The garden is beginning to make for some awesome eating. The ripening tomato ended up in a homemade pasta that was out of this world …
And the curly leaf parsley, which I prefer to Italian flat leaf, got me looking closer and realizing that the tips are composed of three trios of leaflets (aka nine), better seen from the underside …
For those of you who are not huge fans of zucchini and crookneck, may I humbly suggest pattypan as an alternative, which is as much fun to eat as it is to stitch …
And saving the best for last, we planted small “burpless” cucumbers (Muncher variety), that are the best I’ve ever eaten …
I think Parker would agree …
Ending on a humorous note, please know that the artichoke wasn’t really as big as P’s head. Its exaggerated size is due to the keystone adjustment I made to square things up a bit …
which is also what most likely explains the bizarre photo of the Bidens and the Carters that recently made the rounds in the media.
I'm Going to Texas (version 2.0) 
Garden goodness, these are delectable patches, each one mouth watering in its own way: a terrific record of what you grew in 2021.
All the colors of tomatoes, the tomato itself, the vines, the leaves, all represented and may I say I would wear this patch proudly, as a pin, on my shirts because I love the shades and markings of green on it.
Now I am not a fan of curly leaf parsley preferring the Italian as that is what my Dad grew but your parsley patch, gives me a 2nd pause; at least I would definitely put them into glass jars as part of a bouquet.
The plump patty pan squash just leaps off the page, its fullness so inviting. Years ago when I grew them, I stuffed them with a bit of bread crumbs, garlic, parsley and some Italian sausage, a labor of delicious love. Love all kinds of squash but the one thing that I have never made is stuffed zucchini blossoms.
The thread colors of the cukes just pop. When we lived in Texas, we grew cukes and trained
them to go up a trellis that reached from the ground up to and on the shade cloth that we attached to the little back porch. As they grew they gave us added shade protection and a lovely cool spot in the heat of the Texas sun.
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as large as the cucumber leaves are, I can well imagine them as a great sun shade … I’m hoping these will continue to produce in the heat of summer, but sadly the squash borers are already attacking the pattypans … time to start more seeds
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Summer in a handful of patches! I love this kind of squash (not always easy to find in the stores) and curly parsley – which always has me thinking of the Passover holiday, when we dip the parsley in saltwater to remind us of the tears of our ancestors. I love eating that part of the Seder service! Your tomatoes must smell ans taste grand! I love the smell of tomatoes warm from the garden, Well, what a delicious post this was Liz!
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the only down side to eating garden tomatoes is how they make grocery store tomatoes pale by comparison … but once the Texas summer heat hits, we’ll be back to eating store-bought
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LA – great to have so much fresh goodness – and I bet P enjoys being part of the harvest crew. Go well. B
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she’s got a good eye for spotting tomatoes … must be her point of view 😉
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a delicious set of your summer garden bounty!
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abundance
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you have so MUCH! I love love patty pan. Have two plants growing…we’ll see. and yes…hard
to find. Even at Farmer’s Market last season, only 2 booths…..do you know why?
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I don’t know why they’re so hard to find … I love grating them into potato pancakes, where they hold up so much better than zucchini … ditto for stir fry
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Once I asked one of the farmer’s about why she didn’t grow lemon cucumbers and she said they were too hard to harvest. It’s possible it’s the same thinking about patty pans. Having said that, they are pretty easy to find here. They are usually sold as fairly small squash though, about 2 to 3 inches.
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The happy news is that this one doubled in size overnight (much as zucchini is wont to do) … I’ll be harvesting a bit sooner in the future.
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Some of my favorite things! Like Marti I prefer flat leaf though. 🙂 We get about 3 solid months of tomato harvest here and I preserve as many as I can. I am a snob and won’t buy out of season/non local tomatoes, they just make me sad.
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Like “Coke or Pepsi?” the lines are clearly drawn between “Curly or Flat Leaf?” … ha!
And yeah, the food store tomatoes are sad, but I find oven-roasting store-bought grape tomatoes is still better than using canned on homemade pasta.
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That’s a great solution for pizza and I would do that too if needed. My solution is dehydrating homemade sauce like fruit leather. I re-hydrate as needed.
The Coke/Pepsi made me laugh. My grandmother’s first German Shepard was named Coke. She was struggling with what to name her second one and finally decided on Pepsi after becoming afraid that she would think her name was “Damn it!” My grandfather was constantly frustrated with Pepsi when she was a puppy.
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you had me at “Damn it” and “constantly frustrated with Pepsi” … what a great story!
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The patches are my favorite color: Green! Have not cooked with patty pan. How do you prepare them?
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I cook them pretty much as you would zucchini or crookneck … the good thing is they are not as watery and the seeds are easily isolated under the stem, making it easy to grate shreds of squash off the edges working toward the middle. My favorite recipe is a take on potato pancakes that I called veggie fritters in this recipe post: https://imgoingtotexas.home.blog/2016/05/13/know-thyself/
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