both and will experiment more with these goodies. My new RED KitchenAid mixer that my sweet hubby gave me for our anniversary made the process pretty easy, lots of fun and the house smelled SOOOO good while these baked.

More of my favorite recipes on my website, maryhanks.com.

See the Food for Thought link for recipes.