We have planted a garden every year since we moved
into our house five years ago. It didn't look like much at the time, but
Paul put a lot of effort into getting it to look how it does now. Which
still isn't very big compared to either of our parents', but it suits
our family just fine for right now! Over the years, we've tried quite a
few different things, and I think we've finally figured out what grows
the best for us here. Our garden is right next to a row of evergreen
trees, and somehow, when the needles fall off, they change the pH level
of the dirt. (Or something like that?) But basically, we have a hard
time growing anything like radishes and onions. Potatoes, tomatoes and
lettuce seem to do the best. This year we have two hills of cucumbers,
one hill of zucchini, (too many) tomatoes (I'll be canning up a storm
later this summer), four rows of potatoes, peas, green beans, and
lettuce. We also have an ever-expanding raspberry bush on the other side
of the yard. Every year it gets bigger! Which is great!
Here are a few pics of our garden, currently!
I risked getting eaten alive and acquiring West Nile Virus to get these pictures. Darn mosquitoes are horrible this year! Ack!
All this jabber about our garden is leading up to a recipe I'm going to share. I saw on
Donya Luana's blog that she was doing a series of 20 recipes from her garden, and thought it was a really neat idea! I'm not going to promise 20 recipes, but I'm hoping to share a few here and there as we harvest our fruits and veggies!
We've already had a couple cuttings of lettuce. That is one of the great things about leaf lettuce, that you get several cuttings before it starts to get bitter when it grows back.
As soon as he brought the first of it inside, Paul whipped up a jar of
our favorite dressing to use on the tender leaves. This simple dressing
has been our go-to for the past couple years for our fresh garden
lettuce. It's similar to one Paul's mom made when he was growing up. We
love it!
Fresh Lettuce Dressing
1 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup sugar
1 Tbsp vinegar
Milk, to taste
Salt, to taste
Mix together, adding milk to get desired consistency. It works great to put everything into a jar and shake it up! Serve on fresh garden lettuce.
