Saving the Harvest

What a long way the garden has come in one year, and how quickly a freeze can take most of it away. We wanted to make the most of all the goodies in the garden as the first freeze approached, which necessitated a  little creativity.

 We spent one evening harvesting all the basil after dark as we worried the first freeze was approaching. The entire house filled with the smell of basil as we removed the leaves, rinsed and pureed them, then made basil pucks with olive oil in cupcake tins. Although the first freeze ended up still being several weeks out, the basil was harvested in a better condition than it would have been following the cooler, cloudy weather. It also allowed us to focus on the vegetables crops when the next freeze approached...

In mid-December, we spend a weekend harvesting all our eggplant, peppers, and tomatoes, whether ripe or green. This photo shows the harvest after the first day. On day two, we added a few more big bowls of cherry tomatoes. Over the next week we turned over 52 cups of green tomatoes into pickled tomatoes, salsa, and my new favorite - green tomato pie! The eggplant made a super over-roasted baba ganoush.

The frozen water exploding from the stem of native frost weed is evidence of the first winter freeze

A hawk (juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk?) has become a frequent visitor from which we seek to keep the chickens safe

Reflections

A busy work schedule this summer made the days fly by. Then we had a great 2.5 week camping trip to the southwest. We came home to discover some of the largest veggies we've gotten from the garden - just beautiful - thanks to great care from mom and less frequent harvesting. I wanted to say that the veggies looked good enough to be store bought, but actually I think that degrades them a little bit.

Being back in the garden is so fulfilling for the soul - seeing the happy bob of the sunflowers in the breeze, discovering that our milkweed is feeding some hungry monarch butterflies, seeing the chickens happily scratching and bathing in the dirt, harvesting a big bowl of fresh salad greens, and discovering the first bluebonnets leaves in the wildflower meadow. We had a lot of success with our garden this year. As the first frost chances enter the weather forecast it will be sad to think of losing the riot of tomatoes, eggplant, and okra that have taken over the garden. But at the same time, it will be exciting to have the opportunity to regain space in which to feed the soil with compost and begin planning for next year. I wanted to take an updated panorama of the garden to compare its lushness to images of when we first created the garden. It's a jungle out there now!

It's hard to tell what's what in this panorama of the garden. It's become a little jungle during the mild summer.

A November harvest. Our salad greens include a variety of lettuces, endive, mint, stevia, cilantro, and dill.

An artfully prepared green tomato

Mole keeps an eye on the chickens

The birdhouse gourd took over the arbor and juniper trees

A $1 salvia cutting from a community garden puts on quite a show at last!

It is a hit with bees and butterflies, including the monarch 

The monarchs also find the milkweed

Only one type of lettuce took off in this bed. I thinned it by transplanting it throughout the bed in the rain. It is doing great! 

The cheery sunflowers were a bright spot (that took over beds and cascaded over paths) all summer long. This plant keeps the mulberry tree company, which has taken off since being planted

Dill, cilantro, beets, radishes, and kohlrabi are doing alright despite a bit too much shade on this bed

Our amazing sugar snap peas are back in bloom

A fancy grasshopper

Chick Uno is now Hen Uno, and w're expecting eggs soon

Ready for Flavor

This new addition to the garden is a lemongrass plant that we bought at the Madison, WI farmers market. Next spring we can divide it to create a border of lush grasses which is also an integral ingredient in Thai cooking. Harvest the stem at the soil line and crush or finely chop to steep in broths and sauces to add a wonderful lemon flavor!

Continuing to Grow

 For a long time, we have heard about a technique called hugelkultur, in which a raised bed is created by covering a pile of rotting wood with soil. The rotting logs are supposed to act like a sponge, holding more water in the soil, as well as providing housing for soil life and releasing nutrients for plant growth as they break down. We utilized this technique to create a nice, new home for our fall vegetable seeds. This bed had been cover-cropped with hairy vetch during the spring and fallow for the summer. The first step was to pile  some old stacked firewood into a depression on the downslope (right side in photo) side of the bed. Then a few longer trunk pieces were used to help support the soil of the raised bed. Then we seeded radish, carrot, and beets in a nice design throughout the bed and around an existing poke weed that planted itself into the garden and has pretty, deep purple berries.  Lettuce and turnip will be added in a few weeks.

A triangular planting of seeds creates more consistent vegetation coverage across the bed than rows do

Radishes beginning to sprout

Berries beginning to form on the poke weed, whose young leaves are edible  in the spring but poisonous otherwise

The Colors of Summer

Our typical harvest for the month of August has been some okra (whatever we catch before it gets too large and woody at which point we let it age to save seed for next year), eggplant, hot peppers, and a few cherry tomatoes, especially sun golds and blondkofpchen. It creates such a nice basket of bold colors.

Ripe Serranos are abundant

Mature okra pods

Eggplant ready to be harvested

A Taste of Fall

This Texas summer has been pretty kind to us. We suffered very few 100+ degree days and enjoyed rainfall at times. Already the morning air is cooler and the sun slants at a less intense angle. We have enjoyed many of our crops all summer long including peppers, okra, eggplants, a few cherry tomatoes, melons, and black-eyed peas both fresh and dry.

Already we have seeded some fall and even winter crops such as blue corn, broom corn, ornamental gourds, winter squashes, Armenian cucumbers, sugar snap peas, beans, dino kale, swiss chard, radishes, carrots, and beets. I never thought I'ld find myself looking forward to a change from the tastes of summer to those of winter. I can't wait for a salad of fresh garden greens which only the cooler weather can bring!

A few of the recent sites in the garden include:

Guacamole keeps an eye on the yard for us 

Okra pods left to make seeds for next year's crop would make a nice addition to a dried fall arrangment

The zinnias are amazing in their own beauty and ability to attract butterflies

Sunflowers, which grew up of their own accord, ensure that their offspring will do the same next year

Native pigeon berry ground cover, planted in April, shows off its striking fall berries

Native beautyberry, also planted in April, does the same

A newly created bed is seeded with the first of the winter crops

Blue corn tassels

Broom corn

A striking eggplant

Gourds climb quickly up the new trellis stretched between the old giant sunflowers

A climbing gourd tendril

A native rock rose displays both bold and subtle beauty

A Summer Delight: Fredericksburg Peaches (and some blackberries!)

Around these parts, it's not summer without some amazing Fredericksburg peaches. After being spoiled by Georgia peaches, we knew we also had to can some Texas peaches to enjoy throughout the year. For the first time, we ventured to a you-pick farm just outside Fredericksburg and harvested two great varieties: Red Globe (the best!) and Majestic. We were also fortunate to sneak in before the end of the blackberry season so we could secure some fruit for our wonderful blackberry and lavender jam.

Caught red-handed

Two half-bushels of fruit equals about 160 peaches!

kissing peaches

Where did you go? Lost in the peach tree

A sunflower field during the drive

Big and Little Peppers

One of my favorite flavors of the year, sweet and hot

A large red Carmen (our favorite), a large yellow Ringo, and a small orange Yummy along with some red Serranos

L + T...now that's sweet!

Saving the Tomato Harvest

Our first attempt to grow tomato plants seems a success. Our 31 plants produced a delicious array of flavorful and colorful tasting temptations. Our favorites are the Red Brandywine and most especially the Pink Brandywine. The Top Producer award goes to the Blondkopfchen, hands down. Our plants were covered in  fruit all season long. At one point our harvests began to take over the kitchen table. When my mom joked about having 500 tomatoes in the kitchen, I sat down to count each one. Despite having spent the morning preserving the multitude of cherry tomatoes by drying, freezing, and cooking, we still had 364 tomatoes in the kitchen!

364 tomatoes...and some onion and garlic

A closeup of our many heirlooms

Brandywine...start salivating

Frozen cherry tomato art...featuring the numerous Blondkopfchen

Little tomato ice cubes

Adapting the solar oven to dehydrate tomatoes