It's harvest time.... in between vacations

We're back from Walt Disney World.  The weather was glorious (and cooler than in Wisconsin!) and the company was amazing.  Our rooms had great views of a savanna that had lots of great animals in it, including my sister's favorite... the giraffe.  If you'd like to check out where we stayed this year, click here.
Coming back from a vacation always means that the garden is a mess.  I could spend 8 hours a day in my gardens and never get caught up, so my only wish is that the caretaker water the garden and harvest any plants that need harvesting, so that the plant keeps producing.  My father-in-law was so kind to babysit my garden again this year, and he did a great job.  We were in the middle of a drought, so this was no easy task.  I also have a complicated water "issue".  The water pressure isn't high enough to run four sprinklers in succession.  We have an automatic timer set up, but the sprinkler needs to be rotated around the garden so that all four sections get watered.  Well, he did a great job, because the plants (and the weeds) really took off when we were gone!

The tomatillo plants have become WEEDS!  They grow fast!

My pepper plants are loving the heat and the recent rain.  I have a few loaded plants!  My Jalapeno planter is looking great, and I hope that they are ready either before or after our big trip to Yellowstone in two weeks.  I also have MANY Jalapeno plants out in my huge garden (shown above).

Thai Dragon Peppers for Ros

Jalapeno Peppers will make great quesadillas this winter!

Mackenzie's favorite thing about the summer garden is the yellow squash.  See my blog post here for Mackenzie's favorite recipe for using yellow squash, eggplants, onions, and zucchini.  Because of the drought, the moles have been more active than usual in the garden.  Between the moles and the lack of water, I'm finally NOW getting yellow squash.

And, the last thing I want to share today is my proudest moment of the summer.  My dill.  Now, you may laugh, but I'm lazy by nature.  So, I'm not the best gardener because I'm pretty lazy.  Stick with me here, because there is a moral to my story...
I was weeding earlier this summer with the help of one of my darling children (I think it actually may have been Alex, which is shocking!) when I pulled out some stray carrot plants.  My helper said that they smelled funny (now that I think about it, maybe it was Kenzie) and I did a little investigating.  Sure enough, it was dill from TWO years ago!  So, we let some of it go wild.  I have to say, it was my best dill plant I've ever grown!  The thing is huge.  So, here's where the lazy part comes in.  Every other year I've grown dill, it's gone to seed and the seeds have dropped and I'm left with only some lousy dill leaves that I had dehydrated.  The really awesome stuff is the seed.  TODAY I went out and harvested the dill heads, BEFORE the seeds all fell off!

Two paper bags full of dill heads!  I'm really happy with the amount of dill I got from two plants that I didn't even purposely plant.

One last thing... peaches!  I bought two boxes of peaches for $70 from tree-ripe.com when they were in town.  I spread them out to ripen on the counter, and in the meantime, I froze the 10 pounds of blueberries that I had purchased.  Then, I got the flu....
But, my super awesome mother and aunt saved my butt!  Long story, but on the day of the Relay for Life (I'm a committee member) and the eve of our big trip to Disney, I could hardly get out of bed.  And, I have 50 pounds of peaches scattered around my house ripening!!!  When I was in a fever induced coma (aka a really deep nap) the dog decided that peaches were super tasty, and I found remains of five of them all over the floor.  Mom and Aunt Dorothy saved the day, and a lot of my money, and saved the peaches from going bad.  They canned peach jam for me (my favorite!) and froze bags of peaches for me to use in margaritas and other fun things later.  I have something special planned for them after Yellowstone... but until then, here's a picture of me enjoying my peach jam on an English muffin for lunch:

Basil Harvest

Lots of great things have been growing in the garden lately!  Even though I got my planting done really late, things are starting to reward me.  

My basil has been growing like crazy.  It likes the warm weather and the watering that it gets on the deck.  Yesterday, I was able to pick a whole bunch of basil and dehydrate it.  I can't wait to use it during the winter months.

fresh basil in a shrimp marinade

I also wanted to share a picture of my Dollar Tree pepper planter.  I was able to put two plants into each hole, for a total of 14 plants.  I had to buy a hanger (also at the Dollar Tree) to provide for a sunny location on my deck.  So, the cost of my planter is:

$1 for the planter
$1 for the hanger
$1 for potting soil to put in planter
$1.29 for Jalapeno seeds

$3 for electricity to start seeds
Total cost: $7.29

We'll see how many Jalapeno peppers I get out of this one planter.  

Lastly, I thought I'd share the recipe I got off All Recipes.com for the marinated shrimp.  I use the All Recipes app on my iTouch.  Alex did not care for this recipe, but the remaining three members of our family LOVED it.  Alex could taste the cayenne in the recipe, but I certainly would not leave it out!  The shrimp would have been very blah without it.