This week we still got what I think of as a summer-fall hybrid. Summer veggies like tomatoes, peppers, beans, and eggplant, then fall veggies like asian greens and beets, plus classic fall fruits like apples and pears. We also got some prune plums, which are beautiful. Well, everything is beautiful. We got:
1 pint mini tomatoes
1.5 small beets
1 pound green beans
.5 pounds eggplant
1 bunch asian greens
1.5 pounds sweet peppers
2 pounds pears
1 pound mutsu apples
1 pound yellow delicious apples
This week we definitely got a glimpse of fall – enter the winter squash! Exciting, to say the least – I am a huge fan of winter squashes. Additionally, we got:
1 bunch carrots
1 pound green beans
1 head escarole
1 pound sweet peppers
1 pint mini tomatoes (not shown)
(1 acorn squash)
2 pounds apples
2 pounds pears
2 pound concord grapes
The carrots will be fermented; the green beans turned into dilly beans. The tomatoes have just been eaten out of hand pretty much. The escarole is quite bitter, so I’ll likely braise it somehow, perhaps with bacon!
I plan to pickle the grapes.
Apart from these fruits and vegetables, I received a tomato canning share – 20-25 pounds of plum tomatoes.
They look and feel great so far, and I plan to make crushed tomatoes with them. If they do as well as I expect they will, I’ll order another box for next week! Slow roasted tomatoes, yum.
This week was a meat & dairy week, so it was great to replenish my stock of ground beef and turkey sausage. I also ordered two cheese from Nettle Meadow Farm – Kunik and Three Sisters. Both are excellent, but Kunik is out of this world! A very luxurious cheese.
Also, I ordered a batch of “Battenkill Brittle,” which is a kind of crunchy, sweet, seedy brittle. It’s sweetened with brown rice syrup and maple syrup, though it’s not super sweet at all.
What we got this past week in our Hellgate CSA share
This week was marked by a huge fruit share – awesome. Summer veggies are still with us, but fall arrived with some amazing crispy apples and succulent pears. In total, we got:
2 pounds of tomatoes
1 eggplant
1 pound green beans
1 pound peppers
1 bunch leeks
1 head lettuce
1 pound plums
2 pounds peaches
1 pound nectarines
2 pounds apples
2 pounds pears
I’ve been enjoying the tomatoes in quesadillas, with patties of turkey sausage (from the CSA), and I’ve also eaten them with the eggplant and peppers for a delicious saute (punctuated with home grown basil). I’ve been snacking on the apples and pears. The nectarines turned into a fruit crisp, the recipe for which I’ll post next week – it’s all naturally sweetened, with sprouted flour in place of the white flour.
I may end up making another shrub with last week’s peaches – needless to say, things got crazy last week, so no Week 12 will be posted.
I have no idea what I’ll do with the bitter melon. It is a mystery to me. The tomatoes are gone, eaten in part with the cucumber. I think I’ll pickle the peppers. The eggplant was made into baba ghanoush – quite garlicky this time around.
I made the peaches into peach cobbler on Sunday, and it is quite tasty! The sprouted flour gives it a bit of a crunch. I may make this instead of crisp topping in the future, as I can get around the need to soak grains this way, plus it’s much less sweet. It’s sweetened with sucanat, which goes great with the peaches. It’s so far my favorite recipe in which to use sucanat.
I’ve been eating the apples out of hand. Sadly, the plums bit the dust after sitting out too long. Our plums this year have been a bit problematic, arriving over ripe to begin with. Still, the ones I’ve been able to eat have been fabulous.
The garden is green and plump and everything is working toward blossoming and fruiting. I’ve got plenty of tomatoes showing up, though most are green. However there are a couple of plants – the Mexican Midget and the Tommy Toe – that have reddening fruit. It’s very exciting to see them progress.
Various stages of the tomatoes in the garden
You can see the Tommy Toe in the upper right hand corner and the Mexican Midget in the bottom left hand corner. The plant with the overabundance of blossoms is the Blondköpfchen – I am so looking forward to seeing the tomatoes that come off this plant. The bottom two images in the collage are the Stupice on the left and the Silver Fir on the right. I’m so pleased to see so many tomatoes growing. I really don’t think I can have too many tomatoes.
My squash plant – which threatens to take over the garden with its crazy vines – is starting to produce!
Female squash flower with fruit
As you can see, there is a small fruit at the bottom. This is a volunteer, so I do not know which exact variety it is, but I suspect it is a tromboncino. We’ll see. They get huge.
The male flower has a thin stem and dies off after its usefulness (pollinating the female) is used up. Kind of brutal, but that’s nature.
Male squash flower
It’s hard to see the stem, but the flower is gorgeous. When the plant first started to flower, I thought the blossoms were so gorgeous. Then the next day, I’d go out and find them on the ground, seemingly cut off by some nasty. Turns out it was just the dropping off I mentioned above. Such a relief.
There’s some nice herb action going on at our place, too.
Many herbs grace our home
Friends of ours moved away (boo hoo) and offloaded their container herbs on me. They seem pretty happy on the back deck. There’s tarragon, thyme, rosemary, and basil. I’ve also got borage growing in the garden and they are flowering like crazy! I love their blue flowers.
Other stuff in the garden are melons, sour gherkins, peppers and ground cherries, which are coming along nicely. You can see more pictures in my Garden 2011 photoset on Flickr.
I’m happy to say that my garden is planted and on its way to providing me with a harvest. Most of it will likely come at the end of summer, but some things are happening right now. I was especially pleased to spy some tomatoes on my Tommy Toe plant!
The first of the Tommy Toe tomatoes
As you can see in the picture, there are some creepy crawlies on the tomato plant. I’ve been having to deal with aphids and such this year – they were not an issue last year, so I find this bizarro. I guess it’s just nature, though – unpredictable.
So far, they haven’t wrecked havoc on my plants, and I hope it stays that way. Ladybugs and garlic spray are certainly options. I do check the plants each morning and shake off the bugs, which has seemed to work fine so far.
I’m actually growing a variety of tomatoes: Tommy Toe, Mexican Midget, Blondköpfchen, Silver Fir, and Stupice. The Blondköpfchen, Silver Fir, and Stupice are small but chugging along.
June tomatoes
I’m also growing peppers! Tolli, a sweet italian pepper; Jalepeño, which is of course hot; and Bull Nose, a sweet bell type pepper. Thanks to my friend Alex for gifting me these peppers. I was also given a bunch of bean starts from my neighbor Nick. I asked him what kind of beans they are and he said “long”. So, we’ll see how they end up.
Peppers and beans
My boarge is doing well. Since I planted it, I’ve learned about all sorts of things to do with this plant. I originally planted it for the beautiful blue flowers – I thought I’d put them in iced tea or lemonade, and also use them as bee attractors. But I’ve learned that you can also use the leaves, too. Apparently they have a taste reminiscent of cucumbers. I would consider using the flowers also in fresh goat cheese and in salads.
Borage is an herbalist’s favorite, so it seems. Lots of information can be found here.
Borage
I’m also pleased that some volunteers have made themselves known:
A volunteer - maybe a cucumber?Ground cherries from last year
As far as volunteers go in the garden, there’s another cucumbery looking plant, and a tomatillo, of all things (none of my tomatillos fruited last year). I’ve also planted a Mexican Sour Gherkin, Edens Gem melon, and a Charentais melon. They are a bit thin, thanks to the leggyness from the spring, but I expect they’ll grow and get stronger. I’ll post photos of them soon.
Summer gardens are always very exciting! More images of my garden can be found in my Garden 2011 photoset on Flickr.
This past week I started planting my greens in containers on the back deck. They are easy to grow and they progress pretty quickly. The idea of having fresh greens right outside my back door is really appealing, too.
I’m happy to report that all my greens have sprouted! The thyme has also sprouted, and this year I’m determined to not let it fry in the sun. I am impressed and happy that leftover seeds from 2010 sprouted, too. That would be the lettuces and braising mix that I got from the Hudson Valley Seed Library.
I’ve also got tomato starts and peppers that can go in the ground soon. I am excited about eventually trying all these different peppers and tomatoes. Here’s hoping I have a bumper crop.
Silver fir and stupice tomato, and peppers
My garden plot downstairs is also doing well – I’ve got two tomato plants in there, and have direct sowed some basil seeds. I also planted some “bees friend”, calendula, and borage. I’m hopeful that this will bring me more bees to help pollinate!
