Well, about the only thing ready to harvest from our garden so far are apples. Lots and lots and lots of apples. I can’t tell what variety they are– I had originally thought Jonagold, but only some have the bit of red at the top. They don’t look like Jonagold to me anymore. After some extensive Googling, I am reasonably sure that we have Lodi apples. It was important for me to figure out what they are because I need to know when to pick them. From what I read, Lodi apples are the first of the season, harvested in July and August. Soooo… we picked a few to make an apple cobbler.

The recipe for the cobbler came from a book that I don’t use often enough, The Gluten-Free Vegan by Susan O’Brien. My mother-in-law bought this book for me a few months ago and while I’ve got several recipes marked to try, this is the first one that I have ended up making. The recipe is actually for a peach and blueberry cobbler (sounds so good!), but with a tree full of apples, I thought I could make it work with those.

I followed the recipe exactly, but substituted 6 cups of apples for the 3 cups of peaches and 3 cups of blueberries. I also added lots more spice to the filling and it was perfect!

• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1/2 tsp mace
• 1/4 tsp ground ginger

It turned out tasting great, but I did have a little trouble while baking. My apples, it seems, are not great for baking. They broke down, but released absolutely no juice. Like none at all. Because there is flour (sorghum) and arrowroot in the filling mixture to soak up all that juicy goodness, I had to improvise and add about 1/2 cup of water. Otherwise, it would had the pasty texture of dry, uncooked flour. It turned out fine, but next time I will add juice to the filling mixture if I use my apples again. I think these guys are best suited for applesauce, though.

Cobbler Close Up

I served the cobbler in a bowl topped with Almond Dream Praline Crunch. It was delicious! The ice cream melted a bit into the cobbler topping and it was so good.

Now that we live in a house with a large yard and more sunshine, I was really super excited to garden this summer. I bought some packs of seeds and my dad sprouted them for me (and then ended up transplanting them into my yard for me too). All is going well, except that it’s been so darn cold and rainy that I don’t have a whole lot to brag about yet. We’ve finally had a few days of warm sunshine so I should be harvesting here in no time.

There are a few things in our garden that I can’t take credit for. When we moved in to our new house, there was this tree in the middle of the backyard. I didn’t pay much attention to it until a couple of months ago when it started growing something. I thought at first that it was pears, but now I can see that they are apples. I have no idea what kind it is or if they even taste good, but I should be able to cook and can them at the very least. After a trip to the nursery to compare apples, I think these little guys are Jonagold apples:

And here’s another thing I was surprised about… our neighbor who we share a fence with has a pretty impressive garden going on. Just from peaking through the fence, I can see that she has a good-sized apricot tree as well as this:

GRAPES! When it first started creeping over the fence, I very nearly cut it because I thought it looked kinda ugly. Now that it’s grown in and isn’t just one little branch growing from out of nowhere, I think it looks ok. And after I saw the itty bitty grapes growing, I was really happy that I didn’t cut it back. Since taking the photo, which was a few weeks ago when I first started this post, the grapes on our side have probably doubled and I can see that the grapes are growing. Yay! We should be harvesting grapes next month sometime.

Now, this plant that was planted here before we moved in I thought for the longest time was a flower-less hydrangea. When I was watering it one day, I thought to myself “wait a minute… is that lemon balm?“. Sure enough, the leaves have a lemony fragrance and I’m now certain that it’s an enormous lemon balm (but it kinda looks like a small, flower-less hydrangea, doesn’t it?!).

So here’s a question: aside from making tea, what can I do with such a huge lemon balm plant? I thought I could use some cuttings in a flower arrangement, but I rarely ever have cut flowers in the house. It makes me so sad when they die so I don’t like to keep them around. Can I cook with it? I know it’s related to mint, so maybe I can use it in place of mint in recipes? Help!!

Let’s move on to the things that I have planted… I have to say first that I’m not sure how any of this will grow. We have several very large trees in our backyard and there are very few spots that get full sun. Most everywhere in the yard only gets sun for only a brief time during the day, but I’m hopeful some of it will take off. Since starting this post, we have a little squash growing in our front yard (where we get more sun and where I planted about a dozen squash plants). The ones planted in the backyard have grown a bit too and we have lots and lots of blossoms.

These are my two cucumber plants that I have in pots in my front yard where they get lots of sun. One is Armenian and one is Japanese, but don’t ask me to tell you which is which because I have no clue. Since starting this post, I’ve since moved the cukes to the ground in the backyard because they were outgrowing the pots. They seem to be doing well and I have a few little flowers that will (hopefully!!) grow into cucumbers.

Here’s another little guy that I keep in a pot in the front yard. It’s a Japanese eggplant and it’s already got a little one growing! Note: I’ve since moved him to the ground in the backyard because he was getting so big. I have a few more starting to grow.

I also planted two blackberries along our fence. One is a loganberry and the other is an olallieberry. They are small and fruitless. Another berry that is actually doing well is my blueberry bush:

These are the sweetest, most delicious blueberries I’ve ever eaten in my life. Having said that, I haven’t eaten more than a small handful since the kids help themselves to it whenever we are out back. It’s so cute to see Amanda crawl straight toward it, pull herself up on the planter, and pick her own blueberries. Blueberries are her most favorite food, I think. Whole Foods had them on sale one week ($1.99 for a pint of organic ones) and I bought 5 pints. We went through them in about 4 or 5 days.

And lastly, here is my teeny tiny watermelon plant. It hasn’t grown much and I suspect that it doesn’t get hot enough here for it, so I don’t think we’ll be eating any watermelon this summer. Oh well.

In the summertime, I usually plant at least a tomato plant.  This year, I’ve been so obsessed with the idea of making my own pickles that I planted 3 pickling cucumber plants in addition to my tomato and melon plants.  I also planted a bunch of herbs that are growing like crazy.  My problem is that I’m really short on space and there aren’t a lot of spots around my house that get full sun for a good part of the day.  On top of that, we have had the craziest summer and the weather has been extremely mild.  No hot sun means no harvest.

But today when I went out, I saw that my very first cucumber is nearly ready to be picked!  And I have one tomato that is on the verge of ripeness.  Eeek!  Here’s some photos:

You’ll notice that my garden is entirely planted in large pots.  I used tomato cages to keep them growing up instead of out.  Just goes to show you that you can grow your own fruits and veggies even with very limited space.  Even if you just had a small balcony, I bet you could pull off a new plants.  The plants themselves are cheap and, aside from watering them every day or two, they require very little effort on my part.  I’m so excited about my pickles.  I’ll be sure to let you all know how it goes.