The end is here...

The semester is coming to an end and even more exciting my undergraduate career here at UF.  I've enjoyed this class greatly and it isn't often you have the opportunity to take a class purely for pleasure and to learn a little bit also.  I had a great time getting to spend several hours in the garden every week was relieving and rewarding.  Ive gotten to reap the benefits of my hard work in the form of food!!!  Ive learned about how important weeding is and why it is important, also how bad pests can be for the garden.  I did not realize they do so much more than eat the leaves they spread viruses and can be a pain to kill.  I've had every squash plant die because of the virus!!!  Anyways other things have gone very well.  My tomatoes are doing great and I hope they will be ready in the next couple of week.  Also I had my first snap peas today and they were delicious very sweet and crisp.  Tonight for dinner I made some homemade chile using some of the Joe Anaheim and Lady bug peppers and green peppers.  I also added a nice green onion garnish it was delicious and I have a ton of leftovers.  Overall I have been very happy that I decided to take this class and having fresh vegetables that I grew these last couple weeks has been awesome and is really rewarding.  At the same time I am thankful for grocery stores I would not want to have to live off subsistence farming!!! Here is a picture of my Chile.  Have a great break and thank you for an awesome semester.

The End is near

After a nice long thanksgiving break I returned to find nothing new in the garden.  I just picked some things that were ready and these included cucumber, zucchini, both kinds of hot peppers and a green pepper.  I cooked them up the same night and added them to some noodles!  I did not realize how hot the ladybug peppers were and they caught me off guard!  Ouch!  I believe I'll have some squash ready soon along with carrots, tomatoes, Kohlrabi, cauliflower, and scallions!  I'm afraid that everything may not be ready in time for the end of the semester though...  So I am happy that the gardens will still be accessible after class so I can harvest the rest of my vegetables because it would be super sad to put in all this work if I would not be able to harvest it all.  I tried to make some potato zucchini latkes but they did not end up so well :(  I have made some more zucchini fires though and they have been quite tasty and simple!

All the Zucchini!

It's hell week so I did not spend too much time in the garden today.  I just picked what was ripe and that was about it for today.  I'll stop by later in the week to pick some more veggies and since I'll be heading out of town next Tuesday I'll plan on going to the Monday section to work in the garden since it will need some love and I'll be gone for the rest of the week.

I haven't done anything to fancy yet when using my veggies mainly because I've been so busy and anything that is time intensive is not happening this week!  I had a salad which I posted last week and I made some Zucchini fry things that I snacked on while studying and were alright.  I have a yummy sounding recipe for Zucchini Latkes http://www.delish.com/recipefinder/zucchini-potato-latkes-tzatziki-recipe-5619 which I'll try and make sometime before next week.  Again no time this week!!!!  I wish a wider variety of things would be ready at this time but unfortunately all I really have that is ready is a lot of Zucchini and cucumbers which I like but when it comes to cooking my options are a little limited.  Once more things are ready I'll definitely play around a little more.  I want to try mashed cauliflower and eggplant parm so those are two items that will be made in the near future! 

The Natural, Sustainable, Oranic foods

When I think of natural, organic, sustainable food I wish I would eat those things all of the time.  What a great thing food that is produced under certain guidelines to be 'safer' for you and the environment.  Sustainable foods that use less.... actually I'm not sure what they would use less of maybe water, or fertilizers that could run off and harm the environment.  While these are great things I feel as though they are fads more than anything.  There is no scientific evidence that organic, natural, or sustainable foods taste better or are better for you but at the store they cost nearly double the regular foods.  I know which I am buying the cheaper one!  If those items cost the same price I would absolutely buy them and when it comes to buying locally I would again much rather do that than anything else.  That way it helps my area of the state economically, it cost less and pollutes less during transportation, and ideally should be fresher also.  These things are still more expensive and it makes no sense to me.  I am really excited for the trader joes that is coming because it gives you an option that may not be local but is 'natural' and things like that for a price like you would find at Publix.  I'm actually applying for a job there too!!!

We have started harvesting our veggies and my first pick was small but I brought home a couple of cucumbers, a zucchini, and some red lettuce.  I made a salad it was yummy!!!  Not very exciting though once more things are ready I will add more and start trying some new cooking that I have done before.  My challenge is to make myself like eggplant.

Happy Hunting

Today in our gardens we did a scavenger hunt fining all kinds of things.  I did not find any aphids, caterpillars, or whitefies though.  I've seen them in previous weeks but I could not find any this time.  That's not a bad thing though.  I'm excited to start harvesting and eating things next week!  I spent a lot of time today picking weeds, and fertilizing.  I'm excited I can see at least some of my carrots are starting to thrive and I planted a lot of Kohlrabi hoping some would survive and it seems to have been successful.  I'm thinning them out now because so many germinated this time around.  I pulled out another squash do to virus... I just wish everything would be virus free.  The weather was also perfect for gardening!!! I'm happy it has cooled down for at least a week.  Here is my scavenger hunt collage.

FOOOOOOOOOOOD

My garden is starting to produce food!  But I can't eat it yet because of the pesticides...  I pulled off 2 large zucchinis and an eggplant.  I know there will be plenty more to come it is just sad.  speaking of food we discussed the parts of the plants we eat today in lecture.  We eat almost every part of the plant from the leaves, to the roots to the flower.  Of the plants in my garden I will eat the fruits of the tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, peas, zucchinis, squash, and cucumber.  I'll eat the leaves of the lettuce and scallions.  I'll eat the roots of the beets and carrots.  I'll eat the stems of the Kohlrabi, and I'll eat the flowers or the cauliflower, and lastly I'll eat the seeds of the peas.  I'm excited to start taking home and cooking and eating all of the different vegetables!

In the garden I did the normal weeding, fertilizing, spraying neem and BT.  In addition to the routine I also put up trellises for the tomatoes and peas.  I'm excited to see that many of the plants I was worried about are starting to look more healthy and produce flowers.  One of my lettuces did die :( and I pulled two more virus infected squash but planted two new ones and hopefully that will stay virus free!

Keeping Busy

I did a lot today in my garden.  On top of the usual weeding, bed shaping, spraying insecticide, I also planted a lot of new stuff in places where things have failed to grow.  I planted more cauliflower, Kohlrabi, beets, and lettuce since I dug up and plowed several large areas of my beds that hadn't grown.  Also in my extra bed I planted more carrots and peas since my carrots don't seem to be doing too well and the peas are doing really well so I want more! 
I'm sick of the bugs and other pests.  The virus that the white flies cause has claimed three of my squash plants and many other plants are heavily chewed, and have other deformities caused by the pests in our garden.  I can only imagine how many crops large farms would lose with out the use of insecticides and herbicides.  I know they get a lot of heat for using such products especially in our fab phase of organic, and all natural, pesticide freem non-GMO the list goes on...  But these things are necessary especially in large scale settings. 

The first vegetables are also starting to become visible and its exciting.  My garden will not be a total failure!!!  There was a small eggplant, zucchini, and pepper that I noticed today that were not there last week.  That's what the pictures this week are showing.