Been doing some work in the garden

My garden harvests this season weren't very good, due in large part to every critter in the area deciding it was an all you can eat buffet.  At ground level I've got mice and voles, midway up I've got a very large groundhog, which had babies this year, and at the top level I've got deer.  My pitiful, patched together 3 1/2 foot high fence was not doing the trick.  So I decided to take down the old fence, renovate the garden a bit, and put up a 7' tall deer fence for next season. 
It took most of the day, since some parts  had several layers of fencing to peel away.  This is what the animals have been doing to my veggies!

I 'm still in the process of making a path around the outer perimeter of the garden.  I've discovered that it would make life much easier if I can get at both sides of the garden rows.  Hopefully the new fence won't be too hard to put up.  I'll probably wait until I can put the garden to bed (take all the dead plants out, add compost, leaves, and grass clippings) before putting the fence up.  I'm thinking things out a bit more this time, and planning based on the problems and issues I've had in the past.  I'm planning my planting chart this Fall as well.  Last year I didn't do that, and just sort of planted things all over.  So, the tomatoes ended up blocking the sun for the zucchini and squash, and the lettuce got too much sun and set seed faster than it should have.  I've been doing some pruning as well, making sure the garden gets as much light as possible.  The evergreens behind the garden have really gotten out of hand, and the Snowball bush seems to creep closer each year.  I'll try to keep you up to date on the yard and garden.  Hopefully if I do a little extra work now, it will pay off in a bigger harvest next season.
Happy gardening!
-Michelle of CreativeCritters

Baked zucchini bites

Well, I don't know about you, but I've harvested tons of zucchini from my garden. While I really like zucchini bread, it does get boring after a while. So I came up with a new recipe for zucchini. I didn't really measure anything, and all the seasonings can be adjusted or substituted as desired. First I take a medium (7"-10") zucchini, wash it, and remove the seeds. I don't peel most of my vegetables because that's where the majority of the vitamins are. I then cut it into 1/2" pieces. Next I dredge it in a mixture of bread (or cracker) crumbs, Parmesan cheese, dried chives, onion powder, garlic powder, and salt. Then I dip it in beaten eggs, and dredge again in the bread crumb mixture. Then I bake it on a foil covered baking sheet sprayed with non stick cooking spray at 350 for about 30 minutes, or until nicely browned. This is absolutely delicious, and completely customizable. Leftovers can be reheated in the oven and taste just as good the next day. I also used this recipe for eggplant, with the same yummy results. I just wanted to share this quick, easy, and delicious recipe with everyone. Please feel free to comment with recipes of your own! I love to cook, and I'm often as creative in the kitchen as I am in the craft room. Thanks for reading!


-Michelle of CreativeCritters

Garden progress

Well, my garden is a wild jungle! A very productive wild jungle. I don't even have that many weeds, because they simply don't have room to grow! I'm still harvesting lettuce, yellow beans, green beans that sprouted from last year's fallen seeds, zucchini, yellow squash, and garlic. The tomatoes are still green, but there are a lot of them. I think once the nights warm up (it's been unseasonably cool lately) they'll start to ripen pretty fast. I have flowers on my bell peppers, and tiny baby eggplants coming. I just love my garden! Here are some pictures I just took last week.
These are my zucchini and beans, although there's a lot more where these came from. I've been picking beans and zucchini almost every day.
This is my wild tomato patch. The plants are taller than I am now, and I'm 5'8"! All I've really done is add some compost and a little organic fertilizer.
This is my garlic, with parsley and Borage mixed in. I planted the bulbs last fall, and they're getting ready to be harvested now. I dug up a few nice bulbs yesterday (I don't have pics of those yet). Let me tell you-this garlic is DELICIOUS! I've already used some of it on some baked chicken- YUM!
This is one of the garlic plants that formed a really cool flower at the top. Sometimes I just like to let plants go and see what they do. you can get some interesting results. I usually let at least some of my lettuce go to seed as well. I end up with lettuce popping up all over the garden next season.
This is the view down one of the garden rows. The pink and white flowers are Dianthus I planted last year. In the fall I'll plant them in the flower bed.
And this is some of the catnip I just harvested really quickly the other day. The stuff grows like mad! There's a lot more that I can get if I take a little time. I dry it on screens in the garage, then use it to stuff catnip toys for my own cats and my friends cats. Of course I always have to bring in some of the fresh stuff for Ozzy and Cedric- then I've got a couple of loopy cats for the next several hours.
This is a shot of my zucchini row. I have dill scattered all over the garden as well. It reseeds quite freely, which is fine with me. Not only is it a useful herb, but beneficial insects love the flowers.
And speaking of beneficial insects, if you want to make your honeybees happy, Borage is the plant for you. This pretty flower has attracted more honeybees than anything else in any of my gardens. Plus it's native to NE Ohio, so it does really well here. this is the first year I planted it, but it's supposed to be a self sowing plant, so I should have Borage for years to come.
This is a shot down my eggplant row. An absolute jungle!
And this is an eggplant flower- isn't it gorgeous! You could grow these for the flowers alone. I should be able to harvest eggplants by the end of the month. I used no chemicals or pesticides on any of this, and to be honest, I haven't had the chance to spend a whole lot of time in the garden this year (Gramma's kept me pretty busy). It's amazing what nature is able to do pretty much on it's own. I did have to spread some vole repellent yesterday. They're cute, but boy are they dumb! I was picking some lettuce and saw a vole, and actually pulled a leaf out of his mouth! I yelled at him to scat and he just looked at me. I could have picked the silly critter up, had I wanted to. Not that I ever would. Handling wild animals of any sort is not a good idea. I just got my vole repellent and spread it throughout the garden. It won't harm them, it'll just make them look elsewhere for dinner. So that's the latest happenings in my garden. Thanks for stopping by!
-Michelle of CreativeCritters