The Garden Part 13 -- August 16, 2009

I bet a lot of you have been asking -- what's going on with the garden? The answer -- EVERYTHING!

The garden...in all its glory.

Well, that's probably an overstatement. But I realized I haven't had many updates in a while, so it's high time to give one here. Let's go line-by-line, plant-by-plant.

POTATOES
I just realized...I don't have any photos of the potatoes lately. (In the photo above, they're in the bottom left of the photo.) The leaves started dying back a week or so ago, and I'm planning on digging up some in the next couple of weeks. If they're small fingerling potatoes, I'll leave the rest in the ground for a while. If they're good size, I might just dig them all up.

PEPPERS
I like how my peppers are doing. The volcano peppers are looking really good, but they should be turning red before I pluck them.

Volcano! Ready to erupt!

They're all coming in nicely, and I look forward to a lot of hot peppers soon...but when will they turn red?

The bell peppers are okay. I have 4 green and 4 red bell pepper plants. The green ones are doing very well, and I should be picking a few this week.

Green bell peppers.

The red bell peppers haven't done so well. Every time a blossom comes out, it either dies or gets eaten. I'll have to see whether they'll start to do better later in the season.

TOMATOES
I'm happy with the tomatoes, although it seems that they're taking their sweet time in turning ripe.

Some of the tomatoes have grown to great heights.

Plum/Roma tomatoes blossoming nicely.

Picking tomatoes. I'm wearing my vintage 2004 Thierry Henry Arsenal jersey, which obviously spurred the team on to a great 6-1 opening day victory over Everton.

We've gotten about half a dozen tomatoes so far, but no heirlooms yet. I'm hoping they'll start to ripen soon. Otherwise, we'll have dozens of green tomatoes, which usually don't make a great salsa.

SUMMER SQUASH
I forgot to take some photos of our squash as well, but those are doing great. Sage has been able to eat 3-4 per week, and more keep coming in. Great and easy crop to grow!

And that's about it for the garden. We've been busy doing other things, including hosting our first party/get-together as we "opened" our basement bar a couple of weekends ago. And we also just relax and enjoy the summer weather that's finally here with a simple barbeque. Here's a photo diary of a not-too-bad of a weekend summer meal.

First, get your charcoal going in an easy to use chimney starter.

Step 2: Wait for charcoal to get a layer of ash.

Step 3: Spread coals over 1 side of grille, while leaving an aluminum pan on the other side.

Step 4: Spread some wood chips (that have soaked in water for over an hour) over the coals to produce that great, smokey flavor.

Steps 5-8: After brining and butterflying a couple of game hens, stick a skewer thru them to keep them on a level plane. Spread a spice rub all over them, then place them on the "cool" side of the grille for 45 minutes or so.

Okay, so I've skipped a few steps here. The birds cook for 45 minutes, and then you move them to the "hot" side of the grille while spreading a BBQ glaze over them for another 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile, make up some Syracuse Salt Potatoes, boil up some corn, and steam up some summer squash from the garden. Serve with iced tea and gin-and-tonics, and you've got yourself a great summer dinner.

I've got a million other things to blog about, which I hope to get to soon. My EPL preview blog is a week late, but after one game and Arsenal in 1st place (GET IN!), you can be assured the top of my predicted table will be red. We had a nice day visiting the Sullivans today on the Cape, my first ever visit to Cape Cod. Next weekend Grafunk and his lovely wife will be visiting, and we've got Yanks/Sox tickets as well (although the August heat seems to be making them swoon like the old days, so it remains to be seen whether those games will mean anything). And before you know it football season will be upon us, and I've got a good idea for a college football preview that will blow everyone's mind. All of this means...expect my next blog in October.