A Mid-October Harvest

Is it really mid-October already? In a lot of ways, it feels more like Spring as we've had so much precipitation lately that the garden is now covered with mud and standing water. This generally only happens in early March when the ground is still frozen and the water has nowhere to go. The soil in my growing beds resembles a saturated sponge. Hopefully, our veggies won't rot from the excess moisture.

Another great week for harvesting carrots and turnips - these have been very tasty roasted.


I harvested half of my cauliflower crop this week - 4 heads. They're not huge but are still the best I've grown so far.


I love cauliflower simply steamed and finished with a bit of butter. When you have veggies this fresh, it doesn't really make sense to add too much seasoning.


The broccoli is starting to produce a generous amount of side shoots. I like to harvest the young leaves as well as they are very tender.


Salad greens - I didn't grow a mix this fall like I did in past years. This time around, I just walked around the garden and just sniped what looked good - several varieties of lettuce, beet greens, baby spinach, basil, parsley and some Red Russian kale.


Yesterday, I found this little guy tucked away in the melon patch. I didn't have much hope that it would be any good but I picked it anyway.


To my surprise, it was ripe when I cut into it. Aside from having somewhat of a hollow heart, it was actually quite good. In fact, I dare to say that it was one of the sweetest and crunchiest melons I picked all year long. It was indeed an unexpected delight.


I also picked too lovely heads of tatsoi. The slugs have had a field day with my Asian greens this fall but these two have made it through relatively unscathed.


Finally, these Poblanos are undoubtedly the last peppers of the year. They're too small to roast and peel but will be tasting sliced and cooked in a stir-fry.

The fall growing season is just flying by. I can't wait to see what you all are harvesting this week!

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.

The Last Watermelon

The last watermelon of the year is by far the largest one. I only hope that there's enough warmth left to allow it to ripen in the coming weeks. The tendril closest to the melon is still looking pretty green. This yellow fleshed variety is called sunshine. Let's cross our fingers and hope for the best.

Mid-September Harvest

This week will officially mark the end of our summer growing season. Strangely and unlike years past, I'm actually looking forward to the fall and winter. Growing you own food teaches you many virtues, including patience, and the fact that there's a time for everything. As the colder and darker months approach, the garden will rest and I'll get to take a break from the daily chores associated with it. Maybe I'll even find the time and focus to work on that cookbook I've been neglecting. Maybe.

It's only appropriate that we should celebrate the end of summer by harvesting our one and only pumpkin. I hadn't planned on growing pumpkin this year but Jonathan suggested it during one of our many trips to the plant nursery. This will be the first time we get to carve a pumpkin we grew ourselves.

Also, I couldn't help thinking of the recent cantaloupe recall when I picked the last cantaloupe of the year.


This might also be the end of our tomatoes and cucumbers. We can't be too heartbroken because we've had a good harvest this year. I also picked most of our Poblano peppers, which are tasting quite hot. The long beans continue to produce even when the bush beans are long gone.


This is most definitely the last of our slicing tomatoes. The vines are screaming to be pulled up. Anyway, they were delicious in a BLT sandwich I made the other day.


Finally, I harvested the first of our fall bok choy yesterday and they are looking terrible. The slugs and cabbage worms are really active right now, much more so than last year. The delicate green parts of the leaves were too hole-y to eat, but fortunately for us, the white crunchy bits (my favorite part) are still flawless. Thank goodness for small miracles.

Labor Day Harvest

It's only fitting that I should celebrate this Labor day weekend by doing absolutely no gardening work. It 's not by choice of course. The mosquitoes are merciless right now, attacking in threes and fours and even during the mid-day hours. I'm already looking forward to the second fall frost (which takes care of the mosquitoes that aren't killed by the first fall frost).

I don't know what I'm gonna do with all of this opo. There are about a foot long and weigh around three pounds each. If I had Asian neighbors, I'd gladly share as opo does not have a very long shelf life.


The slicing tomatoes have slowed down but the paste tomatoes are still going strong. We've met our tomato needs for the year so I'll have to find a home for these.


I picked the last two acorn squash and two more watermelons this week.


The Yellow Sunshine watermelon was picked about a week too early. I have one left in the garden. Hopefully I can get it perfect with the last one.


The last Blacktail Mountain watermelon was the best. If I had waited any longer, it would been overripe.


Our small patch of fall raspberries are producing well in the second year despite the fact that half of the canes had succumb to the raspberry cane borer. We are getting a little bowl full each day.


Finally, we also harvested a few fun things this week including some sunflower seeds...


...and some decorative Indian corn. I wonder if they can pop them.

Late August Harvest

A few weeks ago I was speculating that we might not have planted enough tomatoes this year. Well, let's just say that I'm not feeling that way now.


I'm happy to say that we've now preserved enough tomato sauce, puree(for soup) and salsa to get us through the next 12 months. Sure we weren't able to give away as many tomatoes as I would have liked but 20 plants seem to be the magic number for us. More than that just creates more unnecessary work and would waste valuable growing space.


Our peppers have done really well this year, particularly the Hungarian Wax. I've been roasting, peeling and freezing all of them. I have a lot of Jalapeno peppers that I think I'll let turn red and then make hot sauce.


Before this weekend's storm arrived, I pulled the rest of my soy beans.


We ended up with a good haul of pods, which has since been frozen. Edamame is a great snack for kids because the steamed beans are so fun to shell and eat.


I also picked two of our Blacktail Mountain watermelons and acorn squash. The squash vine was practically dead from borers and powdering mildew.


The first watermelon I picked was good.

The second one I picked was GREAT!

Mid-August Bounty

This post is a bit late, but here is what we harvested in the past week. The tomatoes are finally starting to ripen in large numbers. This year I grew half as many plants as we did last year (forty), which in some ways is good since last summer at this time, it was quite stressful trying to keep up with the tomato harvest. However, this year I'm a bit worried that we may not have grown enough to get us by in sauce and salsa for the next twelve months. I may have to increase the number of plants for next year.


Speaking of tomatoes, my Gold Medal and Brandywine (Sudduth's Strain) vines are producing enormous fruit. It's not uncommon for a tomato plant to produce a couple of whoppers but in this case, most of them are pretty hefty. I'm a sucker for big ugly tomatoes.

As you can see, I have a few green paste tomatoes here as well. They were salvaged when the branch holding the cluster snapped.


I picked all of my Tongue of Fire beans this week. I've never cooked with fresh shell beans before. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know!


The last of our sweet corn. :(


Two delicious Athena cantaloupes. (On a side note, I bought two amazing Canary and Piel de Sapo melons from the market the other week. I saved some seeds to hopefully grow them next year.)


I must be growing a different variety of purple tomatilloes this year because these are almost jet black. I'm excited to make a batch of purple tomatillo salsa. The watermelon you see here was picked because a section of the stem attaching it to the vine had died off. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite ripe yet.


The last of the Spring-sown carrots and possibly the last of this year's artichokes. They will surely be missed.


Finally, the last of the spring-sown beets. It will be at least another month before the fall beets are ready to harvest.