A Profusion of Cucumbers

Posted on July 21, 2012 by Dallas Garden Buzz

Maybe it’s something to do with the submarine shape: cucumbers and zucchini over run our gardens this time of year. ‘Fess up, Ann. Was that you close to midnight last week frantically turning a bunch of cucumbers into pickles?  Or looking up cucumber dip recipes?

One of the most prolific cucumbers in Ann’s garden wasn’t even invited. The cucumber’s home garden was across the alley and down the street, and this summer it appeared in Ann’s yard.  Didn’t yo’ mama teach you any manners, cucumber?

Cucumbers Growing in a Dallas Vegetable Garden on a Trellis

AgriLife Extension horticulturists Sam Cotner and Jerry Parsons tell us how to create cucumber nirvana in our gardens: work amended soil into rows 4-6” high and at least 36” apart for good drainage.  Plant 3-4 cucumber seeds on top of the row every 12-14 inches.  Thin the cucumbers soon after they emerge.  Cucumber vines can reach 6-8 feet or more. 

In large gardens, cucumbers can trail on the ground, but in small gardens train cucumbers on a fence, trellis or wire cage. (If using a trellis or cage plant 3-4 seeds in hills 4-6” high around the edge of the container.)  Soak the plants weekly if it doesn’t rain; use drip irrigation or water in the morning or early afternoon being careful not to get water on the foliage.

Sliced Cucumbers

Farmers markets often carry the little pickling cucumbers that grow 3-4” long and keep their crunch when pickled.  They can also be used fresh in salads.  Suggested varieties include Carolina, Liberty, Saladin and County Fair 87.  Slicing cucumbers reach 6-8 inches long and are ideal for fresh vegetable trays and salads.  Varieties include Sweet Slice, Burpless, Dasher II, and Slicemaster.  Cucumbers for a fall garden can be planted August 1-15.

Jars of Cucumbers on the kitchen counter

Wait a minute….there’s the doorbell.  Image that, a basket of CUCUMBERS! Could that be from you, Ann?

Elizabeth

Don’t forget our Cucumber Dill Sandwich Rounds Recipe

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Fresh Peach Pound Cake

Posted on July 20, 2012 by Dallas Garden Buzz

 

Dallas Garden Party Fresh Peach Pound Cake Slices

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, softened

3 cups sugar

6 eggs

3 cups all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

2 cups peeled, chopped fresh ripe peaches

½ cup sour cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon almond extract

Directions:

Cream butter; gradually add sugar, beating well at medium speed of an electric mixer.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition.

Combine flour, soda, and salt; stir well.  Combine peaches and sour cream.  Add flour mixture to creamed mixture alternately with peach mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture.  Mix just until blended after each addition. Stir in flavorings.

Pour batter into a greased and floured 10-in tube pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center of cake come out clean.  Let cake cool in pan 10 minutes; remove from pan, and let cool completely on a wire rack.  Yield: one 10-inch cake.

Linda

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Garden Party Sparkles With Peach Cake and Dragonflies

Posted on July 20, 2012 by Dallas Garden Buzz

The July 14th garden party menu was in place.  A few more details and we would be ready for the day. Captured by the beauty of the dragonfly, our theme quickly developed around this unique and fascinating creature.  Invitations, nametags, garden stakes,  decorations, and even cookies were all bearing a strong resemblance to the winged wonder.  (And how appropriate that one of the interns even came wearing a dragonfly necklace!)

Dallas in July usually means that our gardens are full of cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, lemon verbena, basil, pineapple sage, and more.  All this and a few surprises became part of our menu.

Cucumber Ready to Be Picked,Growing in a Dallas Garden

 Who could resist a chunky piece of fresh peach pound cake?  Of course, the difficult part was deciding whose peaches should go into the cake batter.  Which area would receive the honor?  Parker County peaches, East Texas Lorings, or maybe even a few from the Texas Hill Country.  Why not just give them equal standing and use a little of each?  Talk about a flavor explosion!

Peach Pound Cake in front of periwinkles, next to strawberries

And those luscious lemon verbena thins, light as a feather and topped with sweet goodness, disappeared in a flash.

But the real crowd pleaser had to be the melt-in-your-mouth but almost too pretty to eat yummy little dragonfly sugar cookies.

Dragonfly Iced Sugar Cookies

 Ah, yes, we were treated to a delightful show of nature in all her glory.  Did 87% humidity stop anyone from savoring every moment of our time together?  Of course not!  As any true gardener will tell you-gardening isn’t for sissies.

And so, after months of anticipation, we proudly proclaim that the class of 2012 is now fully initiated, ready to “dig in and get growing!”

We wish them all a very successful and meaningful start to a lifetime of gardening adventures.

Linda

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Cucumber Dill Sandwich Rounds

Posted on July 19, 2012 by Dallas Garden Buzz

Tray of Cucumber Sandwhichs at Dallas Garden Party1 large cucumber, peeled, seeded and grated

1 (8 oz) pkge cream cheese, softened

1 small shallot, minced

1 T mayonnaise or 1 T milk

¼ tsp dried dill weed

2 loaves Pepperidge Farm very thin white bread

2 T butter or margarine, softened

1 medium cucumber

1 pkge fresh dill, for garnish 

Shred cucumber; pat shredded cucumber between absorbent paper towels to remove excess moisture.  Combine cucumber, cream cheese, minced shallot, mayonnaise, and dill weed.  Mix well. 

Cut crusts off bread. 

Spread one side of each slice of bread with 1 tsp butter, and spread cucumber filling evenly over butter on 1 slice.  Place 2nd piece of bread on top.  When all sandwiches are made, wrap in plastic wrap, placing wax paper between each layer, and chill at least 8 hours.  Before serving, cut into circles with biscuit or cookie cutter or glass.  1 ½ inch cutter makes a good sized round sandwich. 

Score small cucumber with tines of a fork.  Cut 11 (1/4-inch) slices from cucumber, and cut slices into quarters.  Reserve remaining cucumber for other uses.  Insert a cucumber wedge, point side down, in top center of each sandwich.  Add a sprig of dill from your garden for garnish. 

Yield: 30  sandwich rounds

Karan

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Strolling Along The Garden Path

Posted on July 19, 2012 by Dallas Garden Buzz

  Sunflowers in a glass bottle staked to show the garden path   On Saturday July 14, we welcomed a new class of Master Gardener Interns to a morning of “meeting, greeting and eating” in Linda’s  backyard.   A chorus line of dancing sunflowers (courtesy of the Earth-Kind® Demonstration Garden) turned their perky little “faces” to greet the guests.  Over 120 Mentors and Mentees found each other along the way ready to embark upon the journey ahead.

Dallas Garden Party

 Another “garden feast” had been planned, orchestrated and beautifully prepared by a committee of enthusiastic volunteers, otherwise known as “foodies.”  How we love those garden-themed events that give us the opportunity to think creatively and exercise our culinary skills!

 And so it was decided, this one would highlight the best that our July gardens had to offer, especially those glorious herbs and veggies.  

Our menu included a “little of this,” and a lot of “that.”  Here’s a sampling of what we munched on throughout the morning:

 Strawberry Lemonade Coolers 

 Jalapeno Pimento Cheese Sandwiches

 Cucumber Dill Sandwich Rounds

Cheesy Quiche Squares 

Crudité Tray with Spinach/Herb Dip

 Strawberry Bowl 

 Fresh Peach Pound Cake

Lemon Verbena Thins

Dragonfly Sugar Cookies

Summertime Iced Tea 

 Linda

Keep following Dallas Garden Buzz for these recipes!

 

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Summer’s Sky

Posted on July 18, 2012 by Dallas Garden Buzz

Sunflower and Sky with a quote by Emily DickinsonPart of a poem by Emily Dickinson, a hero of the garden and the page, and  my favorite poet.

This litle poem is big enough to cover the expanse of the meaning of the sky. 

Ann

From The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson | Written c. 1879

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A Summer’s Day

Posted on July 16, 2012 by Dallas Garden Buzz

Take a close up view of these easy flowering plants for a sunny, summer garden.  Our Entry Garden is full of drought tolerant plants that fulfill the goal of being part of the non picky plant’s brigade.  Hooray for the plants that do it all for you and request so little water in return!  

Woolly Stemodia– a dependable, ground hugging stalwart. 

 Wooly Stemodia with a little blue bloom

 

Butterfly Weed– a nectar source for butterflies.

Butterfly Weed

 

Desert Willow-seductive, trumpet-shaped  blooms for hummingbirds.

Desert Willow magenta blooms

 

 Periwinkles-the Cora variety is disease resistant,  loves the heat  and has a more uniform habit  than other periwinkles. It looks great all season and into fall. Many colors to try!

Periwinkles in front of stick verbena, zexmenia, and cosmos

 

Abeilia-foliage with a punch, this is the Frances Mason variety. The leaves turn from several  colors of yellow to a coppery color in the fall.

Abielia foliage with white bloom

 Ann

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A Summer Day in The Garden

Posted on July 15, 2012 by Dallas Garden Buzz

Salvia, Maximillian Sunflower, Black Eyed Susan,a branch of Yaupon Holly, Mexican Feather Grass

Salvia, Sunflowers, Mexican Feather Grass

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Fall Gardening in Dallas

Posted on July 14, 2012 by Dallas Garden Buzz

FALL GARDENS 

Are Dallas gardeners just looking for any excuse to work in this heat? Listen to Common Sense here: the middle of July is reserved for racy spy novels, tall glasses of iced tea, and Spider Man movies. Settle onto that couch, look at the garden out the window, and move only to refill the pitcher of mojitos.

Obviously Jim, our Earth-Kind® and WaterWise Demonstration Garden vegetable guru, didn’t get that memo.  By late June he already had diagrams, plans, flow charts, and supplies for the Fall Garden. He sprouted a frenzied list of freeze dates and vegetable maturation periods.  He is more organized than Martha Stewart. 

looking at Vegetable Beds for the Dallas Fall Garden

Trowel at the ready, the first veggies called up were tomatoes; their installation set for June 15 to July 25. Right on their heels are the Thanksgiving favorites: acorn and butternut squash for July 1 to August 1.  Sugar pumpkins and cole transplants are set for July 15 to August 15.  Green and yellow beans step up from August 1 to September 1.  Spinach, carrots, lettuce and radishes go in from August 15 to September 10. And finally, mustard greens, beets, and turnips will be planted from August 25 to September 5.  

Just makes you want to sweat. 

Really, if you think about it, Texas is in denial about autumn.  We really have extended summer through mid-October served up with a large dose of fall allergies.  

I know this from personal delusion.  Mike and I scheduled our wedding for October 1, thinking of cool breezes, rustling leaves, pumpkins, and mums.  San Antonio weather sprung a record-breaking heat wave, and sweat rolled off the wedding party. 

But what Dallas gardeners In The Know will tell you is that if you get off the couch, fill your compost pile with the scraggly spring tomato vines, and plant now in the summer heat, you can have a blockbuster fall harvest.  Cooler autumn temperatures coax bumper crops of tomatoes and pumpkins.  Come see Jim’s fall garden! 

Elizabeth

Click Here to see the Fall Garden Plan for our Raised Beds

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Honey Lime Vinaigrette

Posted on July 13, 2012 by Dallas Garden Buzz

 You may have been searching for  this vinaigrette recipe, like the bee in this picture is searching for pollen in the dahlia.  This is the last of our recipes from the May menu in the “Farm to Table” write up.  We will continue to give  information about growing vegetables  and using what you are growing in the future.  Keep searching Dallas Garden Buzz!Bee gathering pollen on a dahlia bloom 

 

 Ingredients:

¼ cup fresh lime juice

2 tablespoons  honey

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

½ teaspoon garlic powder

¼ teaspoon cumin

½ teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon ground black pepper

¼ cup olive oil

¼ cup canola oil 

Directions 

3 Easy Ways to Mix the Dressing: 

*In a blender.  Add everything except the 2 oils to the blender and mix until combined.  With the blender running, add the oils in a thin stream through the hole in the blender lid.  Blend until well mixed.

*In a bowl.  Whisk together everything except the 2 oils.  Continue whisking while adding the oils in a thin stream.  Keep whisking until well combined.

*In a jar.  Add everything except the 2 oils to the jar.  Cover and shake to combine.  Add 2 oils and shake vigorously until well combined. 

Serving Suggestions:

Toss dressing with your choice of salad greens.  Use approximately 1 tablespoon of dressing per 2 cups of greens. 

Drizzle dressing over sliced tomatoes or cucumbers. 

Yield:  About 1 cup

Linda

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