
The last dahlias of the season (perhaps).
I still need to plant garlic, dig up my dahlia tubers and clean my plot to get it ready for the winter. Hopefully I will get to it this weekend or next week.
The last dahlias of the season (perhaps).
I still need to plant garlic, dig up my dahlia tubers and clean my plot to get it ready for the winter. Hopefully I will get to it this weekend or next week.
I spent some time at City Natives this chilly early fall morning, harvesting most of the produce and cleaning out all the raised vegetable beds. The beds will be demolished and the entire garden will be restructured and rearranged. We hauled in hot peppers, eggplant, rutabagas, red Russian kale and parsley, and there was still a ton of callaloo and hot peppers left in the ground for a later harvest, both of them in the ground-level beds.
Edit (a few days after the harvest): Here is what I did with the vegetables in the kitchen. I cubed and roasted the rutabaga in olive oil in the oven for an hour at 400F, and finished it with a couple of tablespoons of butter and fresh parsley from the back porch. This made a very tasty side dish. I turned the parsley into chimichurri, which was served as a condiment to potato wedges and alongside sauteed chicken breasts. The kale became kale pesto, which was served over fettuccine. I also used the kale pesto as a condiment for sandwiches, which were piled with harissa-roasted green beans and a fried egg. I used the eggplants to make this delicious Chinese eggplant with garlic sauce, which I served over rice. The hot peppers went into a big pot of black bean chili. No complaints from the family.
The hot pepper plant is bearing fruit like crazy, at least two dozen little peppers (they are tiny and really hot and I do not remember the variety) but the plant itself is only about a foot and a half tall. Apparently the cucumber production is far from being over, a handful tomatoes are still ripening, and I have a ton of now bolted basil. Also still growing happily: leeks, carrots, radishes, arugula (albeit with some flea beetle damage but not nearly as bad as in the spring), fall greens, kale, Swiss chard. And said squash.
I need to weed the plot and take out the beans soon as they are winding down.
Dahlias and Virginia Creeper.
I also harvested milkweed seeds today, from three pods total that I found close to the Sam Adams Brewery. I plan to plant them in the neighborhood in the next few weeks.
Milkweed seeds.
Still going strong: leeks and carrots. Also still some cucumbers, eggplants, hot peppers and green beans. And the arugula, chard, kale, fall greens and radishes I sowed a little while ago are looking good.
Here are some recipes I made recently that used home-grown garden produce: roasted green beans with harissa, baked eggplant with garlic and basil, roasted cod with potatoes and green beans, Greek salad, pesto potato salad with green beans, Pico de Gallo, Swiss chard frittata.
The cucumber vine has started to wither. There is a couple more cucumbers still but I am not sure if they will make it. Well, we had a good run for sure. Still growing: tomatoes (winding down), pole beans, eggplant, chard, kale, carrots, leeks, hot peppers, greens, radish, arugula. The last three were just sown a couple of weeks ago, so they are not ready for harvest just yet. I also still have my directly sowed butternut squash. It looks great and has plenty of flowers, but I believe it is too late in the season for it to bear fruit. Alas.
I ordered seed garlic this past weekend: softneck Transsylvania from Burpee. I decided to save a few of my biggest Red Russian heads for planting. This will not happen until late October/early November. I also ordered a ton of bulbs and perennials for fall planting for our front yard (tulips, crocuses, black-eyed Susan).
Today’s produce harvested other than basil. (My first red dahlia is finally blooming!)