It’s been on the busy side lately, hence my brief absence of posting.  I’ve been going to three belly dance classes a week, (which I think is peachy keen), working on my garden, hiking, biking, camping and preparing for a two week excursion to Ashland, Oregon (we leave tomorrow!)  Now that we’re all packed I thought it would be a good time to update here in Blogland.

My garden is looking lovely!  Everything is getting so big.  Today I tied up my beans and zucchini to the trellices as they are starting to overtake my little chard patch.

Almost all of my veggies are heirloom!  The beans are a lovely purple variety and the zucchini is a tri colored type.  I can’t wait to taste them!  The beans have grown little purple nubs on them.  I’m not sure if they’ll turn into flowers or if those are the beans themselves.  Time will tell…

My tomatoes are getting HUGE!  All of my tomatoes are different kinds of heirloom, and I even have one little baby tomato!  This is a Violet Jasper.

My mom gave an Anaheim pepper to go with my other two, and its the best pepper plant I have out of the three.  It even has a little baby pepper growing on it!

As usual, Shardul is always interested in helping me in the garden. 

My chard is doing excellent, despite having pushy neighbors.

It looked so good today that I had to harvest a few leaves for my lunch salad.  Mmmmmm so good!

It was amazing!  Such a simple salad with red leaf lettuce, red onion, cucumber, raw sunflower seeds, avocado, and my chard.  I used olive oil and balsamic vinegar with sea salt and black pepper to dress it up. I felt so good from my lunch salad that I just had to have another for dinner.

This salad was a little different than my lunch and definitely more hearty.  It has red leaf lettuce, red onion, tomato, cucumber, shredded carrot, carrot sticks, shredded zucchini, bell pepper, broccoli, raw sunflower seeds, walnuts, and raw pepitas.  I used the same dressing, except I added a bit of apple cider vinegar to the mix.

I’m still full from it!  I love eating all raw all day long.  It feels so light and refreshing, and I always remember why I love it so much.  It will be so rewarding when I have more of my own produce to add to salads like this!  I can’t wait.

Well, that’s all for now.  We’re leaving in the morning and I’m planning on making a stop at the Farmer’s Market for provisions while on the road.  When we get to Ashland, I plan on taking advantage of two farmer’s markets a week!  We are staying there for two weeks (Joe is attending a bike mechanic school), so it should give me a good idea on what they are like.  Here are a few more pictures from the garden, my little seedlings.  They have decreased in number, but increased in size.

Lovely sweet basil.

My two favorite boys.  Joe is very proud of his monster butternut squash.

I’ll update soon from our destination point and fill everyone in on how cool Ashland is.  Happy Gardnening!