Fall Garden Time.

My poor little tired garden isn't looking so fine anymore. I have a few different kinds of plants that are still producing: kohlrabi, swiss chard, eggplants, carrots. I moved all my pumpkins out to the front porch and I'll be cutting down the cornstalks this weekend to add to my display of autumnal joy. Everything else has bitten the proverbial dust. And it is FINALLY getting cooler! So it's time to plant some fall crops. Here's the plan: shallots and early italian garlic (for a spring harvest), baby's leaf & Avon spinach, endive, arugula, red russian kale, pak choi joi choi (chinese cabbage), buttercrunch lettuce, and radicchio red surprise.

The Lone Melon.

It's sad but true. Only one watermelon survived whatever that was that was eating the babies and the blooms. Way to go, little melon. However, meet your arch nemesis, the melon baller.

Purple Potatoes!

These are my precious purple potatoes. Fresh from my garden. They are actually "Russian Blue Potatoes." Aren't they pretty? Not too pretty to eat though. We just tossed these with some olive oil, kosher salt, and fresh ground black pepper and grilled them in a metal grill basket. Yum.

What's a girl to do with all these tomatoes?

I'd say: juice, paste, sauce, jam, salsa. Hmmm . . . there must be all kinds of things I'm not even thinking of, right? I plan on canning these babies tomorrow. I'll let ya know. We went to the annual Grainger County Tomato Festival in Rutledge, Tennessee today. Home of the Tomato Wars (which we missed, but saw lost of folks wearing the remains of overripe tomatoes on their backs.) It was a fun day. Lots of interesting foods and music. And of course lots of farmstands. We walked away with these, peaches, new potatoes, and poblano peppers.

More cucumbers!!!

And what did I get from my little garden today? Of course, cucumbers. (And some tomatoes, but mistly cucumbers!) I guess it's time to try bread and butter pickles.

Pickle Spears.

I had a ton of cucumbers. Gave some away and made pickle spears this time. Still dill. I am hoping to recreate the fried dill pickle spears from a local barbecue restaurant in about a month, once they get good and dilly.

Weekend Harvest.

More veggies from our garden. We had quite a haul this weekend from our little garden. 2 eggplants, 3 pounds of green beans, 20 cucumbers, 33 grape tomatoes, and 3 big beef tomatoes. Can anyone say pickles?

Jelliriffic.

I've branched out from jams into jellies. I have a huge amount of mint, so I made mint jelly. I also tried grape jelly, which is a multi-step process (first you gotta make grape juice.) It really wasn't that hard. Time consuming, but not difficult at all.

In a pickle.

I made pickels today with my homegrown cucumbers, Dill Pickles to be precise. It was fun, something else I hadn't done before. I about to be inundated with cukes, so I'll be trying out some other pickle recipes soon.

Veggie Tales.

Green beans, cucumbers, swiss chard, grape tomatoes, jalapenos and baby carrots! Can't wait to make pickles and cook up the rest this weekend!

Our first tiny little harvest.

Yay, beans!

A tiny peck of peppers and a blueberry tart.

Still growin.

Updated garden photos! Except for some non-cooperative squash, everything is growing really well. We're going to have a lot of pumpkins. I can't wait for purple potatoes!

Gardening Update

Here are our latest garden photos. We have tiny tomatoes and ready-to-pick peppers so far. It's looking pretty good.

Ongoing garden saga.

We're growinga garden this year! I have been wanting to do this for about 4 years now. This was the year. In previous years, we've grown small amounts in containers, mostly herbs, squash, and peppers. This year we're going all out. We've got corn, beans, onions, tomatoes, herbs, etc. We made two raised beds. We even have raspberries! So far so good. We still need to put the mulch down around the beds. That'll be later this week.

A rose is a rose.

I nursed this rosebush back to health last year with the help of none other than Martha Stewart. (I called in to Ask Martha on Sirius radio, you see.) The rose bush came with the house when my husband bought it in his bachelorhood. It had been neglected for quite a while. There was only one sad little rotten, brown looking little bloom at the end of one very long stem. It was so sad. But this year it is covered in blooms. Yay! Aren't they gorgeous? I think I'll cut a few for my office.

Spring . . . has it sprung? Maybe? Hopefully?

It was so beautiful here today. . . warm weather, blue skies! I am getting the urge to plant things. I started going through my seed catalogs and looking back at photos of gardens, containers, and flower beds past (and their inhabitants) today. What will I do this year? I know, I know . . . it's too early! However, it is not too early to start my only little patches of green indoors. I started planting wheat grass indoors to beat the later winter doldrums a couple years ago. It brightens up the place, for sure. I plan on starting some this weekend. Here is an article in Cottage Living that shows just how to grow your own little bits of turf.