Fall colors

Fall is my favorite season.  Things slow down a little at home.  We clean up the summer garden, tuck in the fall and winter plants, and enjoy the beautiful short days.

I'll use row cover only for at least the next week over the winter beds in order to avoid wilting the plants in the daytime sun.  Then, I'll add a layer of plastic over my PVC hoops.

Our Chard is beautiful as always in the fall and we have enough right now that I've called in my back up for help with the heavy lifting.

Our carrots are extra sweet now and we are lucky if we can hold off on snacking long enough to get the into our salads.

We're only having a little bit of fun raking up the leaves, some of which we will use to mulch beds before the cold winter.  

Homemade sweets

While we are serious veggie consumers in this household, I will not lie, we love a little sweet.
Above are 2 homemade syrups.
Left is mint simple syrup.  I am overrun in mint right now, but in a month I will be mourning the loss of the fresh stuff. I will take the leaves out after 24 hours and then store in the fridge.  This is a really nice addition to herbal tea during the cold of winter.
Right is homemade chocolate syrup.  We've been off the Hershey's for a year and never looked back because the homemade version is so tasty.  Thanks to Annie's Eats for the recipe.

After the Frost

I know what you're thinking...Drat, everything is dead.  Yes, some of the summer garden is finished after 2 nights in the mid 30 degree range, but not all is lost.

For example, this tomatillo patch was hit pretty hard by the frost and yes, the plants themselves are finished.  However, there's about 6 lbs of harvestable fruit here.  Give it the squeeze test.  Firm fruit that is normally colored is good to pick and eat.  Mushy fruit is frost damaged and should be headed to the compost pile.

I think about the first frost every year as a learning experience in regards to what's frost tolerant and even hardy.

The swiss chard is looking terrific and my progressive planting is coming right along.

All of the Brasicas including this Collard Green, are starting to perk up in the cooler weather.

This week, we will seed spinach, lettuces, parsnips, and radishes under row cover for fall and spring munching.  And so while I'm a little sad to see the peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, and zucchini go, I can't help but be happy for the change of seasons.

Cherry tomato tart.

Do you ever grow so many cherry tomatoes that you start to wonder what you're going to do with all of them?  Here's a simple and beautiful recipe.

1.  Take a 9x10 prepared puff pastry and roll to fit 9x13 quarter sheet pan.  Prick with fork all along bottom and cover with parchment then weight with dry beans or pie weights and cook in 375 degree F oven for about 15 min.

2.  Remove beans and parchment and sprinkle par cooked pastry with 1/4 cup grated parmesan and bake for another 5-10 min until cheese melted and just golden.  Take this out of the oven and let it start to cool.

3.  Then take 1.5 lbs of cherry tomatoes and add about 1 TBSP olive oil, salt, and pepper to taste on a sheet pan and put into the oven on broil for about 10 minutes, until tomatoes start to blister.  Shake pan and rotate as needed.

4.  While the tomatoes are working mix fresh herbs to amount to about 1/2 cup finely chopped green herbs.  I used 2 parts parsley, 1 part basil, 1/2 part chives 1/2 part fresh oregano.  Add 1 clove finely chopped garlic and a pinch of nutmeg and mix.

5.  When the tomatoes are soft and blistered, remove from pan with slotted spoon and place on pastry.  Then sprinkle herb mixture on top. Please back into 425 degree oven for about 5 min, just until everything is hot.

Remove from heat, let cool slightly.  Slice up and serve.  Delicious.
I'd recommend eating all of it on the day prepared because the pastry loses that nice crisp texture after the tomatoes sit on top for a day or 2.

Recipe adapted from Saveur.com

Garden Driven Eating

There is a lot of produce coming out of the garden right now.  Here is what we are growing and how we are cooking it up.

 Swiss Chard makes a great quesadilla filling when cooked down with onions and garlic.

 We have ample makings for salsa accompaniments.  And the grapes, we're pretty much snacking on these throughout the day.

Snowy eggplants are great for grilling.

Green beans.  We like to cook them simply with butter and garlic.

Pretty much all of our summer veg is in fill swing right now which is very satisfying.

Late July 2012

July has been a hot and overall a very dry month here.  My tomatoes, peppers, and melon family plants are growing like gang busters.  Here is an overview of the growth to date.

I've got mixed beds, as usual.

Cucumbers on left, Zucchinis on right.  I'm working pretty hard to tie the cucumber vines to the trellis.  So far, both seem pretty happy with this arrangement.

Here are peppers, basils, and Eggplants.  I've used this mix a few times before, but this is the best that it has looked.  I think that the heat has been helpful.

This bed was all lettuce 6 weeks ago but those have all bolted to seed and the Kales are going to town.  This is the first time that I have grown red Kale and I'm pretty happy about it as it is very tasty and super heat tolerant.  I'm leaving a few lettuces in place with the hope of spontaneous reseeding but plan to replant with fall greens in a month as well.

Celery.  This is a first for me.  Its in a bed that gets a little more shade and seems pretty happy.  I have 6 healthy looking plants intermixed with carrots and they seem to be growing well in close quarters.

Kohlrabi - tasty, heat tolerant, funky looking.  This is really the only of my brasicas that look remotely healthy.  I think that hot dry weather has taken its toll on the others.

Hopefully we'll have baskets of tomatoes soon...

Garlic Harvest

Our garlic harvest happened early this year.  I've been growing the same varieties for several years so I attribute this to the mild winter and early onset of summer weather.  Fortunately, All hands are on deck.

It turns out this is a pretty great garden activity for an almost 3 year old since it involves some brute force and not too much delicacy in handling.

 We'll let the soft neck garlic dry out a little today and braid them tonight.  I let my garlic cure hanging in my basement with a fan on.  This works here because the relative humidity in Utah is very low.

 We picked about 75 nicely sized heads of garlic with about 20 shallots and the last dozen leeks.  Give or take, this is about how much garlic we eat, replant, and gift during the year.

Also this weekend, more lettuce. Below is red oak leaf, Kweik butter, and Pirat butter on right with the last of the Arugula on the left.

 We're still eating lots of salads.

And we are quickly eating out way through a bed of French Breakfast radishes.  As usual, the French had it right.