Garden Update...

The long awaited Russ Garden update is ready!
First, this photo here shows the cilantro that we are growing in a pot on the front porch. We've started it from seeds and have two different batches in the same pot, that way we should have cilantro all summer long!

The garden patch has been growing at gang buster speed! Just goes to show that you can never go wrong when you use good garden soil, pay a little more and get the good stuff, you'll be glad you did!

As you can see the 4 tomato plants are taking over! the cucumbers are making thier own way up the bird netting, there on the left... NEXT year I'll be sure to get the bird netting down before the cucumbers attach to it!! The green peppers are having to fight for sun from the tomatoes... Mike says that next year we will make 4x4 bed just for tomatoes.

 I noticed that ONE of the little cherry tomatoes has started to turn pink... so we will have our own little tomatoes SOON!

 Several folks have been intrested in the lettuce harvests that we have had... So I thought I'd take you through a recent harvest and show you how we do it and how much we get in one harvest.
Here's the basket I use now to bring the lettuce into the house. I had a smaller one that I was using... but as you can tell, I needed a much bigger one! I use my Pampered Chef kitchen shears to snip the lettuce leaves from the plant and then place in the basket... once in the house the newly picked leaves all hop in the sink for a soak bath in clean cold water...

 Once all the leaves have been wiped with a wet cloth to remove any dirt or small insects they all wait for a turn in the salad spinner for an air dry before the big chill...

 They hop in wet and after a few turns of the handle on the lid ... they are nice and dry!

 Here's the same batch of lettuce waiting to be bagged and placed in the produce drawer of the fridge. We had 2 gallon zippy bags of red leaf lettuce and 3 gallon zippy bags of romaine lettuce... enought for a week of munching for Mike and I!