MMMMmmmmm... fresh lettuce from the garden, fresh cherry tomatos picked over the weekend, cucumbers straight off the vine. There is absolutely nothing better than (a) eating fresh garden veggies untouched by any other human hands but me and my wonderful hubby and (b) being able to feed my family from the backyard garden. The photos here are from earlier this summer. The
trellis is covered and I have some rogue tomato plants that have turned out to be my best producers. I need to upload some more current photos, but you can see from the photos that it was just a modest size garden ... and we've eaten from it so often this summer. Salads and homemade (whole-wheat) fresh bread have been the #1 favorite around here! How cool to be able to produce most of what you need in such a small space.
Speaking of Bread: 
The WonderMill worked beautifully right out of the box and the bread turned out pretty good, but didn't rise as much as previous loaves. I think its because the flour was so warm after coming out of the mill. Now, I know it would have cooled down, but I've been using my regular store-bought flour out of the fridge with my yeast. So I'm thinking that my warm, fresh-milled flour (jeez! that just sounds good-for-you doesn't it!?) may have had a negative effect on my cold yeast. I plan to mill my next batch Saturday, then cook Sunday morning and see if that puts me back to normal. Same great texture and taste, though -- just not as 'tall' as I prefer. Live and learn. Back to the garden.
The WonderMill worked beautifully right out of the box and the bread turned out pretty good, but didn't rise as much as previous loaves. I think its because the flour was so warm after coming out of the mill. Now, I know it would have cooled down, but I've been using my regular store-bought flour out of the fridge with my yeast. So I'm thinking that my warm, fresh-milled flour (jeez! that just sounds good-for-you doesn't it!?) may have had a negative effect on my cold yeast. I plan to mill my next batch Saturday, then cook Sunday morning and see if that puts me back to normal. Same great texture and taste, though -- just not as 'tall' as I prefer. Live and learn. Back to the garden.
As much as I'm enjoying my visits to the garden, they have become dramatically reduced now that I'm back to the school-grind. However, I am anxious for it to get cooler ... I've been tossing around the idea of 'cold-framing' some of my beds for cool weather crops. The thought of Fresh cabbage for my M-I-L's cole slaw in December is just too delicious. As the season winds down I'm going to focus any photos, videos, or posts on winding up the summer garden and moving onto cold-frame gardening. This is truly one of the blessing of living in the South: a long growing season.
