Garlic Scape Pesto

I made a small batch of garlic scape pesto with about half the scapes I harvested (15) and home-grown basil leaves (the basil leaves from the porch are huge!). I just pureed all of it with olive oil and salt. No cheese, no nuts. More versatile this way. I froze the surplus for future use. This pesto is so great on pasta, pizza, roasted veggies, or mixed into a pesto mayo for sandwiches …

Garlic scape pesto topped off with olive oil for the freezer (the color is kind of strange on the screen; it was bright green)

Weeding and Harvesting

After

Today I spent an hour and a half in the garden weeding and harvesting peas and lettuce. I will have to do more weeding this year because I am not using hay to mulch. I am trying to get rid of the pill bugs that wreak havoc on my tender seedlings and my berries. They like decaying vegetation, and I tend to find them on the underside of the hay. My idea is to deprive them of their food source and their living space. So, I will need to stay on top of the weeds before they take over. I have high hopes that my three winter squash plants will help cover the entire plot, giving the weeds no chance. Fingers crossed.

Before

Porch Succession Planting

Before
After
… and in between (four glass gem corn seedlings)

We are having a heat wave here in Boston this weekend. It is supposed to last three days, and I decided to pull all the lettuce on my porch this morning. I had underplanted the lettuce in two containers with glass gem corn, and all eight seeds germinated. One of the containers (not pictured) currently only has four corn seedlings, and the bigger one (pictured here) was replanted with pickling cucumber today. Hopefully the cucumber and the corn will get along.

Porch lettuce harvest

Fully Planted

Today, I planted the remaining seedlings. I meant to do it last weekend (Memorial Day Weekend), but it was so rainy and cold (in the 40s at night) that it seemed wise to wait. In order to make space, I had to take out most of the walking onions and six humongous leeks. I planted 2 eggplants (Fairy Tale and Ping Tung), 1 pepper (the mystery one), 1 more tomato (Striped Roman), 3 kale seedlings, 3 Swiss chard plugs, 3 cucumbers (pickling, Dekah and Tokiwa), 3 winter squash (Butternut, Delicata and Lakota), 1 zucchini and 1 watermelon. I also interplanted the tomatoes with marigold, planted camomile and sowed glass gem corn among the squash and Zinnias with the Swiss chard. I don’t think I can fit anything else in my plot.

Seedlings before they went into the ground

The only thing not in the ground yet are green beans. I will plant some with the corn and squash once the corn has a good height and will plant a lot of beans after I harvest the garlic. Last year, I planted beans late in July and it was very successful.

Peas (and weeds), lettuce (and mint), tomatoes and Lakota squash
Cucumbers, lettuce, and squash (and a giant borage)
Parsley, baby lettuce mix, eggplant, camomile, tomatoes, kale, bok choi