Summer Ends and Harvest Begins
With summer ending and harvesting beginning, summer flew by! I have a few personal updates to share. In addition to the garden, I am now a Gigi! My grandson was born shortly before Memorial Day. He is adorable, and it is true what they say, there is nothing else like it! Having a grandchild has changed my life in a very short period of time. I feel so grateful that he is a part of our lives, and I thank God for him every day!
My daughter also got married last weekend, to a wonderful man she’s been dating for several years. They were engaged in the spring of 2021, and then planned their elopement, which is a new wedding trend that emerged during the pandemic, if you’re not familiar. I didn’t know anything about it, so initially, when I heard that word, I was like trigger alert! trigger alert! haha
It has actually been great though, and reduces some of the stress involved. We enjoyed over a year of celebrating with them including an engagement party, dress shopping, multiple showers, and bachelorette parties, before they went to their destination in Utah to be married by her brother, who is a Pastor. Then, we all gathered together to celebrate them at their reception, which did require at least six months of planning and that allowed everyone to be involved and included. My daughter is very creative and talented, and many friends and family members helped bring it all together, and it was a lot of fun.
All summer, my Dad harvested veggies and flowers from the garden for me. He did all of the work thankfully because when I had the idea of starting a floral garden, I did not realize the commitment involved. I enjoy the harvest and the benefits, much more than the work.
It was so nice to have fresh cucumbers, tomatoes, green beans, corn, and herbs all summer. I got in the habit of eating breakfast salads with my eggs every morning. They were so good, tossed with homegrown fresh oregano, I barely needed to add in dressing, only a little olive oil.
I cooked down several batches of tomatoes over the last several weeks, and already made my first batch of chili with garden tomatoes. So good, and cozy!
If you read my last post, you might recall I planted mustard seed. Well, I had my first experience of eating mustard greens this summer. I experimented with a few recipes with them, as they are supposed to be quite healthy for you. The size of the leaves work well for wraps with deli meat, and I created a salad I like quite a bit. The leaves have a spicy, mustard taste to them, so they are good paired with sweets. I chopped up chicken, apple, and dried cranberries, with the mustard leaves, and then topped with a clean salad dressing I found at Aldi, called Apple and Thyme. One issue with growing the mustard greens, is they get kind of buggy…which can be an issue for greens in general I believe.
We started with a few flowers this year, including gladiolas, zinnias, and irises, and I believe they’ve been a gift to more than me, as they’ve produced blooms throughout the summer. More recently, cantaloupes and watermelons have become ripe, and the pumpkins have begun to be ready to harvest for fall as well.
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