We are stoked to have a much longer growing season here, we can grow more fun stuff now. We have things like corn, zucchini, tomato, peppers, basil, lettuce, parsley, cucumber, melon, beans, peas, egg plant and collard greens going out there right now.

This last weekend we had quite a few zucchini that were harvested and some bushy collard green plants so I went looking for some recipes. Since transplanting to the Midwest I’ve discovered I like southern style collard greens but we’ve been failing at cooking them. Turns out it is all in the stock!

I found this recipe for Tasty Collard Greens that calls for simmering in chicken stock for an hour as opposed to sauteing them. Who knew the chicken stock simmer would make such a huge difference? It turned out amazing.

N also had a hankering for Stuffed Zucchini which was also very tasty! We used some leftover homemade spaghetti sauce that N’s dad made while they were visiting us right after Everly’s birth. It was so good over the zucchini.

Now we are looking for ideas and recipes for all the fresh cucumbers we’ve got. I don’t want to make a million jars of pickles, we’ll make a few but I would also like to make some other things with them. Any ideas?

The post Enjoying homegrown goodness, from my garden to my table. appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

Lots of plants require polination before they can set fruit, without pollination fruit will not set.

One of every three bites you take comes from a plant pollinated by wild pollinators.

Our tomatoes have been especially slow to set fruit this summer. Many are concerned about the dramatic decrease in the bee population because bees are our natural pollinators. Slow setting fruit has been linked to the decrease in bee population.

Tomatoes and Zucchini are our favorite, easiest vegetables to grow here in Flagstaff, AZ and we were looking forward to enjoying some fresh grown vegetables before we move. We weren’t sure if our plants would set fruit before we leave and this has been a bummer for us.

So, noticing the small developing fruit on my indoor and outdoor tomatoes today was super exciting for me. We also have some zucchini fruit setting right now. Woho our plants were pollinated! I would like to think that fingering and shaking the flowers has helped in the fruit development and I can’t wait for some fresh vegetables!

Oh and thanks to the bloggy giveaway I won a $10.00 starbuks gift card from The Adventures of Me. We are telling all our family and friends to buy us starbucks and walmart gift cards as going away presents.

We plan to use them to buy food and liquid crack (starbucks) while we are on the way to Indiana. Plus we have T-Mobile internet access at starbucks locations so we will be buying coffee while we blog and check our emails anyway. This $10.00 gift card is going to help us buy 2 free coffee drinks, yay!

If you feel inclined to contribute a few dollars to help us during the move:

• you can add some money to our starbucks giftcard (I’ll send you my starbucks card number and you can reload it) or
• you can get us a walmart gift card so we can buy food along the way. We are going to try to stay the night in a walmart parking lot at least once during the trip, just so we can say we did it.

Here are some more of my garden photos, have a great weekend!

The post Don't hesitate to finger your flowers or shake them! Ha… appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

This Afternoon: Periods of snow. Some thunder is also possible. High near 43. South southwest wind between 9 and 14 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. Total daytime snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible.

Tonight: Snow likely. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 31. Southwest wind between 7 and 10 mph, with gusts as high as 22 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible.

And this is what it looks like in my tulip garden:

The tulips can withstand some snow but I am worried about the zucchini, tomatoes, snap peas and other stuff in the vegetable garden… How is the weather in your area, is it just a screwy?

The post It is snowing again, in MAY! Is it global warming? appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.