Garden Update II: Attack of the Killer Zucchini

Remember that cute little garden we started with, including the itty-bitty zucchini plant at the very front of the garden?

That little plant closest to the front is the zuke

Well, that itty-bitty zucchini apparently ate its vegetable Wheaties, and has now grown big and strong.  In fact, here's what it looks like now, at the front of the planting bed:

Yup, that huge mound of leaves at the front is the same zuke!

You can see from the empty spot at the front of the garden, we lost two cabbages to aphids, and I'm trying to save the last one, even though we discovered that we planted it waaaay too early, and it probably won't taste very good when all is said and done.  The broccoli is also supposed to be a late-season plant, but we're having a little better luck with those so far:

little baby broccoli hiding in the leaves

You'll notice that the tomato plants aren't very tall -- I'm not sure why exactly, I've already fed them once, and may try another round.  We haven't needed to get cages for them yet, that's how small they are.  We also are getting very, very little in the way of tomatoes, but I read that tomatoes won't set fruit when temperatures go over 95 degrees or so, and I suspect that's the problem for us this summer.  One of our cherry tomato plants give us about one tiny tomato a week.  Another one has had a smallish green tomato on the vine for over a week, and it doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

Two tomatoes this week -- a bumper crop!

I'm not sure why the planting instructions say you only need 6 inches between the vine plants, namely the cucumbers, squash, and melons.  They are all starting to spread out into a big, tangled patch, and I can't tell what is what.  Everything is flowering, and I'm hoping we'll get some good yield there.  I'm pretty sure this is a little baby cucumber getting started:

itty bitty cuke!

Obviously, the zucchini is the happiest thing in the garden.  I have to go out daily to get the zukes before they turn into tough, green baseball bats, and I have been getting 2-3 a day.  I am really glad I followed the advice I heard a few years back -- no matter how tempted you are, NEVER plant more than one zucchini plant!  We can't keep up with it, even after I cut up about six earlier this week and made a ton of zucchini tempura.

the current stockpile -- see how tiny those tomatoes are?

I fear that I am going to either have to start pawning zucchini off on my coworkers, or else I might need to make a mock apple pie with the stuff.  I did that back when I was in grad school and my roommates had a garden that was out of control, and it was surprisingly delicious.  If I do it again, I'll definitely let you know!

Bountiful Baskets surprise

We have been participating in a vegetable buyer's cooperative called Bountiful Baskets for the last few months.  You spend $15 for a large basket of fresh fruits and veggies, which unfortunately need to be picked up early on Saturday morning.  But there's a wide variety of goodies, including some things you wouldn't ordinarily buy for yourself.  So far, it's been a good investment.  In addition to the regular basket of veggies, you can also order loaves of bread, homemade granola, occasional themed veggie baskets (like Mexican or Italian), and there is usually a large quantity of a different fruit offered each week, I assume for canners.

Bowl 1

Bowl 2

This week, they were offering a sample box of plums, a total of 12 pounds or so.  That seemed like a lot of plums, but not so many that you had to get rid of them by canning them.  So we got it.  It turns out, there were a lot of them -- enough to fill my 2 biggest bowls! -- and it has been fun trying all the different varieties.  I think they yellow ones are my favorite so far -- they are especially crisp, almost like an unripe plum in texture, but they are quite sweet.  We also had a few purple apricots in the box, but they were packed on the bottom, so they were very bruised.

In our regular basket this week, we had butter lettuce, broccoli, yellow summer squash, carrots, raspberries, strawberries, more plums, table grapes, and four ears of corn.  I decided to make grilled corn on the cob with dinner last night, but I got quite a surprise when I shucked the ears.

They were red!  I have no idea what variety this is.  As it turns out, it didn't have a whole lot of flavor.  But the color would have definitely been eye-catching in some kind of corn salad.

Birthday party surprise

Yesterday was T's birthday.  We're pretty mellow about birthdays around here, but I wanted to do something nice for him.  So it occurred to me that I should surprise him by asking some of his friends to meet us for dinner.

I contacted one of our friends on FB, M, and realized that the last time I had written a message to her was last year, when I tried to get her and her husband to come to our house for a birthday cookout!  I think I gave them about 2 days' notice.  This time I was smarter and gave them a few weeks.

T decided that he wanted to go to Rodizio Grill, a nice Brazilian steakhouse.  If you haven't experienced one of these places, the idea is that, for a set amount, you get to choose from a large, unlimited salad bar with green salad fixings, but also assorted marinated salads, fruit, oddities like hearts of palm, pickled quail eggs, and faro, and side dishes like penne alfredo, mashed potatoes, rice, and baked beans.  Then waiters wander from table to table with large skewers of different kinds of meat, and they slice a piece or two of whtever they have for you at the table.  There are options like whole sirloin, pork loin, sweet and spicy chicken, wild boar, linguica sausage, and whitefish with red peppers.  A favorite that comes around on the skewers is grilled pineapple, which is really delicious.  On the table, you have little appetizer dishes of cinnamon fried bananas, fried polenta strips, and tiny cheesy muffins.  You can order drinks, and there are a variety of yummy deserts, too, if you haven't managed to stuff yourself silly by the end of the night.

We went to dinner at one of T's coworkers' house last weekend, and he invited them out to dinner with us.  I decided to go along, acting as if they would be the only ones coming with us, when I knew there were another 4-5 people that M had helped invite.  As it turned out, I was able to use the coworker invite to my advantage.  I wouldn't have bothere making a reservation for just T and I, but I was able to pretend I'd made a 6:15pm reservation for 4, when I really had a 6 pm reservation for 9.  T actually called M's husband, and he lied about not being able to come, which sold the surprise even more.  In the end, T's coworkers ended up not being able to make it, and I apologized several times for the fact that we were going out alone, so it was an even bigger surprise for him to turn the corner and find everyone at the table.  I was going to avoid their version of the tableside birthday song -- a large group of waiters singing in Portugese with a large drum to add to the noise -- but M's husband made sure it happened.

We chatted for a long time before, during, and after dinner, which was wonderful.  The SLC Rodizio is located in the Trolley Square shopping center, so we even went for a little walk and got some treats at the toffee shop afterwards.  It certainly wasn't elaborate, but it was a nice little surprise, and I think T really enjoyed it.

Happy birthday, babe!

Game of Thrones

When T and I went camping the weekend before last, I picked up the first book the the Game of Thrones series.  We've been watching the show on HBO for the past few seasons, and I have been meaning to pick up the source of the TV show.

I love comparing books to the movies or shows that are developed from them, but unlike some people, I prefer to read the book after I see the movie.  If I've just read (or re-read) the book, I spend the entire movie comparing notes, focusing on what they got right and what they got wrong, instead of enjoying the interpretation of the story.  But if I watch the story first, then the book provides all kinds of extra details and insights that you just can't cram into a movie or TV show, and I tend to appreciate what the writers have done to turn a book into a visual story.

I actually just finally got around to watching the movie version of Eat, Pray, Love.  I thought that they had drastically rewritten the plotline for the sake of the movie, but it had been years since I read the book.  When I dusted it off and read it again, I realized that it was my memory that was faulty, not the interpretation. It was also fun seeing how they turned the author's introspective musings into dialogue, and I definitely enjoyed rediscovering a good story.

I have really enjoyed the Game of Thrones show, and was looking forward to getting a deeper insight into the story, but so far it's not really happening.  The show follows the book very closely, and there aren't many extra plots twists or character developments that I didn't already know about.  It's still a  good story, and I'm enjoying it, but it hasen't had as many new insights as I expected.  I'm hoping there are still a few surprises in store, if not in this book, then maybe in the rest of the series.  Fingers crossed!