Brown Stuff: Baskets

"Brown Stuff"

is the theme in my sewing space this month.

In April I told you about some fruit and veg HST parts that were given to me.

This month I'm putting more of those fruit and veggies into brown baskets. I have a lot of brown scrap chunks (less than a Fat Quarter [FQ] and greater than a six inch square) that I decided could be used to make baskets. 

Actually I'm putting the fruits and veggies into 15 inch (finished) Cake Stand blocks. 

I have a few fruit and veg fabrics I think I will add to the mix so I can get those used up.

And at first I thought quilt but now I think these will make a nice tablecloth.

In the real world I don't use baskets to harvest my fruits and veggies.  I used recycled plastic containers. 

My asparagus patch has been put to rest for the year but I'm still harvesting some rhubarb and still need to make some strawberry-rhubarb jam and maybe another quick bread or muffins to eat for breakfast with my yogurt. 

Despite the hot and dry conditions I have been harvesting salad crops almost every day -- mustard greens, spinach, lettuce, green onions, radishes. 

The strawberries are smaller than usual this year but at least I was able to harvest some (and get a lot of exercise picking them). Early on some critters were eating them but they were nice enough to save some for me. 

I picked some Snow Peas. They are good raw or in stir fry or lightly steamed. I have found the variety Green Beauty to be the best Snow Pea so far.   I also have Sugar Snap peas (Sugar Daddy) but they aren't ready to harvest yet.   I was lucky this year. A lot of years the deer or rabbits eat the pea sprouts, the plants get stressed and then don't produce much. The critters left the plants alone this year. 

Garlic scapes.

I have a lot of rocambole garlic planted here there and everywhere in the flower and veggie gardens because it is supposed to repel deer and rabbits. The garlic basically grows wild now because if it is not harvested and left alone it produces bulbils at the top that fall over and plant themselves or they can be harvested and planted where you want them to grow or used as garlic. The first year after planting a bulbil produces a "round" garlic below ground. It can be harvested and used or left in the ground to produce garlic with cloves.   Garlic can also be used to make a lot of sprays to repel bugs and other critters.   And garlic has a lot of health benefits. I love it!

Back to the garlic scapes.  Those are the tops of the garlic before the bulbils form on top. We harvested those yesterday and sauteed them with a few other veggies to use on top of our homemade pizza last night.