A little more

We're now at a little over 46 lbs of produce donated now. The container garden has supplied the bulk of this produce, but as the plants in the LBC garden mature and begin to produce, they'll begin to make a larger proportional contribution. I've set a goal of 100 pounds of produce for this year; I don't know if that is a reasonable goal, but it certainly could be. I've also taken a few things here and there from my own garden -mostly things of which we have plenty and can therefore do without.

And speaking of my garden, here are a few looks at what's growing there. I have to say, the plot is much smaller now than when I started planting it...

I've got an abundance of these little currant tomatoes. I'm not partial to tomatoes generally, but these are quite good. Note their size!

I've harvested many pounds of goldenberries by this time. Wow, these plants are producing so well. It seems like every evening I go out to the garden and find another couple dozen have ripened.

I've taken several dozen and strung them up to dry (and, for some, ripen up completely) in the garage. Fresh or “raisinified”, they're delicious. I took some and dipped them in chocolate; that came out pretty well. I'll have to make a few batches to send off for Christmas gifts.

Here is a look at what we call our “Godiva” gourds- so called because the seeds, having no hard hull, are “naked”.


We let the gourds grow to maturity, then pull out all the seeds (the flesh goes into the compost heap, naturally). Then we clean them, give them a salt bath and roast them. This is an especially welcome treat for our little girl who, owing to a nut allergy, can't otherwise have any kind of nuts at all.

This irksome looking beast is called a “lytchi tomato”.



While it is in the Nightshade family -as are tomatoes- it is no kind of tomato in reality. It's much closer, botany-wise, to the eggplant, its genus being Solanum (species sisymbriifolium). The fruits are small red berries and they have a mildly sweet flavor.

And here is a look at some peppers I have growing.

What's up

The gardens are chugging along. Our total in donations thus far is 42.7 lbs. I set a goal for the year to donate 100 lbs. We're almost halfway there, and I believe we can hit that mark, especially since the large squash haven't yet come into play. Oh yes-- some of the squash I've got growing came from seeds of a largish pumpkin sort of thing that I picked up when I lived in Phoenix. It's called "calabaza de castillo", as best I can determine. The one from which I extracted the seeds was about 17 lbs. And I've got at least half a dozen of them forming on the vine now. They make really great pumpkin pies, and just one of the fruits should probably make 5 or 6 pies.  Plus, the seeds themselves are great toasted in the oven with a little salt.  Good stuff!

Garden help

I came across a couple of links of great interest to me -and, I presume other gardeners as well. The first was from one of my favorite all-purpose sites, Lifehacker. The post in question is a list of ways to foil garden pests without putting a lot of harsh chemicals all over the yard and eventually into the water table. Good stuff. At present, I'm waging a psychological cold war (very soon to go hot!) with a couple of groundhogs, so it caught my eye. I'm going to try some of the tactics mentioned therein.

The second link is to a site called SproutRobot.

"SproutRobot will build a custom planting schedule based on your zip code so you always know what to plant and when.

Plug in your zip code to SproutRobot and it will generate a sample planting guide for the next few months."

Neat. I'm going with the free tier plan; it looks like a good little service.