What's Growing

Now that the weather is cooler, I sure am savoring every bite from the garden. How I will miss all this fresh-picked produce. I am still considering making a hoop house over one of the raised beds. Hopefully I can pull it together by the first few hard frosts.

I've let my mustard go to seed. I hope to make some of my own fresh mustard once these seed pods start to dry.

Greens, peppers and garlic have so many possibilities. Sauteed up with some white beans pan fried – recipe idea courtesy of Heidi Swanson – yum.

I wanted peppers and boy, do I have peppers. My husband plans to make his own hot sauce with the cayenne.

Sweet Pimento Lipstick

Early Jalapeno Chile

Cayenne 'Ring-O-Fire'

Another stellar basil crop! I've been making lots of pesto and will make a huge batch to freeze for over winter. Pesto and sauteed cherry tomatoes topped with a little toasted pine nuts on baguettes make for a great appetizer.

Veronica Cauliflower is beginning to form.

I have a few soybeans to shell. I plan to make edamame and give a try at fermenting my own miso.

The tomatillos are sprawling all over the garden. I made a batch of fresh green salsa and salsa verde. I plan to make a really big batch of salsa verde to freeze for winter. Nothing will be better to warm us up on a snowy night than slow cooked organic pork (from a local farm), pulled then folded into warm corn tortillas and topped with salsa verde! We tried it the other night just to make sure ...

Quite a carrot crop this year. Delicious raw but also just in time for soup season and one-pot meals.

Dragon and Sunshine Mix Carrots

My parsnips never took off. Two seasons I have tried to plant them. I will be trying a different seed next year. I have planted new crops of lettuces, spinach, radishes, beets and carrots in one of the raised beds (that will hopefully be covered by that hoop house). Something new I am trying this year is a fall cover crop – green manure. Next month we'll see how these newly planted crops are doing. Until then I'll be "stocking up" on fresh produce as much as I can.

What's Growing

What's not growing in the potager this month is squash. I did manage to harvest a few patty pan squash and will grow this again with more diligence. If I had paid closer attention I might have been able to save it. The price for my blinding neglect? Squash vine borer. It is my first year growing squash. I haven't before since it is so readily available at the Amish farms, but I just love the flowers and rarely see the patty pan variety. Big heavy sigh – at least I enjoyed a few. May all this year's squash rest in peace.

Last month I complained that my lettuces were ridden with insect holes. This month I now know I have flea beetles. Next year I will plan to plant my greens in between rows of garlic – a natural repellent plant. On the sunny side, maybe these beetles will attract a toad – a natural predator.

I have just harvested the garlic and more beets. Lots of beets.

Garlic chives are also blooming now.

The tomatoes are turning red and it's a daily cherry tomato harvest.

I have to say that this year my favorite crop is the tomatillos although they are sprawling all over the ground. Next year I will have to grow them with support. Tonight it's black beans with tomatillo salsa.

I even have jalapeno peppers this year to add to my salsa! The sweet pimento lipstick peppers are looking good but should turn red at the tips. Same goes for the cayenne peppers.

The basil isn't affected by the flea beetles at all. This week we had fresh pesto for dinner.

The Scarlet Runner Beans are now producing. They and Exotic Love Vine are now twining along the roof of the rustic arbor, but still no flowers on the Love Vine. This year I planted a Trumpet Vine at the base of the arbor. With our short season I am running out of patience with annual vines. I want flowers!

What's Growing

Let's see what's growing in the potager this month ...

 

Most of the lettuce mixes can be clipped. Mustard greens, too. I am so ready for fresh greens from the garden!

Rainbow swiss chard, one of my favorites.

Sunflowers reaching for the sun.

Something new this year, chinese cabbage and horseradish.

Garlic scapes!

I have been enjoying these sauteed over pasta and rice, and in eggs.

I also enjoyed my first rhubarb harvest.

 

I found a wonderful Heidi Swanson recipe for strawberry rhubarb crumble that incorporates toasted pine nuts. Truly delicious.

 

Basil seedlings. I planted a generous patch with high hopes for another big batch of pesto like last year.

Another new addition, broccoli rabe. The taller ones I started early indoors.

I have a huge wave of calendula that came up from last year. Into the salads they go!

Royal burgundy bush beans and soy beans. I can't wait to try fresh edamame.

 

Scarlet runner beans so short and already flowering. They are not climbing the trellis as I had hoped.

The brandywine tomatoes are beginning to flower.

My peppers are actually growing! These are hot – cayenne, jalepeno and red chile.

Cauliflower veronica.

Brussel sprouts.

Scallop, or patty pan squash.

Snap peas (planted in late March).

I think I will have a crop of blueberries from the Bluecrop blueberry bush!

What's Growing

Still harvesting but I did not get together the hoop house I had planned ... it's pushed to early spring. AND there is a great plan for a cold frame in Fine Gardening magazine that I will be sure to keep and build - if you don't subscribe, the plan alone is worth the newsstand price.

I am afraid my days of fresh basil are over now that we have frosty nights BUT I did make a LOT of pesto. I love to saute a few fresh cherry tomatoes in olive oil to top off some pesto pasta but the cherries are starting to fall like the leaves. This is just a sampling of the pesto I made for the freezer. It should taste oh so good when it's snowing outside.

But on the bright side, it's soup making season! We usually make soup every Sunday. Along with a dutch oven beer bread recipe. (Add some pumpkin, flax and/or sunflower seeds to crank it up.) So, I have been harvesting carrots to use in soups ... butt crack carrots. Thankfully they don't taste like butt crack! They taste oh so sweet.

Butt Crack Carrot

And I pulled all the beets so I can plant the garlic. Mmmm beets. I always forget about beets until I eat them, and then I think why don't I eat beets more often? Hmmm? Here is the harvest and don't think I let those beet greens go to waste! I have been adding those to salads all summer long and I saved them to mix in with other greens.

All cleaned up and in the pot. These are a variety named jewel-toned so some are yellow-orange. Yum yum.

Not sure if I mentioned this before but a favorite way we like to prepare beets - large bulbs - is to make a little core in the top of a cleaned beet, insert a garlic clove, drizzle with olive oil and a sprinkle of sea salt, then wrap in tinfoil - grill (oh yeah), or bake. The smell alone is delicious.