I went back to the garden in the afternoon to weed and to fix the garden hose. I pulled some onions and picked a pepper. One squash ripped off its vine so I bought it home. There is so much squash! …
… and the chard is so pretty in the afternoon light:
The tomatoes will be used for sandwiches and in a succotash for dinner tonight. The Swiss chard will go into this orzo with caramelized fall vegetables tomorrow night. The peppers will be part of a chili planned for early next week.
The tomatoes are winding down, sadly. Still tons of chard, green beans, cauliflower, a couple of cucumbers, leeks, onions and a whole squash patch. And the fall greens are coming up. The carrots not so much.
This morning, I spent an hour in the garden weeding and harvesting. My plan was to harvest the potatoes but alas, I got only a handful of small fingerlings. Most of the potatoes I had planted never became a plant and I suspect those pill bugs that are so abundant in my soil are responsible :(. This is the second year of no potatoes and I think I will not plant any next year. Very sad as I was looking forward to some roasted fingerlings.
I did however harvest some huge cucumbers, a bunch of tomatoes and my golden beets.
Some things to look forward to:
Today, I cleaned my cured garlic and braided some of the softnecks into a garlic braid. A few softneck heads were kind of softish and had brown areas and the cloves had separated. Those were not braided and I plan to use them up first (I have been using them since the harvest a few weeks ago).
Overall I harvested 16 heads of hardneck garlic and 18 heads of softnecks. Not bad but I was hoping for a few more. The braid now hangs in my pantry.
This is what I came home to after ten days vacation (my community garden neighbors watered the plot and harvested some of the veggies). Slicing cucumbers, pickling cucumbers, tomatoes, chard, eggplant, jalapenos. The bouquet is dahlia, asparagus, lemon balm, mint. It smells divine. I also picked some parsley for the eggplant dish I have planned for tonight.
Forgot to post a quick weeknight dinner I made a few days ago. Pasta with roasted tomatoes, kale, chard and sausage. All veggies (tomatoes, garlic, kale, chard) are from the garden plot, the rosemary comes from my back porch.
The squash vine is everywhere. I will have at least five butternut squashes from what I can tell. The Swiss Chard is doing well (has some leafminer damage though), the cauliflower is “fruiting”, the tomatoes are blushing and the cucumber plants are providing . The beans came up nicely, I will need to stake the pole beans very soon. I planted the beans late because I wanted them to be ready for harvest after I come back from my trip in August. The first dahlias are starting to open.
