Planting Bulbs

Tulip, grape hyacinth and Anemone blanda bulbs

Today I planted my garlic (2 rows hardneck – saved from my harvest in July – and 3 rows softneck – Inchelium Red from Johnny’s) in the community garden and flower bulbs in our front yard. I bought the bulbs a few weeks ago from K. van Bourgondien: two types of tulips (Blushing Apeldoorn and Ronaldo), grape hyacinths and Anemone blanda. Can’t wait for them to bloom in spring!

Garden Work Day

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

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.

Roasted Tomatoes

Before

I still have a lot of tomatoes coming in from my community plot. For tonight’s dinner, I slow-roasted some with minced home-grown garlic and fresh thyme (90 minutes at 300F). I then chopped the tomatoes and added them to sauteed (home-grown) shallots and (store-bought) crimini mushrooms. I served everything over penne pasta, topped with grated cheese and fresh basil. No photo of the final dish – it was gone to quickly.

After

End of September

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.