Kaleidoscope Stir-fry; Savoring the Bounty

It's been an incredibly busy spring and summer so far and the garden postings have suffered because of it. But overall, its been a productive season with minimal deviations. We've had some pretty hot periods, especially around July 4th week. Luckily the evening thunder storms have been numerous enough that I've only had to water the entire garden two or three times so far and the lawn still has not gone completely dormant. Nice on the eye but no break on the mowing and trimming chores.

I had one ripe tomato by my grandfather's obligatory deadline of July 4th even though it was a single grape variety. The heirlooms are really starting to roll in now and we will be entering give-away mode tomorrow in order to limit waste.

The big news this spring was my adoption of the Primal Blueprint lifestyle not so much for any particular weight issues but for the overall health benefits. It has been an extraordinary transformation going to a ketogenic metabolism and having a kitchen garden really helps out with the dietary parts of this plan. I am now plotting strategies to extend the harvests much further into the fall than we normally do in order to take advantage of the fresh produce especially since most fall crops qualify as primal.

Love Them Peas!

Spring has sprung and after the winter that wasn't, attention is finally being paid to the garden plot. Over the years I've had really bad luck with early spring peas. All of the guides say you can plant them as soon as the ground can be worked regardless of the weather forecast. Bravo Sierra on that! Either the seeds rot before they sprout or they hardly ever sprout at all.

This year I decided to finally get myself a patch of spring peas. Two weeks ago, I started a flat of seeds in peat pots indoors. As soon as they sprouted, I started setting them outside to harden off. Today they went into the ground, together with a few onion sets. To make the process a bit easier I left up the pole bean wall from last season' so let's see what happens.

I also uncovered the strawberry bed. Keep fingers crossed!

Last of the Bounty

I forgot I had this shot from late October showing the last of the Valencias cut up for dinner. I had pulled everything that remained just before our first big frost warning. This was one of the heirlooms we trialed this year and they will definitely be back next year. Besides the low acidity of a yellow tomato, they are very meaty almost like a Roma, but are a classic mid-sized globe. They exhibited no cracking, very little skin damage, and had excellent yield; very tasty and a nice change from standard reds.

Time for a long Winter's Nap

Well its the end of the season and except for a few remaining carrots, the plot has been cleared, tilled, and covered with some shredded leaves from the yard. All that remains is one last pass with the tiller assuming it ever dries out enough before the first big freeze, and a straw mulch cover for the strawberry patch.

Overall it was a successful season but there will be a few changes next year. We'll probably go with bush beans for a change since the pole beans continued to have variable yields. However, the bean wall will stay up over the winter as a ready support for some early spring peas. These will be started indoors in peat pots in February to get around germination issues and then set out as soon as they are large enough.

The peppers will be caged and sprayed to get around breakage and stink bug damage. We'll probably also trial a couple more different varieties of grape tomatoes since we had severe split damage with the two we tried this year.

So the outdoor work is done. There is one more batch of tomato juice and one more batch of strawberry jam to be made from frozen stock in the freezer. From then on it will be settling down for a long winter's nap and the anticipation of next season.

Early Snow (October 29)

We haven't even had a killing frost yet but were treated to a rare early snowfall yesterday of just under four inches. Our red maple tree had barely started to turn and is still in full leaf. To keep from loosing any branches, I had to go out three or four times during the worst of the storm to knock off the snow.

The garden is about done, and all I need now is some dry weather so I can clear it off. Everything will be coming off this year except for the bean wall. I plan on leaving that up so I can use it to plant early peas next spring.

A few notes from this season:

1) The peppers will be caged and sprayed aggressively next year. We lost a lot of prime fruit due to stink bug damage and over-loaded branches that would break off.

2) We will stick with heirloom tomatoes as our major crop. They really are superior to hybrids in the home garden. Most likely only one plant each of Valencia, Striped German, and Pruden's Purple should do along with the Romas and maybe one grape variety.

3) The lima beans were nice, but for the space they take up, the yields were not that great. They will be replaced next year with bush snap beans.

4) The beets, carrots, lettuce, cucumbers and squash were excellent and will be planted again next year.

5) The raspberries and strawberries were a treat too. I just made about twenty-five pints of raspberry and strawberry jams which should keep us going for a couple of years. Maybe next year will finally be the year to make that batch of country wine.

The Bounty

Its that late summer problem; how to handle the deluge of produce that seems to come in all at the same time. A few weeks back I was able to do some pickling. Now it is time to figure a way to process all of the tomatoes that are coming in. The Romas will be either dried or converted to juice and canned. The others are eaten out-right or given away, there are just too many. The peppers are just starting to come in and these will be eaten fresh or pickled.

Romas are also good for tomato pies. First they are sliced and de-seeded along with some wedges of yellow Valencias. The wedges are lightly salted to pull out some of the moisture. Meanwhile the pie crusts are backed and the basil chopped.


The pies are assembled together with ample cheese and minced garlic.



Baked, and then............what's not to like?

Near Full Production

A lot has been going on over the last few weeks. This past Saturday, the beet row was pulled and turned into 12 quarts of sweet beet pickle. I didn't pickle any last year and I have been out since the holidays (I always have pickled beets for Christmas dinner).


The Lima bean patch is in full bloom and it looks like a bumper crop assuming each bloom produces a pod.


The heirloom tomatoes as well as the grape and single hybrid (planted for emergency back-up) are really starting to crank out. The Romas are poised to start coming in any day now and that means in the next couple of weeks having to take a day and concentrate on making tomato juice.


I also was able to clear out the floricanes from the raspberry bed so the primocanes should have plenty of room to come in and make side shoots for next years crop. It was a bit like bailing barbed-wire, but it is nice to see the top of the mulch again.


And the peppers are doing nicely too.