Being unemployed over the summer had me planning on tending to my garden. However, a torn ligament in my foot had me on crutches for the month of June, and gardening went out the window. The weeds took over everything! I don’t have a picture of the jungle – I was too embarrassed to memorialize the situation.
Gradually, slowly, my foot healed and I was able to get back out into the garden. I attacked the weeds in small patches of time, but still have a long way to go.
Despite the weeds, the vegetables started coming and did not stop. I was overwhelmed! Early summer had me drowning in zucchini! I baked every zucchini recipe I could find: a zucchini potato bake, zucchini rollatini, a zucchini tomato bake, 10 loaves of chocolate zucchini bread, lemon zucchini Bundt cake, zucchini brownies, and about 12 dozen zucchini peanut butter dog treats! The freezer is full of zucchini baking! The Bundt cake was phenomenal, and Henry loved the treats.
Then the cucumbers took over – I picked over 50 cucumbers and they’re still growing! And then the tomatoes started! The cherry tomatoes were prolific this summer, but the beefsteak tomatoes didn’t grow very large. They were small, but very tasty! Nothing like a fresh tomato, still warm from the sun. I canned 44 litres of tomatoes, which will taste good as soup or pasta sauce this winter. And fresh cherry tomatoes make an awesome tomato basil risotto!
There are a few good local orchards around here. The peaches were very good this year, so I did lots of baking with them, and canned 12 litres. Always a nice taste of summer in February! This peach ricotta cake was so good, I made it twice this summer!
I also grew cabbage, watermelon and arugula – that was great to have fresh from the garden! The broccoli experiment failed, but I think that was user error.
It’s really nice to have a proper garden after all the years in Toronto. I’ve calculated that, so far, I’ve harvested over $500 worth of vegetables, and invested only around $200 in the spring in seedlings, soil, and soil additives. (Special shoutout to Farmer Jeff for all the seedlings!) Totally worth it! Hopefully next year will be injury-free, and the weeding will be a bit easier!
RC Country Life 