California 2 Puerto Rico

As you can see by Garden 2.0, Summer and I are working on our computers by night and planning/building a healthier lifestyle/diet with our renewed vigor towards gardening by day.

With that, we are definitely going to try to grow cucumbers. I see them all over the grocery store year around, so they must do well here. Tell me if you know otherwise or have any pointers for us.

Here are two Cucumber Recipes my mom sent me today:

Cucumber Soup

3 cucs about 8 inches long, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1/2 cup white onions or whatever kind
3 Tbsp butter
6 cups chicken broth (bouillon)
2 Tsp wine vinegar
1 Tsp dill weed
4 Tbsp Farina or dried potato flakes. This thickens the soup.

Cook onions slowly in butter until soft. Add cucumber chunks, chicken broth, vinegar and herbs. Bring to a boil add farina. Simmer for about 30 minutes partialy covered. Puree and carefully season with salt and white pepper. Add 1/2 cup of sour cream and stir. May be served hot or cold. Sprinkle with dried dill.

Baked Cucumbers:

6 cucs 8 inches long
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp sugar
3 Tbsp melted butter
1/2 Tsp dill
3to 4 Tbsp minced green onions
1/8 tsp pepper

Toss the cucs in a bowl with vinegar, salt and sugar. Let stand for at least 30 min. Drain and pat dry. Put cucs in baking dish with butter, herbs, onions and pepper. Put into 375 oven for about 1 hour, tossing 2 or 3 times until crisp. I always double the receipe because they are just as good cold the next day.

Stefan and I sort of gave up on the watermelon plants that Eddie planted for us 5 months ago. They sprouted and shriveled enough times that we gave up watering them and let them do their own thing (like get overgrown with weeds…). Lo and behold, a watermelon (sandia) has appeared!

I wonder if it’s because we have more bees pollinating our plants now? Or do watermelons take a while to establish themselves?

The edamame (soy beans) that I planted are doing really well! Lots of pods are hanging off of the little bushes now and they are extremely low maintenance.

Conclusion: Edamame (soy) beans are easy to grow in Puerto Rico!

I am still patiently waiting for the heirloom tomatoes to give us some treats, but they seem healthy and happy.

Just like the Kruses, our watermelon (sandia) plant never really did much and it has finally started to flourish. Today we saw the first tiny little watermelons forming on the vine.

The birds and the bees are enjoying all of our new trees and plants and are busy pollinating for us :). It’s nice to see the animals flocking to our yard since it used to be a big dry dust bowl.