End of August Accounting

It’s been a good gardening season. Things have gone so well, in fact, that we plugged in the extra freezer in the basement to keep the surplus produce. 

One evening's produce gathering

 The zucchini and yellow squash produced very well. That shouldn’t be a surprise. The over-abundance of zucchini has become a well-worn cliché but we haven’t really had much luck with summer squash over the last couple of years. Last year the yellow squash did not produce at all and we only got a few zucchinis. This year, so far, we’ve picked 14 yellow squash and 21 zucchinis.

Squash plants in early July

Yellow squash and zucchini

 A couple weeks ago I realized the squash had a pretty bad infestation of squash vine borers. The poor plants looked terrible but they were and are still producing fruit.

Squash vine borer damage

We have eaten a lot of squash so far and given some away but we had way more than could be eaten fresh. So, into the freezer they went. I diced up the squashes, blanched them in boiling water for 3 minutes, dunked them in ice water, drained them, and then spread them out on towel-lined cookie sheets. After giving the squash pieces some time to dry, I removed the towels and put the sheets in the freezer. The next day, I broke up the pieces of frozen squash with a wooden spoon and put them in quart size zipper-top freezer bags. There are now six full bags in the freezer and a half dozen squash still in the fridge.

Frozen zucchini ready to be bagged

I made a double batch of zucchini muffins for the freezer too.

The green beans are not doing as well as they did last year but I’ve still manage to put away a quart size freezer bag full of them. The chard, on the other hand, has been doing very well since I managed to head off the leaf borers. I’ve put three full quart bags away in the freezer so far.

So much lovely, leafy goodness!

The cucumbers have also been very productive. They are sneaky, however. I’ll look at a cucumber and decide it’s slightly on the small size and decide to wait a day or two before picking it. A day or two later, it’s gotten huge! Fortunately, these cucumbers, no matter what the size, make great pickles. I will admit that I’m a lazy pickler. I’m a fan of making small batches whenever it is convenient. I don’t want to heat up the house with the canner or risk getting limp pickles if I screw up the process. So, I make freezer pickles. They are so simple and are delicious. So far this season we’ve picked 37 cucumbers and made 11 ½-pint jars of dill pickles, 7 of sweet pickles, and 5 of bread and butter pickles. I’ll probably be making some more this week as the collection of cucumbers in the fridge are starting to add up again.

Cool as a cucumber and ready to be pickles

Six 1/2-pink jars of dill freezer pickles

We’ve done a little fridge pickling as well. The beets and watermelon radishes are doing fairly well this year. We didn’t plant that many of either. The radishes are great on sandwiches but we worried we wouldn’t go through them quickly enough in their raw form. The solution was fridge pickles. Since we were doing the radishes, I figured we could pickle a few beets as well. We picked just enough for two ½-pint jars of radishes and one of beets. The radishes are crunch and taste good but I will say that they leave a definite funk in the air.

Just a few beets and radishes

Quick fridge pickled beets and radishes

We did do one bit of unplanned preserving as well. Early on when we first moved into this house, my husband built a trellis for wild grapes that were growing behind the garage. Last year, they didn’t do much but this year they produced enough that I thought I’d see if I could make a little jelly. Well, it did turn out to be a little jelly – just a ½-pint jar and a smaller jelly jar – but it turned out really tasty. The tartness of the wild grapes is really wonderful; not at all like the standard store-bought grape jelly. I only had one cup of juice so it took a little mathing to get the pectin measurement right but I’m calling this experiment a success.

Lots of grapevines on the trellis

Bunches of wild grapes

Draining the juice from the cooked grapes

Mmm...jelly!

Guess Who was in the Garden Again

We had a house rabbit for many years. I should have known from that experience that rabbits do not give up easily. Yesterday morning when I looked out the window on my way down the stairs, as I do every morning, I saw a pair of ears in the garden. So, I rallied the troops (my husband), put on my barn boots, grabbed my camera and headed outside. You know that little break in the fence I mentioned before? Well, that was the spot where the rabbit chewed through the mesh fence to get into the garden. We knew that it could easily chew through the mesh if it wanted to but I didn't think it would make the effort. I guess I was wrong. It got out through the same hole after a brief panic among the raised beds. As soon as it was out of the garden it settled down maybe 20 feet away and started chomping on grass. Apparently once it was outside the fence the two perturbed humans were no longer a threat.

The rabbit peacefully snacking on greenery after being chased from the garden.

So, as the rabbit went about its business, I scanned the garden. Nothing was sampled or disturbed this time. I must have seen it right after it got through the fence. The way the rabbit was eating greens from the lawn it was obviously hungry but it didn’t touch anything in the garden. Maybe it just didn’t like what I have growing. Who knows? My husband grabbed some wood strips and the stapler and we repaired the hole in the fence. We’ll see if the rabbit tries again.

A perfect little bunny-sized hole nibbled through the mesh fence.

Hopefully the repairs will keep the tricky little bunny out.

After the quick emergency fence repair I harvested some spinach, more arugula and all the pak choi. It had rained the night before so the greens were gritty with dirt. I gave them all my standard triple rinse then ran them through the salad spinner.

The day’s harvest

I froze a lot of the pak choi. I chopped it up, blanched it two minutes in boiling water and then plunged it into ice water. After letting it dry off a bit on some paper towels, I packed it into a quart freezer bag. I also fridge-pickled some of it in a simple brine of 1 cup of white vinegar, ½ a cup of water, 1 tbsp. of sugar, ½ tbsp. of salt and some fennel seeds. I’ve never had pickled pak choi before. I’ll give it a week or so and then see what it tastes like.

Two pints of pickled pak choi

I’m going to use most of this round of arugula for my lunches this week but I also used some in a salad today. I mixed four servings of cooked and cooled pasta with a can of rinsed kidney beans and a couple good handfuls of chopped arugula. I dressed it with 1 ½ tbsp. of oil, 1 tbsp. of lemon juice and some salt and black pepper and then sprinkled some freshly grated parmesan cheese on top. It made a great light meal for a hot, humid day and all the subtle flavors worked really well together.

Mmm, pasta with fresh arugula and beans