Garden thread
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Fresh Pacific Albacore on the grill -- away from the heat and with a whole bunch of smoke from chunks of cherry wood.
Fresh from the garden beets in the oven roasting away.
mmmmmm.
Filled the dehydrator earlier. Took nearly two hours. Pears take the longest; Bartlett pears take longer than the Asan pears. Core then peel then take out worms then slice. Got a few trays of Bartletts plus three with figs and one with prune plums. The plums are probably the quickest. Just slice open and pry apart; pull the pit. Figs are pretty easy too.
Mmmmmmm!7 -
Burp.2 -
I am taking the week off work. I cancelled a river trip permit, but decided to take some time for myself.
I planted fall peas about ten days ago. They are coming up.
I planted winter beets three times a week apart back in July. They're doing fine. There's a couple clumps of chard in that bed, too. And some calendula.
Today I cut back the flower stalks of the artichokes, and I added some more radish and spinach between the plants for fall.
The Asian Pears are getting ripe. They are the Chojuro variety.
Grapes are also ripe.
And it's time to start picking prune plums.
I have San Marzano tomatoes without blossom end rot. Well, some have it, but many do not. I did some pruning yesterday.
Sungold Cherry Tomatoes are also doing great.
I planted a Mystery Tomato. A couple actually. I'm looking forward to eating this one for sure!
Kale is still going strong.
Raspberries are now producing their second crop. This is on the new canes (floracanes). These will be the first crop (primacanes) next spring.
I would get figs if the damn starlings wouldn't eat them ALL just BEFORE they were ripe.
Wow! Amazing!1 -
Hmm, who'da thunk that 'garden' could be so fattening?!
Eggplant parmigiana, stuffed peppers, wild mushroom lasagna, homemade pasta sauce, fried green tomatoes, stuffed cabbage, sweet corn, homemade preserves and jellies...
On the bright side, my freezers and larder are full full full! But so am I!
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kshama2001 wrote: »girlwithcurls2 wrote: »I just picked beans yesterday. I have never grown them. I'm not sure why. Maybe because I find them to be a pain to pick? But wow. They are delicious! I had no idea that they would be ready so soon. I was watering and when I pushed the plants aside, beans revealed themselves! I'm pulling carrots, and the lettuce is pretty much done due to consistent heat. But lots of green tomatoes, so I'll have them to look forward to! Sadly, many berries were scorched in the intense heat a couple of weeks ago. Mostly marion and boysenberry, two favorites
I really like my purple pole beans for ease of picking - almost no bending over and the purple is ornamental as well as making them easier to pick. They turn greenish when cooking, but a less attractive green than regular bush beans. And the flavor is not quite as good. Nevertheless, I've been quite happy with them here, but next year when I am at Mom's where there is more room, I won't try to talk her out of her regular bush beans into pole beans.
I do recommend them highly for people who need to utilize vertical space.
https://www.burpee.com/bean-pole-purple-king-prod000595.html
I'm retracting the aspersions I cast on my pole bean's taste - now that I am blanching and freezing the bigger beans for Mom's dog, just eating the smaller (normal-sized) ones, and only cooking them 3-4 minutes, I am quite satisfied with the flavor of the beans and am eating them 1-2 per day.4 -
I was filling my dehydrator. Rather than fill with just one kind of fruit, I was working to conserve as much as I could as many things are getting ripe. Bartlett pears are in the fridge, but some are already ripening. So there's one tray of those. Then I figured some trays of prune plums and some of Asian pears. Well that happened. But when I went out to get the ladder to see about plums that were higher up in the tree, I knew the ladder was over by one of the fig trees.
I had already accepted that I wasn't going to get many more figs if any. Rains are about to start; they will rot. Once starlings find ripe ones, the whole tree usually gets devastated.
Well... there's two trays of figs now to accompany the three of prunes, two of Asian pears and one of Bartlett pears.
Those darker ones are bigger than tennis balls.6 -
I planted a sweet banana pepper plant along with my other pepper plants for the first time this year. I got exactly one banana pepper. 😑
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I have a ridiculous number of red Spanish chili peppers coming in and haven't Clue One of what to do with them. I use maaaybee 3 each week and am currently harvesting about 30-40 every other day.0
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Borrowed my neighbor's orchard ladder again and picked all the Asian pears and plums that were out of reach. There were six gallons of pears and there are still more on the tree.
One of the two-gallon buckets got emptied at a neighbor's house. Most of another one went to another neighbor. She had told me a week or so ago she wanted plums; never said anything about pears. Took some anyway; she was home and took eighteen of 'em.
Only got two gallons of plums. Still more on the tree. There are still four or five quarts of prunes left from last year so the focus will be processing the pears and figs. Any room left in the dehydrator after the pears are done might get prunes. They're Italian prune plums and are SO good. I made a care package for that neighbor. Other neighbor decided to pass on the plums.
The basket was a nice presentation. She knows there's more if she wants. She sent a text that her brother who just arrived for a visit loves 'em and had never had one before. Go figure.
OK. My break is over; time to process fruit.
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Also some Interlaken seedless green grapes.4 -
@mtaratoot what a great neighbor you are! Our neighborhood often has boxes of fruits or veggies for free at the bottom of people's driveways. Lots of fruit trees around me, and often different than mine! I love knowing that the stuff isn't going to waste. What a gorgeous harvest you have!!3
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girlwithcurls2 wrote: »@mtaratoot what a great neighbor you are! Our neighborhood often has boxes of fruits or veggies for free at the bottom of people's driveways. Lots of fruit trees around me, and often different than mine! I love knowing that the stuff isn't going to waste. What a gorgeous harvest you have!!
We have a great neighborhood. We share things from our gardens. A couple of us trade fermented cabbage back and forth. We share/trade garden starts. We share baked goods. We sometimes even hang out and just enjoy each other's company. Sometimes we even go paddling together.4 -
The Interlaken grapes I put in the dehydrator FINALLY dried enough to be called raisins. I was really surprised how sweet they were. They are sweeter than sugar. Today I took the day off work. Among other things, I decided to harvest a bunch of grapes and process them into the dehydrator.
I picked a two gallon bucket full pretty quickly. I took it around, as you guessed, no a neighbor. He took about a gallon and started putting them in HIS dehydrator. I came home and used the rest. I went out and quickly harvested another two gallons. They filled more dehydrator trays, although I did set aside some of the best looking bunches to eat fresh. I filled that bucket a third time. That got me about halfway down the grape vine trellis.
So I now have eight trays totally full of grapes. It will take over two days in the dehydrator before they are raisins. That means I don't have to process fruit for a couple days. But.... I also picked about a gallon of figs. There's no place for them to go! Oh well. I guess it's time to take another walk through the neighborhood.3 -
Rain is coming. Did some tidying up.
Went out and harvested another crahp tonne of San Marzano tomatoes. Spent a fair bit of time pruning up what's left of the tomato plants so they don't just rot in the rain. Took off a whole lot of leaves, especially down low. Anything shaded? Gone. Left things thin enough so it could get airflow and so the plants in the next bed over aren't in a humidifier.
I didn't harvest any fruit. The Interlaken grapes I put in the dehydrator on Friday are still grapes. Maybe they will be raisins by morning, or at least afternoon. I'd like to get another batch in, and I'd also like to dry some tomatoes. I probably could make a few trays with the last of the Asian pears, but they are so good fresh I don't want to stuff 'em all in the dehydrator. Not a bad problem to have.
Pulled the second to last batch of beets. The bed that currently has beets (not many) and tomatoes (not long for viability) will be turned into the garlic bed in the next few weeks. SO MANY tomatoes on the vines, I want them to get at least pink before I yank 'em. I might pickle some green ones, but if they have any ripeness at all, I can finish them inside. But there's already so many.
Like I said - not a bad problem to have.
Enjoying the crisp fall air. Paddled Waldo Lake yesterday. Always great. Guess what I took for lunch? Grapes, figs, and prunes.1 -
nilhilreich1945 wrote: »a raised bed would benefit me from the groundhogs but garlic easily keeps them at bay.
trying to find a solution for these tiny white microscopic flies who chew holes.thru my.kale tho:/
going to add butternut squash next year
but this was a perfect year for kale.
Have you tried neem oil?
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The fall raspberries are looking good. Tasting good, too!
The patch of winter beets might actually grow big enough that I'll get to eat some. I've slowly moved up the planting date; I always fail. This year I planted a few rows each week for three weeks the first three weeks in July to help dial in my scheme for future years. I love beets.
The artichokes are leafing out again. Most likely they will die back over winter then sprout back in spring. Mmmmm.
The sugar snap peas are climbing along. Here's hoping I got them in early enough that they'll give me peas soon. If I had planted them any earlier, they would have scorched in the heat. Experiment in progress. There's some spinach plants nearby that made really tasty meals for some damn slugs.
Still a few tomatoes left. I've pruned out the leaves to increase air flow. In a week, I'll harvest whatever is left and bring the fruit in to ripen. I need to get my garlic in that bed!
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