So much for King Philip corn being more rodent resistant :(. I still have a few ears growing. The mice/rats only ate ears with partially exposed kernels. I hope they will leave the other ones alone. The glass gem corn is (still) untouched. Fingers crossed.
My corn is not yet ready for harvest but I am very excited about the King Philip corn I planted this year. It is a historic Wampanoag flint corn native to New England (named after the Wampanoag chief Metacom who adopted the name King Philip) and has copper-colored, reddish kernels. Flint corn has a hard outer layer around each kernel (protecting it from rodents) and is mostly used for coarse corn meal. It can also be dried and used for popcorn. In addition to King Philip corn, I grew glass gem corn again this year. While mostly used for decoration, glass gem corn can also be ground into meal or popped for snacking.
My Kentucky Wonder green beans have been taking off. I love having beans this late in the season. They grow slower now that the days are shorter and cooler meaning that I can harvest more at the same time (as opposed to a handful every day in the height of summer, which I find less useful in terms of using them to cook). The flowers also are finally in a really good place, which makes me happy as I now will have flowers until the first frost. This is the perk of getting a late start this season, ha! (The beans were planted in mid-July. On purpose.)
It has been a stellar year for tomatoes so far. I am having friends over tonight to help me eat them, and we are having a neighborhood block party tomorrow, for which I plan to bring a fattoush that will feature some of the cherry tomatoes (plus the parsley and mint) I harvested today. In addition to the tomatoes, I have four or five zucchinis that need to be eaten, so on the menu tonight is an antipasti board (including Caprese skewers and sauteed zucchini), a zucchini/(home-made) basil pesto/goat cheese pizza and a tomato salad with peaches, pesto and whipped feta.
Over the past few days I have been preserving some of this summer’s harvest. I oven-dried tomatoes, and pickled cucumbers and peppers. My cucumber harvest this year was pathetic. I got about six cucumbers from as many plans. The tomatoes are very strong though. I guess it is the heat. The peppers are “Pickling Peppers”, a gift from Sand Hill Preservation Center, and I followed the instructions and pickled them. Looking forward to trying them in a few days.
Today, I processed this year’s garlic harvest. I cleaned all of the garlic, saved the three biggest heads of each soft necks and hard necks (in the very left of the picture), braided the soft necks into two braids (the smaller one to give as a gift) and placed the hard necks into a crock in the pantry to be used up before the soft necks. Seven heads are damaged and will be used up first (small bowl in the top right). Overall, I harvested 58 heads, 27 hard necks and 31 soft necks. The hard necks are Red Russian, and the soft necks are Transylvania.
I cleaned up the area where the garlic had been and sowed beets (Chiogga and Burpee Golden), two rows of fall greens and carrots (Coreless Amsterdam, Dragon Purple and Mokum). Coreless Amsterdam and Mokum are early carrots with 55 days to maturity, Dragon Purple is 70 days. I also sowed basil (among the tomatoes), a row of cilantro (between the leeks and the flowers) and Black Seeded Simpson leaf lettuce (between the eggplant and the timber border). I top-dressed the tomatoes, squash and eggplant with cow manure and gave everything a good watering.
We are starting our next heat wave here in Boston, but I still went to the garden this morning to weed for two and a half hours. Long overdue. I had bought field hay to mulch two years ago, and the hay had seed heads. Now I have grass everywhere.
The summer garden has been somewhat disappointing this year so far. Other than tomatoes, not much is thriving. Zucchini died. Eggplants are a now-show. Cucumbers are a total fail; I got three “globes” and one decent-size one from six plants. I do think the heat is to blame, at least for the cucumbers. The kale and chard are very short for some reason. The winter squash is looking okay, I see many flowers but no fruit yet. But then again, I started the garden very late this year.
Yesterday, we had our first real rain in weeks. There was a big and beautiful thunderstorm moving through the area and everyone was celebrating. It is really scary how dry it has been.
My first Black Strawberry tomatoes are ripening. They are so beautiful. And very tasty.
