Saturday, August 31, 2013

Putting up Herbs for the Winter

Margaret Roach, A Way to Garden ... I've signed up for her gardening newsletter.

I enjoyed reading her article about freezing herbs:  http://awaytogarden.com/how-to-freeze-parsley-chives-and-other-herbs I always make a basic pesto to preserve the basil, zinging up the aromatic leaves with plenty of fresh garlic, ground black pepper and salt, with enough olive oil to make a thick paste. I freeze it in individual "blops", then transfer them to one big storage bag. I use it to flavor everything that tastes good with basil in it ... such as sauces and soups, stews and veggies, salad dressings, marinades, and herb butters.

When it came to preserving the fresh parsley I decided to follow Margaret Roach's suggestion: Freeze it  in a "log".

I washed the freshly cut greens. Cut the leaves from the stems. Dried them in the salad spinner. Packed the leaves into a tight roll at the bottom of a freezer bag. Squeezed out all air. Rolled the excess bag material around the herb pack and secured with rubber bands. Into the freezer it went, ready to be sliced as needed. Easy!


Friday, August 30, 2013

Organic Gardening Web Site

Here's a web site chockfull of good information, including a monthly zone-to-zone checklist of things to do in the garden:

http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow

Saturday, August 24, 2013

A beautiful weekend to start thinking about the fall garden

I sorted through my seed supply this morning. All is grouped appropriately again ... beans, peas, squash, root veggies, greens, etc. I wanted to see what I had available to plant right now, today.
The root vegetables and the greens are where it's at this time of year. I decided to sow some greens ... mixed beds using up the seeds I've got. If they don't germinate there's still time to try again!

One full bed:

  • Joi Choi Pac Choi
  • Black Summer Pac Choi
  • Yukina Savoy Asian Greens
  • Russian Kale
  • Braising Mix

One half bed of Kale varieties:

  • Toscano
  • Redbor
  • Smooth
  • Dwarf Blue Curled Scotch

Chives in the herb garden ...

... attract pollinators (for better or worse), look pretty, and provide long-lasting cut flowers.
Butterflies and Bugs visit the chive blooms

So pretty!

In context ... purple blooming oregano and lemon balm in foreground. 

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Peppers

The Hungarian wax peppers are prolific ...

The long cayenne peppers are starting to turn red ...


As are the jalapeƱos ...

Friday, August 16, 2013

Fall arrives sooner than you think!

The cukes and the melons are done for. I cleared their beds and threw out some lettuce seed.

  • Black-Seeded Simpson
  • Waldmann's Dark Green Lettuce
  • Mesclun Mix

The pink-eyed purple-hulled peas have been delicious! They're finished now. I pulled up the spent plants and replaced them with a bed full of Jade bush beans. Hoping to get another batch of green beans this year ...

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Marigolds and Sunflowers

Floral sunshine in the garden!
Marigolds

Sunflowers

Hope for Eggplant?

The eggplant has been looking bad. The flea beetles have been relentless in their attack. Rouse the Spouse has been attacking back by manually putting the pinch on them. It's paying off. We have one baby eggplant forming, and the promise of another in that lovely bloom!

Cukes and Melons are Now Past Tense

A week away on vacation allowed bad bugs to get a foothold in the cucumbers and melons. The bug invasion proved to be the beginning of the end. Luckily, I had a good yield of cucumbers early on, but the melons were affected before they fully ripened. The green, lush pre-vacation vines were turning brown at the time of my homecoming. There was no recovering from that point. Here's what the beds looked like this morning. What you can't see is the continued presence of those stinky bugs in the plant detritus!
The beds are now cleaned out and ready for fall crops.

Monday, August 5, 2013

What's on the menu these days?

Pole beans, bush beans, pink-eyed purple-hulled cow peas (love those Southern peas!), okra, peppers, cherry tomatoes, blueberries ... amongst the brown-eyed Susans.

P

Peppers & Okra



  • The Lunchbox Red snack peppers are remarkably sweet and flavorful. I've been adding them to the refrigerator pickle jar and to cucumber/tomato salads.
  • I think I picked the big green peppers too early. Left to partially or fully ripen to red, the Carmen sweet, Italian frying peppers (of the "bull's horn" type) are reputed to have a lovely, sweet taste for salads and roasting. I picked these because I had one big green one go bad on the plant and thought I had left it too long. It helps to go back to the catalog and review product descriptions. 
  • The Jalafuego jalapeƱos are high yielding and resistant to cracking. Aren't they pretty? I've been chopping them into cornbread and grits, or cutting them in half, filling with a variety of cheeses, and broiling for a tasty snack or appetizer. 
  • The okra is just plain delicious! SautĆ©ed, fried, steamed, pickled ....