Gardening 2014

I feel like I've planted everything late this year, but things are looking good.

I have high hopes for my boutique pumpkins this year.  If they make enough, I'm going to try selling them at our local farmer's market.  I reserved about half the garden space for the pumpkin plants to spread and only planted two of each variety.  Although, I just now remember that I forgot to plant my Jack-O-Lantern sugar pumpkins.  Uh-oh.

Look at the hay in the background.  It's growing like crazy and it's time to bale, although we don't usually bale that pasture.

To make room for the extra pumpkins, I'm trying a little vertical gardening with the butternut.  I'm using the trellises that Nephew built last year for the beans.  I had way to many beans last year and they went to waste, especially because I didn't like the string variety.  This year, I found a stringless vine and planted half the amount.

I have to check the vines each day to redirect them onto the trellis because they tend to want to snake along the ground.  They're already putting on squash, though.

The watermelon from last year reseeded itself, so I just let it grow and didn't plant any.  I did stick a cantaloup in there, though. 

The strawberries are filling up the boat.  The ones I planted in the front were from a different source than the ones in the back and they didn't grow at all.  But, the rest of them have had three waves of production and with each one, they are producing more and more and sending out more vines.  At the rate they're growing, I won't be surprised if the whole boat is filled up by the end of summer.  I love this idea of growing in a boat.  It's so easy to keep it weeded.  Now, every time I see a derelict boat somewhere, I want to bring it home with me.

Butternut, Butternut

It's butternut squash season, so my challenge is to come up with different and tasty recipes using butternut squash.  And, by "come up with", I mean, search the internet and find recipes that sound good; not make them up myself.  I am no good at making up recipes.

I found this Butternut Bisque recipe on Martha Stewart's website and it's pretty good.  I doubled it so I could freeze some.

Ingredients:

3 Tbs. butter

1 medium onion, coarsely chopped

2 garlic cloves, sliced

1/2 tsp. dried thyme

1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper (optional)

coarse salt

1 large butternut squash (about 4 lbs.), peeled, seeded, and cut into 1-inch cubes

15 ounces chicken broth (or one can)

1 cup half-and-half

1 Tbs. fresh lemon juice

Sour cream, for serving

Cooking with butternut squash is pretty labor intensive.  Usually, they have to be peeled, seeded and chopped.  No fun.  Especially if you have sore thumbs left over from milking season.  

So, get busy and peel, seed, and cube those butternut.  I think I used three squash for this recipe.  I weighed them out got eight pounds.

Here's my chopped onion and garlic.  I went ahead and added the thyme, cinnamon, and cayenne to this.

In a large saucepan, heat butter over medium.

  Add the onion mix.  Season with salt, and cook, stirring occasionally until onion is softened, 5-7 minutes.

Add squash, broth, half and half, and three cups of water.  Bring to a boil; reduce to a simmer, and cook until squash is tender, about 20 minutes.

Working in baqtches, puree in a blender until smooth.  Stir in lemon juice.

Serve with a dollop of sour cream if desired.

I doubled the recipe and it made about 16 cups.  I froze 12 cups for later.

It's a pretty thick soup, and even thicker after it sits in the refrigerator for a while - almost like a runny mashed potato.  When I served it a few days after making it, I added some chicken broth to it to make it more soup like.

It's very tasty and you can change up the flavor by replacing the cinnamon with chili powder or other spices that you might like.  I think this might be good with curry in it.