The gardens are doing their summer work of producing. I dropped off about 15 pounds of produce for the Plot Against Hunger this weekend. It included green beans, carrots, tomatoes, summer squash and zucchini. Some of the zucchinis were big, so I dropped in a couple stuffing recipes. I have a big one myself that I’ll be fixing tonight.
Look at that sly zucchini! It’s the size of a baby.
Yesterday I made jam and this morning, I made some dill pickles. I have been getting a good crop of cucumbers from my garden.
Dill pickles and strawberry jam. Something good to put in the cupboard.
Everything is happy with all the rain we’ve had. This morning though, it was raining again and my email kept pinging with warnings of flooded streets and crossroads. Twitter had videos of crazy people driving through water up to the tops of the wheels. Where I grew up, you never drove into water over the road during heavy rain. It likely had a current that could sweep your car off the road. Alas, I think few people here know that.
This is one of the less egregious examples on twitter this morning. The alarming ones were videos with cars driving through making wakes.
The flowers are in their glory right now and it’s wonderful cutting some every week.
The zinnias continue to thrive.
I have more little golden squashes coming on, and have collected zucchinis as well.
These will be ready by Wednesday…
And it’s time to start making pesto both for pasta and tomato sandwiches. Not to mention freezing…
Basil is magical stuff!
As I write, the sun has begun to come out. I’m taking some time off this week to do things I can’t get to while working and to make a push to get myself in order for retirement in the next year. So many things to think about–and act on and make decisions about! One thing for sure is I’ll still be gardening…
These seem like the happiest flowers.
arlingwords 
beautiful and bounteous!
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Ooh, flowers galore! I do love a vaseful of zinnias, a handful of happiness. 🙂
I just learned that I have sensitivities to cucumber, tomato and bell peppers – WHAT? Why couldn’t I have found this out in the fall, after the harvest?? 😦
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Oh, that’s really crazy! Is it from eating them? That would be a bummer. I have contact dermatitis most of the summer from a lot of the plants. Green beans, which I love, have evil foliage where my skin is concerned. I wear long sleeves, but then I get scraped up, bruised legs–in shorts and skirt season!
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Supposedly, they destroy my gut biome. Yeah, lots of my favorite foods, too, like cashews and mangos. What a bummer.
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Oh, that’s bad news. But good you found out before making stuffed peppers for dinner! I guess you’ll have to find new favorites. I hope it isn’t too many things that turn out to have a bad effect!
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Thanks, I guess I will have to if I want to have optimal health. I reserve the right to cheat every once in a while… like on mango sorbet! 😉
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Oh, yeah. That’s good stuff…
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Some people will be happy to have you around and benefit from your garden. I hope your thinking about retirement will not be exhausting or stressful.
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No, it’s not stressful in any bad way. It’s like doors opening again and opportunities, but still it needs certain attention to detail that I haven’t been good at the past few years.
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What a wonderful attitude!
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I think you’ve convinced me to plant some zinnias this coming spring!
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They’re fabulous, come up from seed, have a lot of varieties and colors–AND seed themselves for the next year!!!
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I was really happy to see that sentence about taking some time out of now to prepare for your future! Your garden is bounteous and I am quite green with envy over your floral displays! I made a delicious dinner last weekend that featured a couple of handfuls of fresh basil leaves, fresh lemon juice, green olives, ripe cherry tomatoes and chicken thighs ……….. I quite felt I’d reached the epitome of my cheffing ability 🙂
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Yum! That sounds like a fabulous dinner. You can do a lot of things with chicken if you don’t get in a rut. I do love the flowers in the garden and being able to bring cut ones to the house. They create happiness, those flowers! And you should be heading toward spring now, right?
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Yes, slowly slowly…. There’s a slightly longer lingering of the light in the evenings, but the mornings haven’t moved much at all yet…… It’s funny how eagerly we watch for the return of the light and then try to slow down its leaving six months later.
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We are creatures of the light. It’s only in recent years I’ve learned to snug in for winter and not long so much for the light.
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I didn’t snug in enough this year! I’ve only just hung my winter curtains (last night) as that very thought had finally dawned. Today I’m on a mission to ensure my mind set is the right one – better late than never! 😀
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Oh, girl! You are in your glory, I can tell. Your gardens are magnificent and I think it’s wonderful that you can donate so much fresh produce. The flooding near you is really scary–I can’t believe people are trying to drive thru it! And I didn’t know you were close to retiring–that’s very exciting. You won’t believe how busy you’ll be!
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I’ve never seen anything like it in all my years here. My email just kept giving me more street closures. It’s odd, but I found out we had 3 inches in an hour–which is about a months worth of rain! I’m looking forward to retiring and have plans for doing all sorts of things–gardening among them!
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Some lovely flowers and splendid produce. I do admire your pickling. I hope the floods subside quickly
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Thanks, Derrick. I think most roads have cleared other than debris. The pickling is very satisfying.
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What glorious bounty! The heat and the rain, I suppose. And how exciting that you will be retiring next year. A lot to think about, that’s for sure.
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Yes, I think the rain, flooding aside, is really helping. As for retirement, I’m thinking of all sorts of things I’ll have time to do!
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Flowers, basil, and a week off: YAY!!! All good things. 🙂
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Yes!!!!
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Lisa, I’m glad to read that you are planning, in earnest, your future. I know it’s been a difficult last few years. It must be challenging as well though. Your garden looks amazing. I’m glad you have good drainage with so much rain. I’ve seen some of the pictures and can hardly believe the non-stop rain.
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I wish I could send some of it to you. I was in the garden today and have more squash, cucumbers, green beans and some tomatoes from my neighbors who are on vacation. Some of it will go to AFAC. I’m looking forward to retiring because I have so many things I want to do. I realize now that I need a little more time to prep and get organized for it. Meeting with a financial advisor again tomorrow, so hoping for good news.
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They really do look happy. So do the zinnias. Zucchini used to be the most common of squash for home gardens in California. Supposedly, they were famously more popular here than elsewhere. I don’t know if that is true or not, but there are a few recipes for pickling them that actually describe pickled zucchini as a tradition of California.
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I’m going to look around for some pickling recipes for them. I don’t like the one I have. Tonight I finally got around to staffing the big one and it was delicious–and some will be frozen as it’s quite a lot!
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I am none too keen on the pickles. We only did it because there were too many of them! We pickled some of the larger ones because they were firm. The seeds got scooped out when they were sliced.
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I’ve been enjoying the one I stuffed. But I’d like them to be like bread and butter pickles if I pickled them–the recipe I have reminds me of Indian pickles, which are hot and vinegary and need particular things to be paired with them. Of course if I felt like I could store a pressure canner, there would be no vinegar involved…
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I have not figured out how to can them well without pickling them and maybe canning them like high acid fruits. They are too soft, so get really squishy if canned plain with the pressure pot. I chopped them up like relish, but they are not very appealing like that.
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This is all good to know!
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Those flowers do indeed look happy. 🙂 I’m always amazed at how fast a zucchini can suddenly grow. I saw some of the pictures from the flooding in the DC area and I couldn’t believe people were trying to drive through deep water. No wonder the weather guys keep repeating the mantra, “Turn around. Don’t drown.” You’d think people would have enough commonsense that they wouldn’t need to be told. A car, after all, is not a boat.
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It’s crazy. Some of it is stupid bravado and some of it is sheer ignorance, but there were all kinds of water rescues.
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I am going to have to look up some zucchini recipes. My garden is going nuts, this year, too.
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I just got some fabulous zucchini recipes in an email from King Arthur Flour today. OMG, two savory and two sweet and they all look great. Send me your email to jiminy3791 at my packs.net and I’ll forward…
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