Late Summer

I love this time of the summer. Everything seems so full of life, rich with flavor. Tomatoes and peppers are heavy on the plants. Melons and pumpkins are so big you have to find alternate routes through the garden. Sunflowers are blooming and going to seed welcoming different birds to enjoy a nutitious snack. 

Not all the plants in the garden are in their prime at this time of year, however. I have said goodbye to the snow peas. The greens are long gone. Cabbage has been harvested and eaten. Potatoes and onions have been pulled and dried. All to make way for the next round of seedlings!

We have decided to can beets and carrots, so there are tons of little beet sprouts working their way up right now, and the carrots should pop up any time! Greens will be back on the menu in a while. A few different brassica will also be making a comeback in our garden. 

Here is to another round of veggies!

Breaking Ground

It was a long winter. I am sure you have not heard that this spring! The good news is that we have actually had spring this year. Last year we got ripped off and went from winter to summer. 50 something and rain is actually spring. May is a bit late for that, but at least we have gotten some rain this spring.

I started writing this in May last year after a winter of many snow storms. A lot has happened since then, so I will give some of the high lights because I have no idea what I was actually going to say that day!

Last spring rolled around and we put a fence up. We put straw bales out and topped them with garden compost from a local nursery. We had lots of plants started inside. We experimented with different ways to sprout. We used peat pots, cardboard egg cartons and toilet paper tubes.

The idea was that they could just go right out into the garden when it was time, pot and all.  We found that that was not the best method for many of our plants since they needed to grow more than the tiny pots allowed. The other  problem was that the roots did not grow through the peat pots as easily as I expected, causing them to get a slow start once they got out in the garden.

Despite a slow start, our garden grew big, looked nice, and supplied us with a bountiful harvest on a regular basis through the season.

I got some things in the freezer, like blanched tomatoes and pumpkin puree. This coming summer/fall I WILL be canning though.

Tomatoes! notice the chilis hanging by the window?

It is February now, so it's basically Spring, right?!

Green is the Color

Usually green is associated with Spring, but in this case it is my garden's theme for Autumn.  When I saw that the night time temperatures were in the 30's and that there was a frost advisory the other night, I decided it was time to gather my last harvest.  

Not a bad harvest considering my tomato crop really did not come on strong until late August.  The tomato plants spent the hot summer just trying to survive.  They struggled with minimal light and I realized that that I did not plant them deep enough.  As a result, they were not able to reach deep enough to find water when I (on occasion) did not have time to water.  At least there was coco chip mulch to hold the water when it did get watered.

This tomato plant got so big.  It really took off as the hot dry summer faded.  I could not find my twine to tie it up, so I just let it sprawl and take over.  It pretty much engulfed the poor little sweet red pepper.  I decided to let it go for two reasons.  Air filtration (because that's what plants do), and fried green tomatoes.  Since tomatoes just seemed to keep appearing I thought I would let them grow as long as the weather permitted.  So they grew bigger and bigger.

They are just beautiful.

 Too funny, I just realized there are 13 tomatoes!  Lucky 13?

 They will make a lovely fried green tomato dinner.  Maybe 2 dinners!  My husband and I have been looking forward to this for a while.

The pepper plants did not thrive as heartily as the tomatoes as the weather turned, but they did produce just a little something extra.

There are two small green peppers.  They have been the same size for about a month.  I guess the ground and night time temperatures have been too cool to encourage growth, but not cool enough to kill the peppers.

There were also two more baby banana peppers.  Unlike the sweet red peppers, these guys actually have made some growing progress in the last few weeks.  The two banana peppers I picked a few weeks ago (can be seen in this post) went into burritos.  yum.  These guys are half the size of the others though, so they might be a garnish if sorts, not sure just yet.

Last night my husband asked me if the little garden paid for itself, if it was worth the $$ investment.  I thought for a moment and told him probably not.  Though, the more I thought about it today, the more I think it might have come close to breaking even.  There was no really spectacular harvest, but the herbs alone more than paid for themselves.  Every time you buy a bundle of cilantro you could pay about the same for a plant that will produce more than what you just put in the produce bag at the grocery store.  It is true, jalapenos are very cheap, but if you can provide a plant with enough light, you will have reasonable success.  One of the things that made it valuable for me was that I could go out side and just grab a hand full of cilantro, a jalapeno, a bundle of fresh oregano, or mint and add it to what ever I was making.  It was the freshest produce I could hope for, and I did not even have to get in my car!  It was right there.

I would like to plant a fall crop in the future.  One with plants that actually like the cooler temperatures.  Do you have favorites to grow in the fall?

Happy Gardening

Petite Potatoes

My garden gave me a nice birthday surprise.

The potatoes I planted earlier in the summer died back, so after setting the tent out to dry (the weekend camping trip was rather soggy) I decided to get my fingers dirty and dig into the potato pot.

I was not sure what kind of gold nuggets I would find.  The plants were pretty short lived so I did not expect anything like the size of the potatoes in a grocery store.

Not a bad harvest.  Potatoes for a small pot of soup!

You can make fun of me for keeping the ones that are the size of peas if you want, but they will still be good in soup!

There is a nice turtle shell type of texture to the skins of these little guys.  I have no idea why that happened, but the skins do not seem extra thick, so I think all will be fine.

A nice birthday gift from the garden.