I am obsessed with these colors. I harvested four more ears and they are the most beautiful jewel-tone colors.
All Posts by Sabine
Thai Hot Sauce
I finally harvested my Thai peppers today. I had one plant in a container on my back porch and it gave me two cups of hot peppers. Most of them were red, some (about a third of them total) still green. I cut off the entire plant and then picked the peppers to make hot sauce. I followed this recipe for Thai hot sauce but I lowered the amount of vinegar because I wanted it thicker. I also do not have a food mill, so it is just hot sauce, seeds and all. It is super spicy and I am looking forward to using it instead of store-bought Sriracha sauce and Chili garlic sauce.
Glass Gem Corn
I harvested my first glass gem corn today. I was hesitant as on paper they should be ready for harvest (it has been 120 days since I planted them), but the husks were still not as dry and papery as required. But I was not disappointed. Two of them had yellowish-brown husks and one a maroon/reddish husk. The reddish husk gave the most beautiful jewel-colored corn (see above). I am really happy with this little experiment.
October Harvest
Early October harvest: a couple of tomatoes, some green beans, the first glass gem corn (kind of a test to see whether it was ready to be harvested as the husks are not really dry and brown yet) and flowers: Zinnias, dahlias, Jerusalem artichokes and asparagus
Early Fall Garden
The tomatoes are winding down as are the green beans, of which I did not have many. The chard and kale are finally taking off and it looks as if there will be quite a few butternuts. The glass gem corn is not ready yet but should be in a couple of days. I am still getting so many flowers from my garden. And yes, I need to weed …
Porch Update
I planted basil on August 15, both on the porch and in the plot, and it is doing really well. All herbs are doing great. I also have glass gem corn growing and hot peppers (the jalapenos are now all harvested). Only a couple more tomatoes. The Fairy Tale eggplant sadly fell victim to Hurricane Ida.
This Year’s Garlic
Today, I finished the garlic preparation for the this year’s harvest. I cleaned and braided 26 softnecks (and had another 11 heads that were split or not braidable) and also cleaned and destemmed 26 hardnecks. So overall, I harvested 63 heads. That should last me well into next year. However, I just realized that I forgot to save the biggest heads for planting this fall, so I need to cut four large heads from the braid prematurely. I will also save the four largest hardnecks.
Fall Planting
While I was working in the garden this morning, a fellow gardener told me that today was National Sunflower Day. So, here is my contribution. I love sunflowers. This one is ten feet tall, so I can’t even pick them to bring home. It is all good as now the entire neighborhood gets to enjoy them this way.
I did some weeding and clearing today and transplanted a scraggly looking Kagran Summer head lettuce and some basil seedlings. I also sowed more fall greens, radishes and more pole beans.
The glass gem corn is flowering and looking great. The squash vines are all over the place and there are many flowers, but so far, I have not seen a fruit. The cucumbers are winding down, I pulled the vines from the pickling cukes, there is only the slicer left and I might get a few more fruit from the plant. I harvested a few carrots as well.
The tomatoes are still going very strong. The chard and kale are very short for some reason. Not sure whether they are shaded too much by the corn and tomatoes or whether they just had a slow start. I pulled the parsley as it was dying. Again.
Preserving – Thai Basil Pesto, Oven-Dried Tomatoes and Pickles
I have so many tomatoes, we cannot keep up with eating them raw. So, I slow-roasted two baking sheets of tomatoes for a few hours (at 325F, but that was too hot, so I reduced it to 250F) and then packed them in olive oil and stored them in the fridge for use in pasta sauces and on pizza.
I had a ton of Thai basil on my back porch and turned it into Thai basil peanut pesto. I served it over pan-seared trout last night for dinner. Delicious!
And I made more quick refrigerator pickles with the pickling cucumbers form the plot. Yum! The cucumbers are coming to an end, it seems.