Our garden has been almost disappointingly unproductive so far – there have been a few handfuls of green beans so far, and our toddler has prematurely picked every banana pepper that have appeared, but we haven’t had much fruit for our labors yet. My ds9 keeps asking why our plants are so much smaller than his friends’ and if anything is ever going to grow, and I myself kept wondering how much we would get out of the garden, after putting so much time and money into it.
Until this evening. My son was very excited when he saw, seeminly overnight, that our crookneck squash plants had several nice sized squash on them. And then that the tomato plants finally are starting to have little marble sized tomatoes on them. And lastly, that the huge squash plant (that we planted from a seed of a squash we ate) has a number of small, knobby looking little squash starting to appear. The last one was particularly encouraging, because I had read (after the seed was planted) that store bought produce generally doesn’t reproduce itself, and that while it might grow big and leafy, it wouldn’t blossom and produce fruit. This squash plant is huge, beautiful and sprawling, and I kept thinking what a shame it would be if it was totally unproductive. So this evening it was a nice surprise all around to see things suddenly springing up.
The kids picked several yellow crookneck squash, and I cooked them for dinner. I had a couple of red peppers starting to get soft in the fridge, along with a couple of zucchini I needed to use. So I sauteed onions with red peppers in butter, then added the sliced zucchini and crookneck squash, and cooked it for a few minutes until it was just tender before tossing in some shredded yellow cheddar cheese. It looked colorful and tasty (when something looks good, it makes it taste better, don’t you think?), and the kids gobbled it up and said how much tastier the home grown squash was than the ones we buy in the store. I served it along with steamed carrots (seasoned with home grown dill), homemade whole wheat rolls, butter, and vegetable juice. It was a nice light dinner, and the kids enjoyed it. They’re now looking forward to eating more of our own vegetables. 🙂
Avivah
