October 14: Soup Beans, Peanuts, and Carrots

Harvested the last of the carrot patch.  Some had black tunnels in them..sad!

Pulled up the bean plants and found lots of dry beans that got too big and old to pick during August vacation, so I’d left them to dry on the plants…

Also pulled up the peanuts and hung the beans and peanuts on the ladder in my garage to dry.

Fall crops up!

The radishes we planted early August are beautiful...picked a bunch for the luncheon today. And the red beets are about ready to harvest. Along with parsley and cilantro. The more recently planted radishes and red beets and zuchini are looking good, as are the bush beans, although all those are a gamble with the October weather. The newest plantings of lettuce, spinach, and chard are up, and will be covered by the cold frame when the first cold weather threatens.   The watermelon  cantaloupe, and pie pumpkin vines and leaves are dying quickly this week but the fruits are looking good.  I presume I should wait to harvest to let them mature in the garden a bit longer.  But the plot surely looks sad:  (note added in December:  when harvested cantaloupes tasted good, pumpkins made great pies, and watermelons were great looking but watery and tasteless--not sweet.

Salsa!

The tomato patch doesn't look great. Many of the cages have tilted due to the weight of the tomatoes, and there are some rotten and some imperfect tomatoes and some of the leaves have browned. But the number of beautiful tomatoes is astounding. Several hundred perfect plum tomatoes have come off of 7 plants. And the big boys, while not huge, are absolutely perfect! I made salsa yesterday--with plum tomatoes, a yellow heirloom tomato from Amy, cucumbers, onions, garlic, cilantro, and a dark red pepper from Amy from the garden, plus some black beans, cumin, chili powder, red wine vinegar, and salt. It was, still is, scrumptious!

Broccoli, finally!

Waiting for broccoli all summer. Finally developing small heads. Perhaps too crowded between chard and peppers. But yummy!

Raspberry Jelly!

Last week, I made raspberry jelly. I mashed and then cooked the raspberries a little, then left them hanging in the jelly bag a few hours. I haven't done this for about 30 years! Once you have the juice from the berries, the procedure is just like for making jam....easy! And beautiful...I love the transparency of jelly.

Sept 5: Raspberry Jam!

Made 6 jars of Raspberry Jam tonight. For the past 2 months, only a few raspberries have ripened each day. But this week they started to come in heavily. So I picked Tuesday and today, had 5 cups of berries, and made jam with Ball classic pectin, but used the low sugar recipe on the label. Looks and tastes yummy!

August 2013

Here it is August 27!  I can't believe it's been over a month since I wrote on this blog.  Soooooo much has of course happened in the garden since my last post in July.  The garlic and onions have been harvested, and a row of new seedlings now occupy the old onion bed.   The cucumbers and beans have flourished and are already on the decline.  The corn is tall, not too many ears, but tonight I ate the first ear--good tasting although one side was missing several kernels, meaning incomplete pollination.  Pumpkins are growing--I think I've counted about 7 nice sized pie pumpkins, most of which are already orange, and a couple of little ones.    But I think that's all that will grow because the new pumpkin flowers have LOTS of bugs! Lots of cucumbers, but I cut one last week, which wasn't at all ripe, so I'm waiting on the rest---I read that the area where the stem meets the melon should turn brown and crusty looking instead of soft and green.  I'm excited to say there are 3 watermelons...not quite ripe, I think.  The apples almost ripened, but were grabbed up by the campers very quickly.  I cut back the gangly spreading all over lemon balm---I think I need to get it out of the garden and grow it around the stump like the other mints.  I also cut back the huge tarragon bush and the dill that was going to seed.   And the tomatoes are now coming.  They got stalled during the cool weather of late July and early August, but are ripening quickly now in the 90 degree heat.  And I'm thrilled to say that the newly planted cilantro is growing at just the right time for tomatoes (used lots of both in the salsa class I taught yesterday---we picked the tomatoes and salsa, and also basil for pesto, in the garden, and then went down to the Anderson Center to make the salsa and pesto.  16 students.  )  Earlier this week I finally got the strawberry runners cut back and the older withered leaves pulled off---long overdue care of the strawberry bed.   We've had a small crop of grapes, now done, and the raspberries have zillions of unripe berries, but only a few ripen each day.  And that's a month's worth of garden news.  Now for some photos:

Garlic pulled and ready to hang!

Cucumber and corn growing fast

Paths around asparagus all weeded and woodchipped

Cantaloupe and watermelon patch

Lemon balm cut down

Tall corn!



Cucumbers!  Two batches of pickles made.



Lots of cantaloupes, slow to ripen, vines dying, maybe too much watering



7 pumpkins!



The garden from the south end, starting with the pumpkin patch

The garden from the north end, starting with the strawberry patch

Tomato press from mary Kirby...so cool...makes sauce before cooking, separates out the seeds and skins.  Then I boiled it down about halfway and froze several pkgs.

Radishes

Cilantro.  So happy that this second planting is well timed with the tomatoes ripening.  Used it in salsa making class this week.

Finally cut the strawberry runners..patch looks so tidy now!




Tomatoes finally ripening, rapidly in this 90+ degree F heat.

 


New plantings (in previous onion bed).  Cilantro, parseley, basil, radish, red beet, sunflowers.
Red cabbage and zinnias did not come up.



An invasion of bugs on pumpkin flowers!