Late July update

I went out of town for a few days to participate in a "crank-in" in Monticello, Illinois.  You can read more about it on my Fiber Arts blog.  But while I was gone, my flat of microgreens got not-so-micro-any-more.  I am treating it as "cut and come again" lettuce from this point forward.  While I was in Illinois, I had the opportunity to stop into a Dollar General.  I noticed a package of "Microgreen" seeds for $1.  So I snapped it up.  I have filled a tray with soil and will be watering it and I will try again for actual microgreens.  The package says "results in as little as 10 days!"

I picked vegetables from the garden before leaving home, I wanted to make sure to pick any small zucchini especially so that I did not come home to football-sized ones.  I did find two very large ones, and a lot more middle-sized ones.  I also have some cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, and yellow squash.  Not pictured are the green and wax beans.  I planted Royal Burgundy and "golden ?" from the DeBruen seed company in Holland, MI.  The seed was a year old, because I never planted it last year, but it still had an excellent germination rate.  I planted three rows of Royal Burgundy and only two rows of the wax beans.  The wax beans are out-yielding the burgundy beans by a factor of about 2 to 1, despite fewer rows.  I blanched and froze about 8 gallon ziplock bags before I left home, and today, I repeated the process with 11 more gallon ziplock bags today.  I have had zucchini for the last five meals.  I posted on Facebook in the "Make every day Mediterranean" group asking for zucchini recipes without condensed soup or gobs of cheese and I have gotten 45 responses so far.  Most are for different recipes.  I think I will make zucchini-chocolate chip blondies tonight to make my husband appreciate all the zucchini. 

While I was in Monticello, I rode my bike every day.  I found a park with a series of formal gardens about 5 miles out of town.  It is the Allerton Retreat.  The property is currently owned and managed by the University of Illinois.  It was donated by a wealthy art collector.  There are sculptures throughout the grounds.  I did not take a lot of time to explore all of them, as I wanted to get back to my crank-in.   I noticed that several of the walled gardens had espaliered fruit trees. That is something I have always wanted to do in my own garden.  

There was an Oriental look to some of the gardens, with huge fish in the maze garden and the sunken garden.   There is a cafe serving lunch and light meals until 6 pm daily.  I didn't manage to try out their food but it looked delicicious.