Garlic, Strawberries and Fish (not together!)

We have been busy this month, doing things that need doing and doing a few things that we just want to do.  The garden has been front and center - this years rains and the wet winter left me with a bumper crop of persistent weeds!  I am trying not to complain, there are folks not too far away that do not have gardens this years because of the flooding that is still going on.  I am grateful for the weeds...sort of...I'm working on it!

 Finally got my beans planted, so I have two kinds of cucumbers, two kinds of squash (trying an acorn squash this year) multi-color bell peppers, corn, onions, tomatoes and garlic.  The whole garden is weeded for now, but it is raining tonight again, and then the sun will shine.....sigh!
It is good exercise!

 The herb garden is going great, the mint, lemon balm, oregano, sage, chives,  feverfew, and edible lavender are already having to be harvested.  The strawberries (in the front and right of the photo) are ripening at a very satisfying rate!

I managed to be in California for the strawberry season and now they are ripening here.  I love strawberries!  I eat a few and then freeze a few.  There is an angel food cake on my counter that is waiting to be a bed for strawberries tomorrow.  Yum!

My great garlic experiment continues.  I have harvested the 'scapes'.  These are the center stalks of 'hardneck' garlic that would become a bloom and seeds if left on the plant. The theory is that the plant will put all of its energy into the bulb (a good thing) if there is no bloom to steal the nutrients.  They are interesting looking and I cut them all off this week.

Here is my bag of scapes.  I had been reading about this and all of the web pages talked about eating them.  Apparently they can be used either like garlic or like a green onion, one page even roasted them like a green bean.  I have now tried them in an omelet and they were very good. A milder taste than the cloves. I am going to save some to use fresh, freeze some and use some to infuse olive oil.  This is almost as exciting as having the garlic ripen!  Isn't it fun to try something new?!

Our beautiful, gnarled, corkscrew willow is developing cracks.  We have an arborist coming out to cut on him and see if he can be saved.  I hope so as it is a lovely tree.  It is, however, too close to the house to just let it be.

 

The rains have made for a lush yard this year as well.  This particular day it was overcast and the whole place looked green and beautiful.

I'm not complaining - it hasn't gotten hot yet!

Hubby and friend went fishing this week and caught these lovelies!  I put the full size fork there to give a sense of the size.  One of our goals this summer is to do a lot more fishing than we have in recent years.  Hopefully putting a few more packages of this sort in the freezer as well!




Hubby is busy with his rapidly growing tomato crop and we are planning two new raised beds this summer that we hope to have done for fall planting.  One in the front yard for bulbs and perennial flowers and the other on the far eastern side of the garden to have perhaps asparagus and a few pollinator friendly flowers.  We may even have enough time to get the house painted this year - it really needs it.  It is the busy season and after the long winter even I was ready for it.  I should be complaining about the heat though in a month or so!