A Corn Maze and What I Found In My Garden

A group of us took several children to a 14 acre corn maze. I think I got my exercise for the whole year! Here's some pics below of Donna - forever the child herself that took off to find her way through the maze and --- Barbie, whom we voted the "Corn Queen" with that gorgeous maize colored hair of hers. I could not resist including the shot of Barb and BellaDonna doing their "power puff" pose in front of the farm equipment. This combine (threshing machine) is our dream machine -- we wish we owned one! 

And some surprises we found in my garden as well! Gorgeous Japanese red long bean and fragrant hyacinth bean which I had planted, some beautiful kales (which I am blanching for use in Caldo Verde - one of my favorite soups), and tomatoes too which amazingly withstood the increasing cold we are getting here up north. Of course, I can't forget my beloved carrots either! I am especially fond of these highly nutritious Asian carrots and they grew exceedingly well here. Shown below is an assortment of these carrots including, Kyoto Red, Cosmic Purple, and Atomic Red carrots. Yum-O-Rama!~ There's a recipe for carrot and bean salad using entirely the produce I grew in my garden included here also. Lastly, I am glad to see the birds are enjoying the many sunflowers we planted -- they survive on the seeds produced and we left all sunflowers to dry naturally for this purpose. We have many fragrant herbs that have flowered as well such as catmint, wild hyssop and opal basils; the bees love these and we are waiting as long as we can to harvest them so the bees have the benefit of the flowers. We also cut miles of herbs - sage, tarragon, mints, thyme, African basils, and we are hoping to make bundles for sale as part of the community project we are working on.

 

The top image left is a picture of my home grown carrot and bean salad. It's a simple salad but was extra nice because of the vivid colors of the vegetables. It's made simply with just clean washed vegetable (any kind you like, but I used an assortment of hot and sweet peppers, green, yellow, red, and painted beans both eurpopean and asian, assorted heirloom tomatoes, and of course herbs!). Season with salt, pepper, lemon, olive oil and vinegar. Wallah! A yummy salad! It actually marinates well so it's something you can make in advance. It's definitely better with fresh picked vegetables - but you can make it any time of year with whatever is seasonally available.

The bottom picture shows fresh beans being blanched so that I can freeze them for over the winter. To blanch beans simply bring a large pot of water to boil (do not add salt as it will further leach color from the beans)-- and boil approximately 3-5 minutes. Because I blanched large amounts at a time, the veggies don't actually get to a rolling boil --- so guage the timing accordingly. When the beans are crisp done, they are DONE. So remove them from the water, and quick cool by putting them in a sink of ice cold water to stop any further cooking from residual heat. Drain well, pack in freezer bags and freeze them. In the picture there are an assortment of red long beans, painted beans, and purple moon fragrant hyacinth beans which are both ornamental AND edible!

Comments

[Henry B. Rosenbush]

Sibyllae,

Love the maze and the pictures of all that nice home grown has made me hungry; the cafe once had freshly grown veggies, eggs, etc., but that was the real one in the days leading into the sixties. Thanks for sharing.

Hen

[Sib]

Tee hee! Well II think you can still rustle up some home grown veggies without any problem at all. Many hugs!