Oh my, I do love this garden box from Gardeners Supply Company. It is fabulous. In just one month, it has given me incredible joy and many wonderful meals.

Above is what it looked like when I first planted it a month ago. Below is what it looks like now. I can hardly believe it. Best garden growth I have ever had.

Below is the box looking toward the house. Remember those few butternut squash seeds that popped up from my homemade compost that I added to the box? They are taking over. I thinned them out a bit, but probably should have pulled out more of them.

Some of the plants are indeed butternuts. Here is a female flower about to open. I figure if it manages to get fertilized that I may be able to harvest butternuts from this box.

But the female flower bud below appears to be for a pumpkin. I am trying to remember what pumpkin I might have put into my compost bin. Was it a store-bought field pumpkin? Or was it a pack of seeds for eating pumpkin that I deemed too old and just dumped into the compost bin? Who knows? I love the adventure of surprises in the garden. I don’t even know if a pumpkin or butternut sprouted this late in the season and growing in a BOX will ripen. More adventure. With our new climate of Global Weirding, anything can happen. First step is for that little flower to open and get fertilized.

The first flower bud is open on my Contender bush green beans. They are an heirloom variety, so they breed true. I will be saving seeds from some of these beans. Looks like it is going to be a bumper crop, God willing and the creek don’t rise. My heirloom Blue Lake pole green beans growing in my garden beds are already finished, so this new crop of green beans will be most welcome.

I have been harvesting both crookneck and straight neck yellow squash from this garden box for a couple of weeks now. I have not been able to grow summer squash in my regular garden beds, so this is a first for me in many years. Summer squash! I know, any kindergartner can grow summer squash. Not me. My regular garden beds don’t get enough hours of sunshine. The garden box does. Happy face, happy face.

Here are some yellow squash, French Breakfast radishes, and green onion from our garden that became lunch. I sautéed the squash and green onion along with mushrooms and red bell pepper, and topped them with sour cream and some cumin. I split the baby radishes and filled the split with butter, topping them with grated pink Himalayan salt. Yum.

Below is one of the dishes that I made with summer squash. The recipe is for Salmon Osso Buco, from “Dining at the White House” by John Moeller. Terrific cookbook, BTW. I rolled scallops up in strips of salmon, secured the roll-ups with toothpicks, and sautéed them in butter. They are supposed to look like slices of veal shank, the salmon being the meat and the scallop resembling the bone. It is served on a saffron clam broth. Then I sautéed yellow squash and carrots, adding some herbs de Provence, and mounded those between the salmon-scallop roll-ups. I topped it with chopped parsley for color. Delicious.

Here is another meal from our garden box. I sautéed some onion and summer squash, then added cooked quinoa and a can of garbanzo beans. Can’t remember the dressing, a lemon juice and olive oil base, with garlic and cumin probably. I served it on a bed of freshly picked arugula from the garden box. The melon was store bought. This made a delightful summer lunch.

Here is another lunch from the garden box, using some lemon cucumbers from our brother-in-law Jeff’s garden. I made another quinoa-based salad, with lemon cucumbers and red bell pepper, and a lemon-mint dressing, served on a bed of arugula from the garden box. The tomato bisque was store-bought (Sprouts brand, delicious), with a basil leaf from the garden box for garnish.

I am having issues with my WordPress blog host. I don’t seem to be able to access my sidebar anymore. Don’t know why. They changed their format and I can no longer even see the sidebar in edit mode, much less alter it. So I have been unable to update my harvest poundage. Bummer. So this will do for now. Happy gardening!