Hot Hot Hot & Pickles Too!

Well, if you live in the Mid-Atlantic region of the USA you already know that it has been ridiculously hot here for the last two weeks. We have had to water the garden up to 3 times a day just to keep things from scorching to dust! Alas, it is July and good good things are happening in the garden like cucumbers, sunflowers, peppers, our first eggplant, strawberries, and TOMATOES! I don't think we are going to have a huge yield of tomatoes this year because the heat has stunted them so, they are usually twice as tall as they are by now, but the SunGold & Eva Purple Ball varieties that we grew this year are really tasty! We have eaten only a few but there are a lot of blushing fruits out there and I cannot wait until we can eat them all up! Here is a photo of those little buddies first:

The lighter colored cherry tomatoes are the SunGold variety, the smaller ones are Matt's Wild Cherry which are just okay, and the big one is Eva Purple Ball which is fantastic.

Cucumbers are always too productive for our household so we end up sharing a lot of them. This year all of our neighbors ALSO have lots of cukes so I started looking for pickle recipes. We don't have the full canning set up or the $$ to get it so I looked into making refrigerator pickles. Wow, there are a lot of folks who are super into this stuff and lots of different recipes to try. I chose one that had coriander and dill in it since both are also growing in our garden. These pickles sit in the fridge for a week and then you can eat them - after that they are good for about 2 months. And you have to shake them everyday which is kind of like a herby-snowglobe. 

I still have a few more  days to wait ! I will report on their delicious or "non" delicious status soon.

For the last few years we have grown our large garden with the intent of feeding ourselves, and sharing, but also for sharing with people that are outside of immediate friends & neighbors. Our local food hub has a program where you can plant a row for the hungry, or just drop off donations for local shelters & soup kitchens. This is not something we really talk about a lot on here but I thought it might be good to point out to all of you gardeners out there that you can make donations, even one time donations, that will feed a lot of people and make sure that your extra food does not go to waste. Here is a picture of our last donation:

This is approximately. 9.75lbs of green beans! 

A few more garden things:

Look at this guy! We love our red cabbages! Here they are all cleaned up and shiny:

As you can see, while our cabbage is doing alright, the grass is dying.

Hope everyone is having fun outside, drinking plenty of water, and eating lots of fun stuff from their gardens, or from their neighbor's gardens! 

More soon!

xo,

Allyson