Where Have All the Blog Posts Gone?

It’s been over three months since I’ve posted here at Garden, Cook, Eat, Repeat.

There were many times I almost put up a post… but I lost the energy for it. In fact, I don’t really have the energy to wonder about the reason why. I just was not compelled to do so.

I guess I simply wasn’t in the mood.

But I’m stopping by today to say hello (if anyone still wanders by here), to share a small update on life, and to post some photos from this morning’s work in the garden. Garden photos first. 🙂

Let me be up front with you: We are not doing well in the garden this year. I might’ve mentioned before we decided to scale back to only the lower garden for 2021, so we are definitely growing LESS. Then, we kind of let what we planted go. *face palm*

Still, today we pulled out our first batch of red and white potatoes. The mice took their share, but definitely not as bad as last year when they pretty much decimated our potato crop. By the way, some of our potato plants this year were actually volunteers! That was surprising. Anyhow, today Mr. Gordon dug up about 28 pounds of homegrown potatoes. 🙂

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As for tomatoes – ugh. The Rutgers really failed and the Principe Borghese Sun Dried Tomatoes are not doing so hot. The Amish Paste, although fantastic seedlings (the best we ever grew from seed), have not grown as strong for the first time. They’re a vining tomato, and we never added to the stake height. Bad us. The Yellow Pear – still mostly green – might deliver an okay harvest. The chickens will love them when they ripen.

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You can also see in the pictures above a shot of the greenhouse we have on the back porch. Plants are beautiful, but there is little fruit. We did pollinate the flowers with a q-tip, but there is only a handful of fruit coming in. The greenhouse was good for seedlings this year, but in the beginning we had to take them in overnight because it was so cold.

The Ruby Queen Beets, as always, are awesome. I wish I would have planted more. I love them boiled and chilled in the fridge. Wonderful cold.

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We thought we were lucky to have some Black Beauty Zucchini volunteers show up in the garden! In fact, we ate one of the “early, round ones.” Gee, the plentiful rain must have made the zucchini grow into a ball. Erm, no.

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Apparently there were pumpkin seeds in the compost. *another face palm* Oh, well. We “vegetti’ed” the young green pumpkin, sautéed it, and ate it as a side thinking it was zucchini. It was just fine.

Speaking of compost, we didn’t buy any this year. We managed to have enough between last year and what we “made” in the compost pile. It wasn’t a lot, but it was nice to skip that expense this year.

Chickens

Our chickens are doing well. I should actually write up a separate blog post about the girls. After Daisy suddenly died, there was definitely a big hole in the flock. Daisy was the perfect top chicken and never was there any drama. When she left, we witnessed our first dustups. Sigh. The long and short of it is there is no clear top chicken. Gert tries, but nobody puts Mimi in a corner. 😉 Zorro seems to be the only one who struggles. She is the sweetest chicken but that damn Alice will go after her. It’s a little better now… Chickens.

A Writer’s Life

You might’ve seen on Facebook or Instagram that my second cozy mystery, Through the Door (NOT an affiliate link), published May 31st! It was the follow-up to my first book, Door to Door (NOT an affiliate link). Doors Wide Open, the third book in the series, should publish sometime in the fall. 😀 If you like fun stories / adventures, I invite you to check them out! Thank you in advance. 🙂 You can also keep up with me – and my writing – on Instagram here.

A Husband’s Life

Mr. Gordon has been busy. A former colleague reached out and offered him a job as an Operations Performance Analyst at her company. Gordon accepted and works with about two dozen of the same people he worked with in the past. It’s a little like going home for him and he’s pleased. Fortunately, he still gets to work from his office here at home.

What Else?

Marigolds are some of my favorite flowers (this is from the garden) and just look at the cute Carmen Ghia one of our neighbors drives… This little classic car passed by while I was in the garden. I snapped a picture.

And There You Have It

A small update. Not sure if anyone stops by here anymore, but if you do, please say hi in a comment and let me know how you are doing.

XO, Tracy