Early Fall Harvest

We had an amazing harvest this past week. Our fall garden is at its peak right now and there is so much to choose from. We'll see how long this will last as our first light frost should arrive soon.

All of our broccoli plants matured this past week. We picked 15 good-sized heads and have been eating broccoli almost everyday. As you can see, a couple of the heads were beginning to flower.


Next year, I'm planning on growing even more broccoli. It's one brassica that produces reliably in our garden and is fairly easy to grow. I like to allow the individual buds to get fairly large (unlike supermarket broccoli) until they are on the verge of flowering. Personally, I think the texture and taste is better at this stage.


In addition to the broccoli, we also harvested some carrots and Chinese broccoli (gai lan).


I'm really happy with my 'Napoli' carrots this fall. Last year, the field mice did away with our entire crop. Growing them in taller raised beds seems to deter them.


I really like Chinese broccoli, which is grown primarily for its tender stalk. Ours are as thick as silver dollars this year. (Thanks again for the seeds Mac!) I stir-fry them peeled and sliced on a bias. Also, they stay crispy when cooked.


I also picked most of our remaining peppers and chilies and was amazed by how healthy the plants still look.


I'm planning on fresh pickling the pepperoncini (right) and most of the Hungarian Wax peppers.


I'd like to make hot sauce from the jalapenos (if someone has a recipe, please pass along!) and chili paste from the Thai chilies.


The poblanos will be roasted, peeled and frozen for winter use.

The last 'Sunshine' watermelon of the year weighed in at 10 pounds, which is average for this particular variety.


I waited until the tendril closest to the melon had died back, which seemed to work this time. The flesh was perfectly yellow and very sweet.


I tried to salvage as many green tomatoes as I could from the now dead vines. Hopefully they'll still ripen indoors.


Finally, I pruned back my Kaffir lime tree this past weekend. The leaves are now frozen and will be used to flavor curries and soups.

Anatomy of a Wild (Kaffir) Lime

I had all but forgotten about my one and only wild (or kaffir) lime. It had sprung from a flower that bloomed last spring. This weekend I decided to pick it in order to get a better look at the wrinkly specimen. Like the lime tree's leaves, the rind of this small firm fruit is incredibly fragrant. I was curious to see what it was like on the inside.


When I sliced it open, I was surprised to see so much pulp. I thought for sure there would be mostly rind. A closer whiff revealed a strong and complex lime scent unlike anything I'd experienced before. I tasted a bit of the juice and it was sour of course.

There's not much you can do with one lone lime so I decided to save it for maybe an after-work gin and tonic later on this week. If this year's harvest proves more fruitful, it'll be interesting to see what we can whip up with this unique lime.

Starfruit and Lime

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I've had this star fruit tree for almost two years now. When I bought it, it had only three leaves on it and was rather pathetic looking. It's come a long way since then and even bloomed once. However, I expect that it will be a least a year or two (if ever) before it starts fruiting. It loses plenty of leaves during the winter time, but when I set it outside in late May, it seems to bounce back pretty well. I also need to put more effort into fertilizing it regularly. Has anyone grown star fruit successfully as a houseplant?

In other news, I came across this little fella the other day while watering my citrus plants. It's my first Kaffir lime. It looks like a little brain doesn't it? I hadn't been paying much attention to my potted trees this past summer and it appears that this one has been growing for quite some time now. The lime itself has no real culinary value but the plant's leaves are used in Indian and Thai cooking. If anyone has a tasty recipe that utilizes Kaffir lime leaves, please do share!

Kaffir Lime Blossoms

I'm really fascinated by my potted Kaffir lime tree at the moment. This is the first time it has flowered since I purchased it a year and a half ago. The buds have shades of hot pink, and as the petals open up, they stay interestingly cupped. Hopefully some of the fruits will set this year. From what I've seen on other blogs and sites, the fruit itself looks pretty wacky - the outer skin is wrinkled making them resemble little green brains.

I am a bit ashamed to admit that I have never harvested any of the leaves to cook with. Maybe I should make a point of doing so soon. They add an interesting lime flavor to stir-fries and soups and are very popular in Thai and Indian cooking.

Temperatures are supposed to get into the 90's here during the next few days. Hopefully, the warm weather crops will enjoy it. The peas on the other hand will start to melt away...such is the nature of things as summer fast approaches.

Happy growing everyone!

Garden Notes - Rabbit Troubles and Plant Updates

I've been having my fair share of rodent problems lately. It seems 2x4 inch wire mesh is not enough to keep the rabbits out, especially the baby ones. The adults seem to have a bit more sense. So far, they've picked over my soybeans, nibbled on several of my green beans, decapitated one rather large head of lettuce and corn stalk and shaved off one of my pepper plants. As a result, I will be spending my weekend putting up chicken wire all around the perimeter of my garden. Hopefully that will be more of a deterrent.


I really should have put more effort into growing flowers this year. The garden looks a bit too green at the moment. I've always loved the European potagers and their classic style of mixing edibles and ornamentals in unique patterns. Well...that will have to wait until next year.


The cut-and-come-again lettuce mix that I grew in my salad box a few months ago failed miserably. I really only have myself to blame as there was little to no fertility in the garden soil that I used. I will try again this fall with a mix of compost and potting soil. For now, I have little patch growing in the garden.


A year and a half after purchasing the small cutting, my Kaffir lime tree is flowering for the first time. Citrus blossoms never fail to get me excited. I'm curious to see how the fruit develops.


I'm not sure what type of lettuce this is but it's beautiful. I've enjoyed watching it grow. It resembles a butterhead but the leaves have a crispiness that is more reminiscent of iceberg. I think it's either Korean or Manoa. I will have to ask Winnie if she has any ideas as the seeds were from her.


The cranberries I planted out last year are beginning to flower and spread. The leaves are bright green at the moment but should develop into a bright burgundy as the fall approaches.

Finally, here's a look at my celery after they've been thinned down to one plant. I transplanted them out in clusters of 4-5 plants simply because I was too lazy to thin my seedlings. Now I'm glad that I didn't since in each cluster, there is always one plant that drastically outperforms the rest. And looking at the size of my celery, it doesn't seem like the crowded conditions have hurt them too much. I've been harvesting the thinnings to use in soups. Delicious! I think I'll stick to growing them this way.

HELP! - The Dreaded "S" Word

It's been a while since I've posted about my kaffir lime tree, and right now, I wish that I was doing so under other circumstances. I've been noticing for the past couple of months that some of the leaves on my kaffir lime were speckled with some kind of clear sap. I would use a damp paper towel to wipe them off only to find more leaves affected a couple weeks later. Today, I finally got around to researching this and sure enough, my suspicions are accurate. My lime tree has SCALE. Luckily, my meyer lemon tree is located in another room and shows no signs of it.


If you enlarge this photo and look at the vertical leaf on the upper-left hand side, you can actually see the little buggers. At this point, the infestation is minor. I'm hoping to find an effective treatment before it really gets out of hand. I've read that the adults breed in the spring. Hopefully I can get this sorted out by then.

I've heard that wiping each leaf with rubbing alcohol is one solution, though I believe you have to do this several times. If anyone out there has any suggestions on how I can eliminate my scale problem safely, please share!

Fall Garden Update and Tour

The zucchini plants are really sizing up. Hopefully one of these days I will get a female flower.

from left: flowering brassica, hakurei turnips, mesclun

from upper left: wild arugula, hakurei turnips, spinach, all lettuce mix

winter carrots

from left: tatsoi, easter egg radishes

The radishes should be ready to harvest this week.

The beets are beginning to bulb up.

The broccoli is starting to recover from August's pests.

The kaffir lime needs to be re-potted again.

And the meyer lemons still show no signs of ripening.

Kaffir Lime Leaves

I thought I'd do a quick post on my kaffir lime tree. For those unfamiliar with this plant, kaffir lime leaves are a very popular ingredient in Indian, Thai and other southeast Asian cuisines. The leaves and peel of the fruit have a very strong and unique citrus flavor, and are used to flavor many things, including soups, grilled meats, seafood, curries and stir-fries. In India, the fruits are also used to make a spicy lime pickle.

Each leaf is comprised of double elongated leaflets, making the kaffir lime a very attractive ornamental plant as well. The growth of my tree has been very vigorous thus far. I purchased it as a small cutting (sold in a 2 inch pot) back in January and since then, it has doubled in size many times over. Currently, I have it growing in an 8 inch pot but I may have to re-pot it again soon. Hopefully, within the next year or two, we'll start to see some fruits forming. Also, I think I'll wait at least another 6 months to a year before I start snipping off some leaves for cooking.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Let's start with the bad - Germination thus far has been pretty sporadic. About a week and a half ago, I seeded a couple of trays with beans, beets, broccoli and zucchini. Last weekend I started the Asian greens and peas. Making a semi-decent show of it are the beets (left) and Asian greens (right). I re-seeded some cells last weekend with more beets and they are just starting to push through the surface to join the others. The Asian greens have been by far the most vigorous (I sowed these seeds on Sunday). The lesson I've learned here is not to be so stingy when it comes to the number of seeds you sow per cell. I started out sowing 1 beet seed per cell and have since sowed 2 more in the cells that showed no signs of life after 7 days - a bit of a waste of time if you ask me.

Next, the ugly - The beans, broccoli and zucchini have been a bit of a catastrophe if you ask me. Two out of 8 beans and 1 out of 8 broccoli plants have emerged. The first (and I suspect only) zucchini plant is just starting to break the surface. I can only partially blame the weather. When I sowed the beans, I had coated each seed with a bit of inoculant. NOT A GOOD IDEA WHEN YOU ARE SOWING IN TRAYS!!!! Maybe it was a combination of weather, too much moisture and inoculant that did it, but when I dug up some cells to see what was going on, I noticed that the beans showed no signs of germination and would disintegrate upon the slightest pressure (the insides oozing out and releasing an awful smell). When I investigated the peas, I discovered the same thing. Coincidentally enough, the two bean seeds that did sprout were ones that I had chosen not to coat with inoculant. As a result, I spent this evening disposing of and reseeding my beans and peas. If anyone out there has had success with inoculating legumes started in seed trays, please let me know. Me, I don't think I'll ever do that again. Lastly, I have no idea what's going on with the broccoli and zucchini.

Now let's end with the good- Currently, my meyer lemon and kaffir lime trees are both experiencing a major flush of leafy growth. Given the fact that this summer has been so mild and rainy thus far, I suspect that this is the flush that should have occurred last month. Better late than never I guess. I can't wait to see the end result of this growth spurt!