The Veggies of Our Labors

In our garden we have 4 3'x6' raised garden beds. There are six tomato plants of differing varieties, three zucchini plants, three yellow squash, two okra, one Persian cucumber, one Armenian cucumber and one lemon cucumber plant.There are also four eggplant, four varieties of bell pepper, banana pepper, jalapeno, habanero, serrano, and chile peppers too. In another bed there are four artichoke plants,  and a row of green beans.

This is the typical pick every other day. The two of us in this household can't eat all of it fresh even though we are vegetarian and eat at home. Fortunately, my mother gave us a dehydrator someone had given her. It has never been used, so I cross my fingers it works. Veggie chips are a favored snack of ours when out on the lake or riding our bikes.  Once dehydrated they can be reconstituted into vegetable stock for soups in the winter. I'm anxious to see both how well the dehydrator works and how much we store for use over the winter.

Since this was our rookie year at being urban farmers, some of the planting went without much planning.  Let's just say that the other half of our team was zealous in planting as much as possible even if they did not have all the space required or recommended.  This leaves it up to me with small hands and a short frame to crouch and kneel to gather the lemon cucumbers growing in the jungle of butternut squash.

Regardless of some of the haphazard growing schematics, since late June we have needed only to buy dairy products, breads, eggs and a few bits of lettuce, onion, or potato. Given the fact that we are vegetarian, this has dramatically reduced our food bill.  Hindsight shows me that I should have been taking better stock of our grocery receipts prior to the garden and after, but we had a great night out at the local Shakespeare festival this month.

Things to remember for next year:

Design the garden with harvesting in mind.

Assess how much yield we had per veggie type and adjust with more or less plants in the following year.

I'm also curious to do more research on possibly staggering the planting season so that we get a different set of produce in the fall.

Build more beds to give everything more room.

Straight From the Garden Recipes: Cucumber and Lime Salad

This is a deliciously refreshing salad for hot summer days that is easy to fix and gorgeous to look at on the plate. There is a great contrast of dark and yellow-green with a splash of purple and red.

Serves 4-5 people:
Time to prepare: 10 minutes

* 2 Lemon Cucumbers
* 2 Persian or Armenian Cucumbers
* 1/4 of a medium sized Red Onion
* 1/2 cup sliced Red Cherry Tomatoes
* 1 Lime
* Salt (optional)

Slice the cucmbers about and 1/8 of an inch thick. Place them in a medium sized mixing bowl. Next slice a quartered onion in 1/4" thick slices. Taste the raw onion. If it is too acidic or hot, run the slices under cold water for about 30 seconds. This will reduce some of the acidity. Fresher onions will have a sweeter taste. Toss the onions in with the cucumbers. Cut the lime in half and squeeze out the lime juice from each half over the tossed cucumbers and onions. After this is completed slice the cherry tomatoes into thirds so that they are roughly 1/4" thick. Sprinkle them over the top of the salad. I prefer not to toss them into the rest, but try to distribute them evenly as I plate the salad so that they do not get crushed.  Just before serving add a dash of salt to taste if you wish. 

Enjoy!

More About the Folks Behind Sustainable in Suburbia

It all started when we, the couple behind this endeavor met. Both of us had a strong interest in "green living". Now we have a decent sized lot in a suburban neighborhood in a middle sized northern California town. What started as a committment to doing the most basic responsible activities like recycling, walking to the store when possible, buying organic and local produce has grown into much more. Each of us, wanted to do more. With the power of two, we put in a series of raised garden beds, planted a wide variety of produce we knew we liked and ate regularly. Our garden grows neary constantly. There is now an active compost system, and just this week we added, thanks to a city ordinance which now allows us to have chickens, two young hatchlings. (More on that later)

We are very excited to share what we have done, and how we are not only saving money, but even brining in some small income from the various things we do. Someday, we'd still love to have some acreage. Rural areas are close by to stay near our family, but would afford the opportunity to do small scale organic farming. Dreams are good to have.

Right now, our lot is a little chunk of Heaven on Earth for us that gets better all the time. Since it is a regular occurance to get a variety of questions on how we make this work for ourselves, it seemed like a great idea to share it here. In another part of my life, I'm a writer. Please enjoy the information shared here and feel free to comment on the content. I love feedback!