We were on vacation last week and I didn’t have an opportunity to post a weekly update on our vegetable garden so this is a two-fer. My dad kindly agreed to take care of our vicious cat (he has scars to prove it — bad, bad Ollie!) and also to keep an eye on my gardens and water them as needed while we were gone. I was really worried that, with all the heat NH had last week, I might come back to a wilted pile of plants. Boy, was I wrong! Our garden is literally in bloom. There are blossoms galore on most of the plants, and some are even starting to look like, well, vegetables! We have a jalapeno pepper that is almost ready, and the start of some pretty tasty looking zucchinis and squashes. All four tomato plants have little yellow blossoms and grew about a foot while we were gone. I’m really glad I put the cages around them before we left. The cucumbers are now growing out from the main plant and, unfortunately, attacking anything they can reach. I’ll have to keep my eye on them! My neighbor also donated a couple more raspberry bushes, so we actually have a little raspberry patch now. I don’t know how well they will do this year, but I’m crossing my fingers, and the worst case scenario is that we have to wait until next year for berries. The only thing that suffered was my cilantro, which is now about 2 feet tall and has flowers — probably not much good as an herb anymore.

We’ve been trying to use up our explosion of rainbow chard by making green smoothies. I like to chop up a fresh pineapple, which I divide into four sandwich bags and freeze. Then, when I want to make a smoothie, I combine a whole banana, a bag of frozen pineapple, and about four leaves of chard and blend it with 1/4 to 1/2 cup of water with an immersion blender. It is delish — toddler & husband approved.