My garden is in full swing. This is one of my favorite garden times, we are eating herbs, lettuce, greens, sweet peas, radish, zucchini and squash. The garden is pretty and there is the anticipation of harvest.I tried a practice vegetable pickle with yellow squash and zucchini but I don't think anyone will eat it. No one here likes sweet pickles. I just wanted to try something different. I added a little spice thought to offset the sweet, so we'll see.
I tried it because I have been renting canning books from the library. As a result I have become appropriately scared of botulism, so I purchased The Complete Book of Home Preserving.
So far I love this book because it is modernized and has some California cuisine ideas for serving your preserves. For example: a pineapple salsa which it recommends to serve with grilled pita brushed with olive oil.
Here are two pictures of the peas using corn for support and the cucumbers climbing the sunflowers.
I don't plan on letting the sunflowers seed here but they are pretty and giving shade to the plants that prefer it.
