The Kindness of Neighbors

Tonight Clay and I had a wonderful feast with several goodies from my neighbors garden. He has grown several things that I've never tried to grow or at least didn't grow this year. Here is what we had in pictures.
Okra has become one of my favorite foods this summer. A friend of Clays had us over for dinner and prepared some grilled okra with olive oil and salt. It is best as a finger food because the skin can be tough to cut, so just pick it up by the tail end and dig in. I had never eaten okra before or had I seen it growing from a plant. So shortly after my first taste of okra my neighbor calls over the fence hoping that Clay and I might be interested in some of his okra before the deer ate it all. Since then we have fixed okra three times thanks to John (our neighbor). I look forward to trying to grow some next year!! (The picture was taken after rubbed in olive oil, but before it was cooked).
We didn't actually eat any of the carrots with our dinner but they will be in my salad for lunch tomorrow. I have grown carrots before but not purple carrots! John informed me of a little carrot history that you can read about here, that helps explain the purple part. (The tomatoes came from our garden, our constant supply just made a nice backdrop).
Here are the carrots after I washed them up. I was amazed by the color.
John probably wouldn't want me to post this picture because the watermelon was not quite ripe. I was actually able to get several sweet, juicy bites from it. The other reason I went ahead and posted this picture is because I already ate the first watermelon that he gave us that was perfectly ripe. It was just the right size to cut in half and just use the rind as a bowl.

These grapes smelled incredible. Before John and Kim moved in the house next door was vacant. Clay and I would wander over sometimes during the summer and snack on a few grapes when they were ripe. We were very happy to have such great neighbors move in, who continued to let us snack on the grapes.

This last picture is not from our neighbor's garden. This weekend I visited some other neighbors on the river named Faye and Dudley Scott. Faye just happens to be my grandmother Rubel's sister. I have always admired their house and garden when I drove by. Papaw went with me to their house for a Sunday visit. I was given a brief history of the McCoy mines and the ferry located where Clay and I got married. Faye showed me her basement full of canned food. Dudley showed me two giant tanks he uses to collect rainwater and if that runs low he has a system set up to pump water from the river. Of course they wouldn't let me leave empty handed. I took home a book titled "McCoy, Virginia Remembered," (This book has pictures of Clay's grandfather that built and lived in the house we are in now!) and a couple Brandywine tomatoes. I wish I would have taken a picture of the tomatoes before I cut them, they were so pretty. They also made the best caprece salad that I have eaten all summer! (This is the salad before I added balsamic vinegar.


Finally, I had my first meeting for the Virginia Master Naturalist program last night. One of my first assignments was to look up some information on a local species. We drew animals from a basket and I got the Eastern Spotted Skunk, so I included a link. We were just given a brief overview of the program and discussed keeping a nature journal, book or electronic. I hope to keep a book but will continue to post info here of the fieldtrips we take.

A Few Random Pictures

I love finding bizarre shaped veggies in the garden.
Most of you reading know by now that I actually like learning about the critters in the garden, especially if they aren't eating anything I'm hoping to eat later. Click on the picture to see the bright yellow spider above.
I got this pitcher plant at the downtown market in Roanoke at the beginning of last summer. It started out with beautiful pitchers that were actively catching insects. Then one by one the pitchers seemed to dry up and some of the leaves were looking a little cooked also. I brought the plant inside over the winter and continued to water it, but was not expecting much since it is a tropical plant and the weather in McCoy is not exactly tropical. But as you can see after putting it back outside this summer and giving it plenty of water and misting it is happily growing more pitchers. I was pretty pleased with my success and hope to take it into my classroom. I think the kids will love it.
The peppers below were sliced and put into our dehydrator, except for the serrano, which were put in whole. They turned out pretty good although it took about three days for them all to finish. I sliced the jalapeno peppers too small and several fell through the trays of the dehydrator, so I may just try cutting them in half next time.
Below is a lovely picture of some of the tomatoes that my mother in-law canned for me.
I have only cooked with butternut squash once before, so it looks like I need to be on the search for some new recipes to use!

Flower Pictures

This last picture was taken at the Biltmore Estate in NC. It is a pizza garden and it is planted in slices. Each slice is represents a different ingredient that would go on a pizza. Pretty neat!

Odds and Ends

This guy was already dead when I came across it in the yard, but I was so impressed with the colors I snapped a photo anyway.
Here is a mixture of some of the goodies still growing in the garden. I picked around 50 red tomatoes to give to my mother in-law, who is going to can some whole and make some juice with them. We are also loaded with yellow tomatoes and I'm giving them to anyone I come across, but we know not to plant so many of them next year since they do not can as well.
I pulled the weeds that had covered the Brussels sprouts I planted in July. I don't know much about what to expect from these plants. Some of the leaves have been heavily chewed. I actually sprayed them with an insecticidal soap. I also discovered about 10 little worms all curled up inside the very center of one of the plants. I couldn't believe how packed they were in there.
I thought it was neat to see the old corn and the new corn that is just coming in. I was really worried that the new stuff would not fill out since we've had so little rain, but I had some tonight and it was delicious! I also picked the rest of the butternut squash that you see in this picture. A couple of them were spoiled where some little critters had dug into them. Man there is some gross stuff hanging out in the garden sometimes.
Clay and I finally planted some fall crops. Here is a mixture of red and green leaf lettuce and some mesclun mix. Then off to the left of these plants I put in some spinach, kale, and broccoli seed.

I've used the dehydrator twice. First a filled five trays with cherry tomatoes, which took about 1 and 1/2 days to finish. Then today I filled five trays with basil leaves and they started finishing in about 1 and 1/2 hours. I so have to rotate the trays. The bottom trays and the produce near the center of the dehydrator dry faster so I have to check on it pretty regularly to keep stuff from turning black.

2008 Prices Fork Fair

I was really hoping to get some pictures for those of you who read this blog that grew up attending the PF fair. I deliberately went home to get my camera and change into my PF fair 75th anniversary T-shirt from last year, so I would be showing the fair spirit when I helped mom with Little Miss Prices Fork. Of course the big draw back to digital cameras is they have to run on batteries and even though my camera was working that morning it didn't have enough juice to take a single picture at the fair. This year it didn't rain either day so there was a good flow of visitors on both days. There were some new booths including a cool lavender booth set up by a lady who grows her own lavender plants on Norris Run. We didn't have enough exhibits to need both floors of the grange but it seemed like more people were participating. With the steady rain we have had this summer the flowers were spectacular and farm and garden seemed to have a boost also. For the past two years Prices Fork Elementary has posted their teacher list at the fair and offered to let students do their talent show acts at the fair. I think this has been great and has brought some new faces to the fair. I also really enjoyed the music by Dean Trimble and Friends. One of the guys singing happened to be grandma Rubel's son in-law.

Getting Ready for the Fair

Since I can remember my family has participated and helped out at the Price's Fork Fair. I like to carry on the tradition except instead of entering my dressed up doll and 4-H crafts I mainly have veggies and flowers. Thursday after work, going on a short run, and looking at floor tile with Clay I went to the garden to harvest as many goodies as I could find. I collected red and yellow tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, green bell peppers, one yellow bell pepper, anaheim, serrano, and jalapeno peppers, zucchini, cucumbers, corn, a few beans, purple peppers, and butternut squash. I also had one volunteer pumpkin and a volunteer melon of some sort.
Mom came down and helped me arrange all of these for a "collection of fruits and vegetables" entry. She helped me spice it up with a few herbs, kale, and lettuce leaves. Clay added a few strawberries for a bit of color. Dave wanted to help too!
Here is the final product.
Friday morning I got up early to pick flowers. I'm not very good at making arrangements, so once again I took these to mom for some help. She even contributed a cool looking long stemmed flower to fill in the center that isn't in this photo.

A close up of the arrangement and one of the individual sunflowers we entered. When I drove the flowers up to mom's house she commented, "Do I take the bees with the sunflower?" (Zoom in to see them) I didn't think the bees would hang on. I'm not sure if they were dying or just in a drowsy state from it being early in the morning. I noticed they seemed frozen to several of the flowers and you could just knock them off like they were in a coma??

I did visit the fair after work. Clay and I did get serveral ribbons which is always fun. (Actually Clay really doesn't get into taking exhibits, but I put a few things in his name since he contriubtes a lot to the work). I may take some pictures at the fair tomorrow for a follow up post.

From Garden to Table

Today, when it wasn't raining I was busy weeding and finding some ripe goodies. I picked:
3 cucumbers, a quart of cherry tomatoes, 10 tomatoes (mix of red and yellow), 2 squash, 2 zucchini, 4 ears of corn. Clay and I leave to go out of town tomorrow so I wanted to use as much of this as possible for dinner. I fixed a Tomato Zucchini Casserole (Thanks to my sister Katie for this recipe!!) I rarely fix a casserole that my husband and I really enjoy eating and this one worked! Then I just sliced up some cucumbers and cooked some corn for the side dishes. Clay made a caprese salad also. We finished it off with a peach cobbler made from peaches that Clay's boss gave us. I will need to work on perfecting that dish a little.

Here is the recipe for the Tomato Zucchini Casserole
1 1/2 c grated cheddar cheese
1/3 c graded Parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp dried oregano (I used about 1 tsp fresh)
1/2 tsp dried basil (I used a little over 1 tsp fresh)
2 cloves minced garlic
salt and pepper to taste
2 medium zucchinis (slice thin)
2 tomatoes (slice thin)
1/4 c butter
2 tbls finely chopped onion
3/4 c fine bread crumbs

*I used one squash in place of a zucchini and one yellow tomato, which made it very colorful!

Preheat over to 375, lightly butter 9x9 pan. In a large bowl combine both cheeses, herbs, and garlic. Season with salt and pepper then set aside. Arrange half of the zucchini slices in the pan, sprinkle with 1/4 cheese mixture, arrange half of the tomatoes and sprinkle with 1/4 cheese mixture, then repeat layers. Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in onion and cook until soft and translucent. Stir in breadcrumbs, cook until they have absorbed the butter and sprinkle on top of casserole. Cover loosely with foil and bake for 25 min. Remove foil and bake until the top is crusty and the veggies are tender, which takes about another 15- 20 min.

Clay and I did freeze some corn a couple of nights ago. The process consisted of shucking the corn and pulling the strings. Then rinse just a little and steam for seven minutes. Right after they steam dip them in ice water and immediately remove to a dishrag or paper towel to dry. I let them dry for at least two hours and I replaced the paper towels as needed. I probably could have used a drying rack if I had one! Then we cut the kernels off (about 3/4 deep on the kernels) and used a vacuum sealer to get the air out of the baggies. First time using a vacuum sealer that a friend gave us and we love it!