The Garden Today

For weeks I've been meaning to write an update of the garden's progress, but I don't feel like I have much to report. The garden has been doing its thing with little interference from me. I've pulled some weeds, supported some vines, harvested some veggies, the usual. So, finally, for the sake of keeping a record, here is a general overview of how it grows.

Droopy pumpkin vines on the back fence. (left side)

The weather this season has been less than ideal but the plants are still soldiering on. Those in the squash family seem to be having a particularly tough time. They didn't like the soaking rains early on and now that it's turned hot and dry, they have a tendency to droop during the day. The leaves on the pumpkin vines were particularly limp this afternoon (see above), but they have set fruit (see below).
 

One of a few small pumpkins starting.

The zucchini have had a rough time of it. I put out two plants this spring and both died. When the first one died, I planted a few seeds in its place. When the second one died, I replaced it with a plant from the local grocery store. As of right now (knock on wood) both are doing okay. The plant from the directly sown seeds is actually starting to produce tiny zucchini. It feels like it's late, but I'll take it.

The first tiny zucchini.

The yellow squash are also struggling. One plant seems to be doing okay and has a teeny tiny little bitty squash started. The other is a wilted flattened sad specimen at the moment.

Poor sad little yellow squash.

While the cucumber plants also look overwhelmed by the heat, that has not kept them from making fruit like it's going out of style. We are deep into cucumber season - one of my favorite seasons of the year - with bags of them in the fridge and plans to start giving them away, maybe, if my 2-3 cucumber-a-day habit gets tiresome. 

So many cucumbers.

My husband and I joke that the only thing that loves the heat and humidity here in our river valley is the corn. Ours is no exception. I've never grown decorative corn before so I'm not sure what metrics I should be judging for its success. It was over knee high on the 4th of July, so that's something. It looks happy and we'll see how it goes.

A pretty little insect of some kind on the corn.

Corn and beans make fine neighbors.

Last year we planted the shell beans in the same bed as the corn and pumpkins. This year, with the smaller beds, the corn and beans became next-door neighbors with the pumpkins more down-the-street neighbors. As always, the rattlesnake and turtle beans are happily growing along with little-to-no trouble. The turtles are sending up more climbing vines than they have in the past. I just encouraged them to join the rattlesnakes on the trellis and all seem happy.  

Oh how I love happy beans.

Our other beans have not had such an easy time of it. I got a sack of tricolor beans this year - yellow, green, and purple - and planted the seeds so that I would have two plants of each type. Well, early in the season, something decided to come along and pull up all but one of the plants. I think it was a crow, or other bird. They weren't dug up or eaten, just plucked from the ground and laid on the dirt to wither and die. (sad, no?) I planted more seeds, unsure of which color had survived. The next round of seeds did grow, but not very well. The one plant from the original batch is now producing beans - green ones - and I've decided to be content with that. I'll still hope the others catch up too.

Our bed of Bright Lights chard.

As usual, the chard is one of the stars of the garden. I've only done one picking so far and made lovely chard, mushroom, and goat cheese tarts. I really have to get in there and harvest more. The more I pick, the more it'll produce and it freezes very well.

Experimental tomatoes.

When I was back in the planning phase of the garden last winter, I came across some Burpee direct sow tomato seeds. The promise was that, when planted directly in the garden just before the last frost date, the tomatoes would grow and produce at the same rate as tomatoes that had been started early inside. So, I thought I'd give it a try. I planted enough seeds directly in the garden to have two each of the cherry tomatoes and the beefsteak ones. One of the cherry tomato plants died about a month in but we were able to replace it in the garden bed with a mystery tomato plant growing out of the compost bin. The other tomato plants are doing very well and have started setting fruit. I haven't checked to see how that compares to tomatoes we have grown in years past but, so far, the experiment seems to be a success.

The first of the direct-sow beefsteaks.

I also planted some slightly experimental pepper plants. The experiment, or more properly, mystery, is that I don't know what color the peppers will be. The pack had four different types - red, orange, yellow, and purple. I'm hoping for a variety of colors but we're still in the waiting phase. At least I know that they are not ready to pick until they are no longer green.

One pepper waiting to reveal its final color.

I think that's all that's going on in the garden now. We harvested all the pak choi, arugula, and radishes. We got three garlic scapes that had turned woody before I picked them. Oh yeah! And our peas are currently making peas. 

As for my herb garden just outside my back door, it's exactly what I had hoped for. I can pop out the door, grab some herbs and barely miss a beat while I'm cooking. The deer sampled some of them early on but they bounced back. The dill had some sort of caterpillar infestation, so it's been stripped of nearly all its fronds and flowers. I did let a few rogue dill plants stay in the main garden, though, so I still have them for my recipes. Overall, I'm very pleased with my patio herbs.

My lovely herbs.

And all around the yard, the other plants and flowers are doing their thing. I'm happy to see that the mondarda and orange butterfly plants are still drawing in the bees. I'll have to do a separate update post about the wild seeds I planted over the winter. It's been a mixed bag with them. And then there's the Subaru tree to write about too. And an update on the luffa plants. I guess I do have some stories to tell still even as the garden plods along.

Bee being busy.

Enjoying the Vegetables of Our Labor

 Every evening after dinner, my husband and I go out to the garden. Nearly every single day since the end of June, we have picked something while there. Sometimes it was just a handful of snap peas. Other times, it filled that nice old square gathering basket we've had for years. It's been a lovely, steady stream of fresh produce filling our refrigerator. So, what have we done with our harvest?

The daily haul on July 27, 2024

Pak Choi

Our first bulk harvest in June was the pak choi. We cooked up most of the little greens with some butter beans (from a can), garlic, herbs, and a touch of vinegar to make a fairly hearty dish. A sprinkle of bacon bits really made it.

Beets

People either love or hate beets. I happen to love them. This year, I planted some beet seeds that have been sitting in my seed collection for several years. I wasn't sure if any would actually grow, but they did. The vast majority of the small crop were chioggia beets, which have lovely interior rings like a target. There were also two or three Detroit dark red beets in the mix. I picked them in two rounds. The first batch I cooked whole in our Instant Pot, skinned them, then sliced them up. I toasted a couple rounds of naan, spread a mix of mayonnaise and feta cheese on them, layered on the beet slices and sprinkled it all with fresh thyme. Sooooo good!

A couple weeks later, I picked the rest of the beets, Instant Pot-ed and peeled them again, then used them to make pickled beet eggs. The recipe is simple. I put 1cup of cider vinegar, 1 cup of water, half a cup of sugar, and a teaspoon of salt together in a pan and heated it until everything dissolved. I also sliced up the one and only Detroit beet and added it to the pan. The chioggia are a light pink color when cooked and I worried they wouldn't dye the eggs that beautiful fuchsia. I put six hard boiled eggs and the whole chioggia beets into a glass canning jar and poured the vinegar mixture on top. After a few days in the fridge, we pulled them out and had very tasty pickled beet eggs.

Eggs and beets ready to soak up that pickle-y goodness.

That color just three days later!

Green Beans

Actually, they're Royal Burgundy garden beans, but they cook up green. I really love these purple beans because of how well they grow and because they have a built-in cooking indicator - as soon as they turn from deep purple to a beautiful bright green, they are cooked just the right amount. No squishy, overcooked beans! 

My husband is not a huge fan of green beans, so I just had four plants this year. It was still enough for several lunches for me (and the plants are still making beans). One nice way to use them is in ramen. I put a pack of instant soy sauce flavored ramen noodle in a pan with the seasoning pack and enough water to cover the noodles. I then put whole trimmed purple beans around the edges of the noodles before turning on the stove. As the water starts to heat up, I crack a whole egg on top, then put on the lid and let it all come to a boil. As soon as it does, I stir up the egg to make sure it cooks all the way. Within another minute or two the noodles, egg, and beans are all cooked just right.

Green bean and egg ramen with a side of cucumbers and dill.

Cucumbers

For the last month, nearly every meal has had a side of cucumbers - and I love that! This year, I planted a mix of old Chicago Pickling cucumber and Garden Bush Pickle Hybrid cucumber seeds. I'm not sure which ones actually grew, but they are all lovely. I eat them dipped in hummus, swimming in a light vinegar brine as quick-pickles, and mixed with sour cream.

Cucumber slices with sour cream and dill looks a bit slimy but is very tasty.

I also diced them up in salads. For one salad, I used a bag of riced cauliflower as a base. I added diced cucumber, tomato, pepperoncini pepper, and avocado (not from our garden) and dressed it with a little oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper, and fresh flat leaf parsley. 

So cool and fresh on a hot summer day.

Honestly, most of the cucumbers were consumed straight from the fridge all on their own.

Mmmm. Crunchy.

Tomatoes

I didn't start my own tomato seed this year. Instead, I got a grape tomato and a Supersteak tomato plant from a small local garden center. Both have produced a prodigious amount of fruit, though they have been slow to ripen. This is a good thing, however, so we're not overwhelmed by tomatoes. Even so, the grape tomatoes have become a breakfast staple for me, slice up with cottage cheese and fresh chives. 

A breakfast of champions.

 The beefsteaks are perfect for slicing on sandwiches, and that is exactly what we've been doing with them. Toasted white bread, spread with a layer of mayonnaise, topped with thick slices of tomato, and sprinkled with chiffonaded basil. There is no better seasonal treat.

Summer on toast.

Herbs

I've tried to add fresh herbs to as much as I can this summer, which has become much easier since moving some of them from the garden to our new patio container garden. But what we can't use fresh needs to be preserved for the long dark winter. I've dried two rounds of herbs so far, with at least on more batch to be done later in the fall. I have also made pesto to put in the freezer. I went online and found a good basic recipe - 2 cups fresh basil leaves, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 1 small garlic clove, 1/4 teaspoon salt, black pepper to taste, 1/4 cup of oil, and 1/4 cup of grated Parmesan cheese (I don't bother with the pine nuts) - whipped up a batch and then carefully scooped it into a silicone ice cube tray. Each cube is about 1 1/2 tablespoons of pesto. Into the freezer it went. Once they set up, I popped the cubes out of the tray and put them into a sealed container back in the freezer.

One batch down, several more to go. We have A LOT of basil.

Squash

And finally, the squash and zucchini. I love them in so many ways - diced up and sauteed with garlic and herbs, sliced and coated in cornstarch then fried, layered in long slabs instead of noodles in lasagna (we haven't done that one yet because it's been so hot this summer!). A perennial favorite in our house this year has been to spiralize them into zoodles (or squoodles, I guess, depending on variety).  

Zoodles and squoodles together.

These thin-cut curling veggies can then be cooked and topped like spaghetti. I made a nice dish of the mixed yellow squash and zucchini noodles with sliced faux chicken cutlets and several blocks of our homemade pesto.

So creamy and fresh.

I'm going to be so sad when our harvest finally ends and we have to go back to flavorless off-season grocery store produce.

Our August Garden

My middle name is Augusta. Or at least it was until I got married many years ago and the Social Security Administration decided that I could only have one middle name so now my maiden name is my middle name. In my heart, it's still my middle name, though. It was a good choice for both sides of the family - my mother's maternal grandmother and my father's mother were both named Augusta. One would think that I would have some sort of special affinity for August because of my name but I don't. I actually didn't even think of the connection at all until this last week as I considered writing an update on our garden here. 

Anyhoo, the garden has been doing well. It's starting to remind me of an autumn garden, though. We had a cold snap last week that has me ready for fall. That may tint my view a bit but the garden is starting to peter out. It's been a couple of days now since we picked any cucumbers. That had been a half-dozen-a-day thing for a couple weeks. The plants are still setting fruit but they look like the last hoorah - tiny and super prickly. The leaves are starting to give up too.

The cucumbers' leaves are getting crunchy.

Overall, it's been a very fruitful season. There's never a huge amount of any one thing at a time, except for the cucumbers, but we've enjoyed a steady stream of fresh veggies. (Look for another post coming soon telling what we did with our produce.)

A little bit of this and a little bit of that.

The snap peas had a nice long run and are now providing support for some morning glories that seeded themselves from last year. 

It's fun seeing the peas and morning glories intertwining.

Underground, we had a nice daikon crop, which my husband pickled. We also had a handful of two different types of beets. They are all entirely finished now.

Just one of a dozen or so daikons.

Can't beet this!

On the topside, both the yellow squash and zucchini produced well. I would have liked more zucchini. Maybe because I like it so well, it didn't feel the need to overwhelm us, as is so cliche for zucchini. There are still a few small squash on the vine, so we'll probably get a couple more this season.

Yellow there!

Um...I can't think of another pun. It's a zucchini.

The tomatillos put on flowers like crazy but have only made a few fruits so far. The tomatoes, both beefsteak and grape, have put on fruit like crazy. They're just both taking their sweet time turning red. We've started bringing them in as soon as they start to blush so our lovely summer rainstorms don't make them explode before we can pick them. I think they still taste just a good (much better than store-bought, at least) when they ripen inside rather than out on the vine.

At least the tomatillo plant is pretty.

Tomatoes ripening inside...

...and more still waiting to go.

The Three Sisters bed has been doing it's thing mostly untouched all season. The rattlesnake beans grew well as always. They're just starting to dry on the vine now. Similarly, the turtle beans in a different bed put on tons of beans and are now slowly drying before we can shell them. The popcorn seems a bit odd, making two or three ears in the same spot. I've never grown it before, so maybe that's normal. I'm just glad that after being flattened during several thunderstorms, the stalks straightened right back up again. We're just waiting for it to all dry out now. The Long Pie pumpkin vine has woven its way happily between the corn stalks and up the bean trellis. We've picked two them already and there's a third still on the vine.

I love that shell beans are fairly self-sufficient.

I hope the popcorn is doing as it's supposed to. It looks nice.

Two Long Pie pumpkins curing in the dining room.

One more still hanging out.

I'm not sure if our One Too Many pumpkin plant is actually going to have time to do it's thing. The strong seedling we transplanted in June struggled to establish itself. Perhaps it was a bit resentful. The vine finally had a growth spurt just a couple of weeks ago and has filled the entire bed. It has even put on a couple of pumpkins - one the size of a ping-pong ball and one like a baseball. I'm hoping we've got enough warm days ahead so that they can grow and prosper, but the days are getting noticeably shorter. Like with all the garden, we'll have to wait and see.

Finally, our resentful teen pumpkin is becoming a better-adjusted young adult.

You grow little pumpkin! I believe in you!

Not all has been happy fun time in the garden, however. Somehow, a deer or multiple deer, found their way inside. I'm guessing they accidentally hopped the fence while cavorting in the back yard. The yard slopes slightly so the fence on the north side is shorter than on the south side. Once inside, the deer stomped around in most of the beds, ate many of the leaves off my purple snap beans, and decimated the chard. It wasn't a very good year for the chard anyway. It didn't grow very well, I think because the location I chose for it was a bit shady and damp, and then it got leaf miners and I didn't make an effort to remove them. So, we haven't harvested any of it yet and it looks like we might not get much at all. I guess that's the compromise we make when our neighborhood is filled with deer and we do little to discourage them from getting comfortable.

I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed.

It's kinda nice just hanging out with the local baby wildlife.

Looking Back and Forward

Winter is very much upon us now. The day after New Year’s, the seed catalogues started arriving in the mail. I set them aside as I felt that was still a bit early to start planning. A month later, I’m ready to think about the garden again. Before I know it, it will be time to start some seeds indoors, even as the garden lies blanketed in snow.

I never did a final report here on the garden. I would call it a successful year, overall. The tomatoes produced quite well. I actually got enough to make pasta sauce. I found a Ball flavoring mix that made wonderful sauce. I fired up the canner and put away nine quarts of sauce to enjoy all winter.

So many tomatoes!

In late September, I went through and harvested the rest of the vegetables. The corn did not produce very well. The potatoes did not either. It’s always been less expensive and less of an effort to just buy corn and potatoes but I still like growing them myself. I’m about ready to give up on the corn entirely but I really like fresh-dug potatoes. We had a few meals from the Yukon Golds so it was not a total waste of time and space. Next year, maybe we’ll try something more exotic like purples or fingerlings that aren’t available at local stores.

So, it was not a bumper crop.

The garden did produce enough acorn squash and pumpkin to put in storage for the winter. We’ve gone through all the squash now but two pumpkins are still waiting to be used.

I was a bit disappointed that the Rattlesnake beans did not produce as well as they did last year. I did plant them in a different part of the garden that had a tendency to be a bit wetter so that might have had something to do with it. We did get a few that will make some nice bean soup on one of these cold days.

At least there were some beans to shell.

The herbs did very well this season. In October, I cut thyme, marjoram, and fennel seeds to dry. I also brought the parsley plant inside but it didn’t care for the transition, apparently. It went back out into the compost bin last month. I loved being able to step out my back door with a pair of scissors and get fresh herbs and I was actually able to do so well into late fall.

Thyme and marjoram hanging to dry.

Similarly, the chard just kept growing late into the season. Chard has got to be one of my favorite leafy greens (leafy rainbows?) to grow. It comes up quickly and just keeps going. I finally cut the last of it in early November. It probably would have kept going if I had let it but I was ready to get the beds ready for the winter.

The giant maple tree out in front of our house provides wonderful cover material for the garden. My husband processed the fallen leaves through the choppy leaf vacuum thing he bought for the purpose and spread it over the raised beds. In the spring with turn it under with other soil additives and be ready for another growing season.

The garden set for a long winter's nap.

And what shall we plant next season?