Category: Vegetables

Squash

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Yesterday, I harvested four more squash. They now cure in our back hallway. The night before – a very rainy and windy Sunday that my poor 17-year-old daughter spent outdoors at the last rowing regatta of the season on the Merrimack river – I had roasted three of the five previously harvested squash and turned half of the roasted pulp into a very tasty butternut squash soup with fried sage and cheese, adapted from this recipe. The soup was the perfect ending to a wet and raw day. I froze the other half of the pulp for future use.

All in all, I have harvested nine butternut squash so far. They weighed in at a total of 21 pounds and 15 ounces. I gave two of them to my neighbor and five are still on the vine – a total of 14.

Brushed with olive oil and stuffed with thyme and sage
Roasted at 425F for 40 minutes
Dinner is served

Garden Work Day

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Fall bouquet – dahlia, Jerusalem artichokes, parsley flower, pokeweed

We had our fall work day in the community garden this past Saturday. We mostly weeded, cleaned and got the garden ready for winter. There was a big patch of Jerusalem artichokes in the flower bed we adopted and we needed to take them out. Some of them came home with me and made it into this small bouquet.

Parsley
These are the last green beans. (The bell peppers and the black hot peppers are from another gardener’s plot who recently moved away)

Fall in the Garden

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I went to the garden late this afternoon and harvested 10 oz. of green beans, 4 butternut squash (10 lb. 14 oz. total), a big handful of Swiss chard and the last dahlia. I only took the squash that had brown stems, the remaining 9 (!) still have green stems, so they might grow and ripen a bit more. I need to carefully watch the night temperatures though.

End of September

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I watered the garden this morning and harvested 2 pounds of green beans and a handful of tomatoes.

The plot is looking pretty good. The beans are still growing strong, I have twelve butternut squashes going, and a jungle of Swiss chard. Still some tomatoes. Sadly, only one dahlia came up, and the leeks are still small for the most part (too much shade from the chard). The fall greens are being eaten by flea beetles, they have tons of tiny holes in the leaves.

Vandalism

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Today’s harvest

Good news first: I harvested more green beans, which will be part of dinner tonight together with the ones I harvested a couple of days ago.

Bad news: our community garden was vandalized last night by a drunk/high person. I talked to neighbors from across the street who saw the man hurling the lids of our compost bins around, confronted him and called the police. The officers questioned him but let him go whereupon he continued to destroy our garden. Several plots were damaged, mostly by destroying trellises and tomato cages, tall plants were snapped, our (very heavy) table in the patio area was toppled as was the water barrel.

I filed a report with the police. They promised to send more patrols into the area over the next few days. I hope this was an isolated incident.

Destroyed tomato plants
More destruction
Destroyed tomato cage

Beans

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I harvested my first green beans today. I had sowed them very late this season but they came in great and with the warm weather forecast for the next week or so, I should have plenty to harvest.

I also made another veggie/herb/flower bouquet: dahlia, (bolted) purple lettuce, dill and lavender:

I love this type of dahlia. The colors are amazing. When the flower is still closed it is a beautiful shade of salmon pink. When it opens, the inside of the petals is almost neon yellow with a slight greenish tint. It then becomes lighter and turns into a cream color as the flower starts to fade. I wish I remembered the name.