Master Gardener Visit

One of the nicest things about my La Mesa Verde garden is the visit from my Master Gardener, Carolyn Kameya every few weeks. She always has good advice and oohs and ahhs over the garden. She and others donate their time to help us new gardeners grow our little piece of paradise. Thanks again!

I harvested a zucchini the size of a small child today. I let it get big on purpose but geez! Tonight we'll have it stuffed and with a salad along side.

Visiting Veggielution





 On Friday, June 15, I visited Veggielution at Emma Prusch Farm Park on King Rd.in San Jose. It's a community farm with all sorts of different programs and classes with the purpose of creating a sustainable food system in San Jose. Today was graduation from "Cooking Matters", one of the programs available at the farm.

The outdoor kitchen. Food is prepared and classes are held here.



Brenda, Luz Maria, Irma and Yonara from Veggielution and Malin from La Mesa Verde.

Along with lots of delicious foods prepared with the garden veggies, we drank Strawberry Chia water. It was so refreshing on that hot day. It's simply blended strawberries and water with a small amount of the superfood, Chia seeds. I've made it three times at home since then. You could use whatever fruit that you like and I used about a teaspoon of seeds for a 1/2 gallon pitcher. So simple and no added sugars!

As you've seen, the garden is growing like crazy! Today I want to back track a little. On Installation Day, it was just me and Jay, mostly Jay. We discovered, just like the Master Gardener had said, that the wonderful soil here in "The Valley of Heart's Delight" although rich, was like concrete. It was like a cartoon when we tried to break it up. Picture Wyle E. Coyote, a shovel and the word "doinggg"

Jay on Planting Day

I soaked it for a week and borrowed a pick axe and between Jay and Luis, they got the beds dug up. We ended up mixing 23 50lb. bags in with the soil for each bed. That's over 2,000 lbs. Jay is on the staff at Sacred Heart and I think that his job was documenting it, but he ended up doing most of the hard work. Thanks, Jay

Just about full!

Hidden Veggies

OK, yesterday I posted a garden update with pictures. After that, I found this...

I swear to you that I am out there about 10 times a day and then, all of a sudden, something has grown!

Here's the first squash, harvested on day 44, if anyone's counting.
I'm going to roast them with some tiny, tiny potatoes that I have, then add them to some fresh picked lettuce. I made a dressing that Marilu Henner made on Live with Kelly last week. Whisk together 1/3 C. Olive Oil, 1/3 C. Balsalmic Vinegar, 1 T. Dijon Mustard and smash in some roasted garlic cloves. I'll let you know if it's yummy.

Garden Update

The Garden Diva thinks she's the Hummingbird Diva lately. I'm discovering new stuff on this camera that my parents gave us. The latest? It can be set to snap many pictures in succession and the hummingbirds have been hamming it up for me.
But... it's about time for a garden update.


The Cucumbers are cute, the plants are climbing like crazy.

These Early Girls are the biggest of the four tomatoes so far.



These baby Zepher Squash are going to be dinner very soon.

 



The first Fresno Chile is sort of the same color and shape
as the leaves and I didn't even see it!



And this is the biggest, strangest looking bee that I've ever seen.



Lupe and the Hummingbird

You may have to blow these up to see the tiny camera hog.

Guadalupe Perez, a community leader from Sacred Heart who works at Veggielution came by to visit and the hummingbirds seemed very curious about her.