And So It Begins

This last week has been in the 90's and let me tell ya, I'm already tired of the heat and humidity.  Not that I'm ready to go back to our sub-zero days of winter, but I'd love a day in the 80's with a lot less humidity than we've been having.  My garden would really be suffering but since I'm using the Back to Eden method of growing with a mulch covering, everything still appears green and lush.  I've watered the plants in the greenhouse and a few ones in the garden that seem to be struggling a bit, but haven't watered anything else (yet).  I've been able to just hand water using water from the rain barrels so no extra expense on the water bill!

Yesterday, I picked our first cucumber

This morning, I harvested this

And by tonight, I found a zucchini and pulled a potato plant (just a volunteer one that was in the way of some other plantings)

The funny thing about the acorn squash is that I did not plant any acorn squash.  Its growing in one of the side beds so I guess it got imported with some compost.  I've never prepared acorn squash, but after a quick internet search, I decided to bake it up for supper. I found this recipe on allrecipes.com and it seemed pretty straightforward and easy.

First I cut the squash in half

Scooped out the seeds (like a pumpkin)

Place the halves face down on a cookie sheet and popped it in the toaster oven for 30 minutes on 350 degrees.

Reserved the innards for the chickens and ducks (both went crazy when I throw this out for them)

After 30 minutes, I pulled the squash out of the oven, put 1 TBL of butter and 2 TBL of brown sugar in it, closed it up and put it back in the oven for another 30 minutes.

Pulled it out, sliced, drizzled some of the sugar/butter mixture over it and served.

Everyone said it tasted sweet (thanks to the brown sugar, no doubt) and Matt & Essie had 2nds.  This is a good side-dish and a good way to get some more fiber and vitamins into your diet.

We also had our first (of like 100) sunflowers open today.

If you look hard at the flower above, you can see a bee in the bottom of the face (about 6 o'clock)

I took this one holding my phone with my arm completed extended and I'm still looking up at it.