Garden Daze

Well, I’m in the fall garden glut. We’ve actually past the “average first frost date” for my area-but the weather is wet and cool, so I don’t think it will frost any time soon.

Although my garden started out very promising some things did not work out as intended.

#1 My scarlet runner beans refused to trail over in my window boxes. As a result all I ever got were some stunted little plants that didn’t grow any beans. The only beans I got from them were from the 3 plants I put in the actual veggie garden. So I have been letting those beans just sit there so they will eventually dry out, and then I’ll pick and shell them for my seeds for next year. The plan for next year is to plant them at the base of some of the sheds we have and let them grow up strings for both a screen and for food.

#2 All my squash and melons in the planters died. Also, the squash and gourds I planted in the compost only produced one fruit each. I’m not sure if the problems in the planters was lack of water, planting too densly, or just bad luck (I had a farm stand owner tell me that everyone’s winter squash did poorly this year). I’ll try again next year, but plant more sparsely and see what happens.

#3 I did a “fall” planting for crops that were supposed to be pretty far along prior to the first frost date. The only things that really came up were 2 heads of lettuce and my daikon radish. I got a few small sprouts on the kale-but that was it. I think that they didn’t get enough watering right after they were planted (I had to leave for that trip to see my sister and her family up in MA) and they just never sprouted. I shall try again next year and see if I can do better!!

Things that did go well:

#1-I have plenty of green beans. More than enough for our fresh eating for the late summer and fall, with some left to be put up for the winter. I am using the method I found in a book called “The Busy Person’s Guide to Preserving”. Basically, she says you can just take fresh green beans and vacuum seal them, then stick them straight into the freezer without blanching and still have a good product. Even if I loose a little bit of quality, I figure they are still better than canned green beans, and picking, rinsing, cutting then ends off and then just vaccum sealing and sticking in the freezer is a whole lot easier than the whole blanching process. And easier means I am more likely to actually accomplish it.

#2- I have had plenty of swiss chard. Maybe a bit too much 🙂 I like to add a bit of it fresh to salads when small, and to cook the greens either like spinach (just sauteed with some butter or butter flavored spray) or else like southern greens (stewed with some ham flavored bullion and onion flakes added) I also just found out that you can use them to make a cabbage roll type thing. A bit more labor intensive, but I blanched them for just a couple of seconds then used them to roll up some ground venison (have to use up last years before hunting season hits again!) rice, a few fresh tomatoes chunked up, onion, thyme, pepper and salt, and shredded yellow squash. Then I stuck the rolls in my veggie steamer for about 30 min. Yummy. I’ve used another technique from the same preserving book and just lightly stirfried the chard leaves and then packed it into vaccum seal bags, froze it (so the liquid is frozen) and then vaccum sealed it. I cut up the stems separately and vaccum sealed them raw and then blanched the entire vacuum sealed bag and froze. So there are some more veggies for winter.

#3 Plenty of green tomatoes, a few red. I need to try to get them to ripen earlier, maybe use hotcaps to start sooner in the spring. I have a feeling I’ll be making some green tomato dishes to use them up before the frost hits.

#4 My peppers did pretty well this year as well. I got about 8 or 9 big green ones, and a bunch of the min red peppers I planted. I’m slicing and freezing the peppers for use in future stirfries.

#5 I’m actually sort of overwhelmed with basil from my 2 plants. Last night I made a quadruple batch of pesto to freeze. The basil was free, the olive oil from my big bulk jar, the fresh garlic is pretty cheap. However the fresh shredded parmesean and pine nuts really rachet up the cost of this little project. But it is so darn yummy, much better than the dried packets, and plain old worth it.

#6 My other 2 herbs, chives and lovage (which really does taste like celery), grew well. I found out that I can just chop them up and freeze on a cookie sheet and then throw into some zipper baggies. So I’ll be doing that some time this fall before a frost hits so I can preserve them.

#7 My New Zealand Spinach grew well. I’ve had several meals worth of this cut and come again green, as well as being able to stirfry, freeze and vacuum seal a couple of meals worth. I’ll grow it again.

#8 The Ground Cherries also worked out pretty well. I think I’ll find a spot to plant several of them next year to be used for a pie or two. I just love the idea of growing fruit, but most of it is so fussy, where these are pretty darn easy. I also learned that Ground Cherries were a very common fruit in colonial times. Neat eh?

Just as with last year, this gardening thing is a constant learning experience. Give me a few more years and I’ll really have it down pat!