HARVEST SOME CHARD, BAKE A QUICHE

Today was an awesome day off, with no plans but whatever I felt like doing at the moment.  These were some of today's moments...

It finally cooled off a bit to spend some time in the garden, and I sowed some lemon balm, lemon basil, savoy summer and broccoli seeds.  I've also pretty much taken up the entire fence/patio area.

Please note the creepy floating toy bird.

I also harvested some lettuce today, as well as some nasturtium flowers, and two sugar snap peas for a dinner salad.

(not pictured: sugar snap peas)

After that, while I was thinning out my beets, I came across this guy:

AND she has eggs on her!

After all of that, I harvested some of the most beautiful Swiss chard I've ever grown.

STUNNING.

I also harvested some green onions, and then made my very first quiche.  It was a Swiss Chard and Feta quiche recipe I found online, and it turned out DELICIOUS.

I also baked some lemon shortbread cookies and received a beautiful bouquet of flowers, but we don't have photos of those.  Truly a lovely Saturday off!

SPOTTED: NASTURTIUM FLOWER

I was leaving to take the puppy on a walk today, and while we were walking past the garden, I caught a glimpse of this little orange bud, and had a minor freak out.  IT WAS A NASTURTIUM FLOWER!!

So exciting!  I have been harvesting lettuce, and know these flowers will be excellent additions to my garden salads!  Has anyone ever done anything with the nasturtium stems and leaves?  I heard they are good to saute? Is that true??

I also spotted this lovely black krim flower yesterday:

And on top of all of that, I harvested some tiny green onions on Sunday:

They tasted delicious in my fried rice.

SPOTTED: CHERRY TOMATO FLOWERS

Tomato plants are my absolute favorite.  Their smell brings me back to my Great Grandpa Pustek's back yard in East Chicago, where in the summer we would go out back and pick the cherry tomatoes right off the vine and eat them.  The gardening seemed to skip a few generations in my family, where I am the first one since him to really take to growing my own food.

Remember that bad ass cherry tomato seed?  Well that hardcore dude was spotted today already making some flowers.  That guy has survived winter and caterpillars, and he is STILL the first to show off with some flowers! 

So pretty!

It's summer guys!  I couldn't be happier!!!

STAKING MY LIFE AWAY

It's been so warm here the past week that the garden (specifically the greens and tomatoes) have really taken off.  I wanted to get some tomato stakes in before it was too out of control, so today I went and bought some stakes and jute twine.

 

 This bed had herbs, eggplant, cherry tomatoes and black krim tomatoes.

Oh and a random sunflower named Mary Ruth.

Last year I had used the wire round stakes for the tomatoes, but they just weren't stable enough and kept falling over and it just became this big mess.  So I'm trying a different method this year that I hope works.  I planted a ton of tomatoes (Purple Cherokee, Roma, Cherry, and Black Krim) so a majority of the garden needed to be staked for their support. 

The bed to the left has roma tomatoes, sweet bell peppers and purple cherokee.

The whole process took up a good amount of time, but I'm really happy with how it looks so far.  I might need to push that top row of twine down to the middle section more when they really take off!  Yeah summer!

Also, on the caterpillar update, I found yet ANOTHER caterpillar on a Romaine leaf yesterday morning! So the battle continues, but I am feeling more confident in this round.

DON'T TRUST THIS GUY.

The garden is looking awesome overall, and I'm about ready to harvest some collards and more lettuce!  Possibly some green onions too! 

I'm also looking into starting to can preserves and such soon.  This could shape up to be a really awesome and productive summer.

CAUGHT: MOTH CATERPILLARS

I finally caught the culprit in the garden on Saturday.  Just as I was collecting all of my sticky cards, since I was only catching flies and dirt on them, I found this guy:

What a fatty!  This guy it totally guilty of eating up my sunflower and those tomato leaves! I did feel awful that he got stuck to the card and I couldn't get him off.  Said a little mantra for him as I put him away.

Then, I was digging around in my carrots again to see what has been up for the lack of leaves sprouting up, when I saw this guy:

Gotta look close on this one...

These little moth caterpillar buggers!  Gah!!!  So now I'm trying to find ways to protect my seedlings that don't include foil, etc.  I'm trying to soap water method again, and I hope that works.

In other, much better news: I harvested some lettuce today!  It was good to see that the caterpillars didn't destroy all of my lettuce.  This lovely lettuce was part of my lunch today, and it always makes me feel amazing to eat what I've grown and just harvested.

Yes, this is an instagram photo. 

If anyone has a solution to my moth madness, please leave a comment!  I'm open to suggestions!  A big thank you goes to everyone who has helped me identify these guys and suggested ways to deal with them so far! <3