Harvest Monday: Slowing Down

Sunday was my first visit to the garden in almost two weeks, and after we had 4.5 days of horrible rain. My rain gauge was almost overflowing! I felt bad for neglecting my plot and was not sure what condition the plants would be in. I had to pull out my popping corn that had gotten totally devastated by...squirrels? Otherwise, left growing are: tomatoes, basil, peppers, watermelon, eggplant, butternut squash, carrots & potatoes. The butternut squash look great! I have about 5 that are almost ready! Yumm, I can just taste the soups!!

I harvested a few cherry tomatoes, one Roma, lots of short n' sweet carrots and two Italian Pepperocini peppers. In addition, I pulled some of the seeds out of the dried pole beans, hoping to save them for next year!

a small harvest 8/29/30

Black-seeded Blue Lake Snap Pole Bean seeds

Clean Garlic

I am back...and I finally got around to cleaning my cured garlic!! I harvested it back in mid-July, so it had been curing for a good month! Since I used some of the garlic heads/cloves immediately, I now have 11 nice looking heads for storage, which I hope will keep into the winter.

Organic German White Garlic, hardneck

A while back I saw this article on thekitchn.com about onion storage and vegetable keepers. I thought these three bags were great, as I was trying to think about what I would do with all the garlic and potatoes I was going to get from my garden! However, time passed and they stayed on my "wish list." Fast forward a few weeks when I had to go to Crate & Barrel to get a wedding shower gift for a friend. I was just going to get her the kitchen composter that she registered for but next to the composter on display were...the storage bags! I had forgotten that Crate & Barrel carried the garlic & potato bags! So, I decided to get one of each for the bride-to-be...and one of each for me!!

my new storage bags!

cute images on the bags

Harvest Monday: Watermelon!!

I have to confess, I am not a die-hard watermelon fan. However, in my quest like more things, I figured that growing one would help! I picked my first Sugar Baby watermelon today, with one still left in the garden. It was definitely the sweetest and most flavorful one I have ever had!

Additional harvested items include lots of tomatoes and basil (small varieties not shown). The dry, hot weather and my inconsistent watering are taking a toll on my large tomatoes, where they have developed many cracks. However, I am just happy to have so many this year. Last year, my plants did not produce as many and critters always selected the ripest ones to munch on right before harvesting!

My Green Zebra variety is being very neglected. The fruit are so hard to see within all the greenery from neighboring tomato plants, that I keep leaving them too long on the vine. I have to make a more conscience effort to look for them since they are not as easy to spot as the red ones.

Green beans were plentiful, along with some of the last pickling cucumbers. I harvested my first red Giant Marconi pepper and four small Italian Pepperoncini.

It is sad to see signs that the garden is slowing down, but so am I. Sunflowers were pulled and the weeds are starting to win. However, I still have a lot to look forward to...like potatoes (fingers crossed) and butternut squash!

A crooked garden overview, 8/8/10

Harvest Monday: Color Diversity

The beautiful summer weather has been keeping away from blogging, but the veggies continue to come in! I had a great harvest yesterday with lots of tomatoes, green beans and carrots!

Movie: Ingredients

The Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, MA is screening Ingredients, a documentary about the local food movement in the United States, on Thursday, July 29th at 7pm.

The Mutant Sunflower

Welcome thyme2garden! Good luck with your SFG!

Last year I planted ONE dwarf sunflower. I guess I was afraid to go overboard. This year I am growing the same variety (actually using leftover seeds), but planted SIX! Ooooh...Ahhhhh! The seedlings barely survived because something was eating them and I feel like they have taken forever to grow. Planted in April, they are now just getting to be about maximum height (3-4 feet) with the sunflower heads starting to form.

Anyway, the other day I was taking a quick scan of the garden and noticed that one sunflower was "not like the other"...

I lost count at 15 heads (some of which are indicated above)! None of the other sunflowers are as tall as this one or has this 'problem.' I wonder if I got a rouge seed of another variety!? Will they all form heads with seeds?

Stay tuned to see what happens!

Red Silk?

Is this normal? As much as I know about gardening, I know way less about growing corn. Overall my two corn varieties appear to be doing well, and started to get tassels, especially the Brocade Sweet Corn. I noticed the first silks starting to appear last Sunday, but then on Tuesday, the were all red! I had assumed that they would stay white/yellow, as you find them on the ears of corn in the grocery store!

The male tassels have red pollen, so does this mean that the silks have gotten pollinated? I hope so!

Acting like Mr. McGregor

This is "peter rabbit" outside my garden gate....

This is "peter rabbit" inside my garden plot before I chased him away!

He/she was quite cute and not too phased by anything until I started chasing it around! This is the first rabbit I have seen in the garden. I hope he/she stays out!! No munching on my veggies "peter rabbit"!!

Coleslaw

I love coleslaw..even the kind you get in restaurants! However, the kind that I grew up with was made with pineapple, and without vinegar! It adds a great sweetness and soft contrast to the crunch of the cabbage and carrots! Now that I think of it, I am not sure where this recipe came from, but I feel that it is unique enough to call it Saumsiegle Coleslaw, since my family has been making it for as long as I can remember!

Coleslaw made with first Market Prize Cabbage of 2010

Saumsiegle Coleslaw
~1 head of cabbage
~About 3-5 carrots (enough to balance out the amount of cabbage)
~canned pineapple, chunks or 'tidbits' (i tend to buy the rings and cut them to 'tidbit' size)
~miracle whip

Cut cabbage and carrots. Combine in bowl. Drain canned pineapple and dump in bowl. Add miracle whip until ingredients are coated (to your liking). Enjoy!

Harvest Monday: Lots of Garlic

I had a great harvest yesterday! The biggest news, is that after almost 9 months, I harvested my garlic! My pickling cucumbers, sunsugar tomatoes and sungold tomatoes are producing really well. My sugar snap peas are almost exhausted, as the plants are starting to die back. Growing impatient, I picked a few carrots. They were tasty, but all very small. My cabbages are almost all ready, so I picked the largest one...coleslaw is on the menu for this weeks' meals!

I now have 11 heads curing for future use. About six heads had various problems with them, however I am hoping to use a few of their cloves in the near future. Overall, I am very happy with my first garlic harvest. The bulbs averaged about 2" around, pretty close to the size of the original heads of the cloves I planted in November.