Weekly Garden Thread - July 22-28, 2023 [Grow It & Grill It Edition]

July 22, 2023 | Diana in WI/Greeneyes in Memoriam

[Qiviut]

Yesterday, I baked the first spaghetti squash from my garden & it turned out great! Having never grown it before, I am thrilled with how well it did and how many I have.

There is a ‘hearty meat sauce’ I love & it was perfect over the spaghetti squash. Mom had no experience with these squash, she’d never heard of them so she was fascinated & enjoyed her plate of ‘spaghetti’.

The next recipe I am making is this one, the version with chicken. I have a couple of pastured meat chickens from my niece that I need to get out of the freezer. They had hogs processed this week & my half hog is coming in October, so I need to make room!

KETO SPAGHETTI SQUASH CASSEROLE WITH ALFREDO SAUCE
https://www.sweetashoney.co/keto-spaghetti-squash-casserole/

“For the chicken Alfredo casserole lovers, you can adapt the recipe by adding 2 shredded chicken breasts into the casserole.”

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Spaghetti Squash makes me chuckle. One season, while we were dating and before I moved out here, Beau planted SS. Never having done before, he had a zillion of the things. He greatly over-planted.

Since he had so many, he split a number of them and fed them to the steer he was raising that season, and tying in various spots throughout the house yard to graze.

Needless to say, the next spring he had SS growing EVERYWHERE, and it truly was a number of years after I moved here before I got that situation under control.

He’s not allowed to plant SS ever again. ;) (Though I will buy one at market from time to time. They are good!)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

So, how are things in Diana’s Kitchen Garden you ask? Fan-tastic!

For having a drought season, there are fewer bugs and no disease issues - even on tomatoes! Things are usually rather ‘blighty’ right now, but with it being so dry - no problem! Yay!

Having said that, we got 1.5” of unexpected rain, yesterday...in about 2 hours! It was REALLY coming down, but no wind, so a good soaker. Frees me up from watering all the fruit trees...this week, at least!

Our peach (Reliance) is so over-loaded that we put up a half-dozen braces for her. The fruit is coloring up, but is far from ripe, yet.

So far lots of zucchini (that’s a given!) and cherry tomatoes (’Valentine’ is producing the best) and the first few tomatoes to ripen were the ‘Chef’s Black’ so we had our first BLTs of the season. All pole and bush beans are doing great. Lots of Kale and my peppers are the best I’ve grown in ages. All are red varieties (with one Jalapeno exception - gotta have those Poppers!) so while the plants are loaded, I’m letting most of them go to red, so they’ll be a while, yet.

Had a birthday this past Monday (63!) and Beau took me to my favorite Mexican restaurant and then bought me a table-top grill to use when he’s off hunting so I don’t have to heat up the big grill for one piece of chicken.

My NEW oven is FINALLY fixed as of yesterday - we have heat! The first thing I used it for was baking a batch of bacon for those BLTs. So glad to have a functioning stove/oven again!

The two new puppies (Arikara and Sioux, both females, Plott Hounds) are doing well. Sioux (younger by a month) will eat HER dinner and as much of YOURS as she can get, so we’ve had a few ‘lessons’ on Dinnertime Etiquette, and she’s coming around. ;) Other than that, they are growing fast and Arikara has been hunting/tracking rabbits with the Beagles (Chief & newest member, Dolly, retired, but won’t stop hunting!) so that’s good. Sioux will join them all when she’s a bit older. Right now she’s pouting and howls in the mornings when they ditch her because she can’t keep up yet, LOL!

Beau left with all but ONE of the Bear Dogs for more training for bear season. Things up north are OK, not as dry, but they’re having MUCH more smoke from the Canadian wildfires. Other than a thorough cleaning of the kennels and tending to Emma’s needs (Walker Dog, Nite Champion!) my dog-related chores are greatly reduced while they are off in the North Woods. :)

Hot, Hot, HOT this week into next with possible rain in between but we’ll muddle through. ;)

[Qiviut]

I bought a small pot with 6-8 seedlings from Lowe’s on a whim. I had sworn off squash (yellow, zucchini) because I was tired of fighting squash bugs.

Anyway, I split what was in the pot into 2 groups, 3-4 per group. A couple died, probably damaged roots or not enough roots. The rest did OK & seemed to be ‘hanging around’ at a robust seedling stage ... until they took off! They were in a 4 x 8 raised bed & quickly overflowed, spreading through the fencing, etc. I checked several times early for squash bugs & never saw any until I had large, yellowing squash on the vines.

Since I do low carb, spaghetti squash works great for me, but I have always had to buy them. I love spaghetti & lasagna & use the squash in those dishes. Instead of a layer of lasagna noodles, I do a layer of squash. I was cooking for a large family gathering a couple of years ago & I made 1 pan of ‘regular’ lasagna & one pan with squash & no meat in the sauce (but lots of Herbs & flavor) because my NYC niece is vegetarian. My 2 brothers got into that 9 x 13 pan and ate at least half, maybe more. My one brother loved it so much, he got his wife to start using spaghetti squash.

I am going to try to freeze some of my squash since I have so many. Instructions are to bake, shred, then drain in a colander in the fridge overnight. What I plan on trying, which will speed up the process considerably, is to use my salad spinner to get water out of the squash - bake, shred, let it cool, then spin & vacuum seal. If the spinner works, I will have plenty of squash for a couple of months! I do have yellow squash seeds & will be planting them next week - my mom loves yellow squash fried with onions. My SIL had good luck planting late last year since squash bugs are most active in the spring. My radish/scallion bed is empty, so that is where I will plant the squash, well away from the spaghetti squash bed.