Big Fall Harvest

Wow, I can't believe how much I picked today, and I didn't even get to any flowers.

Here it is: bell peppers, italian frying peppers, lots of hot peppers, mustard greens, a couple radishes, basil, two kinds of mint and shiso leaf:
The peppers and mustard greens I can handle, but the mint and basil are going to be tough. I've got to pick all of the good leaves off individually, then dry them. That's a lot of picking. Uggh. I better get to it. At least I'll have plenty for the winter.

Also, here's a quick pick of my new dehydrator in response to Chris' comment:I'll be using it to dry everything.

Do I love my garden or what?! Took the day off edition

You might remember this "Do I love my garden or what?!" post from last year's veganmofo. Well, it is kind of interesting to reflect on - things are looking better this year, what with my Agribon rowcovers instead of sheets.

Still, I took today off from work (it was a slow week, so my boss was fine with it) just to work in my garden haha! It is bright and sunny, about as good as a fall day could be. Although we haven't had a frost yet (very unusual) we've had extended cool temperatures so things are starting to show signs of dying. The leaves on the herbs are turning brown, which I definitely don't want since I am trying to dry and preserve them for winter. I have a number of things I want to get done:

1. harvest and dry the hot peppers (habanero & kung pao, mainly. The jalapenos still haven't turned red)
   
2. harvest and dry herbs (shiso, oregano, marjoram, eucalyptus, sage, mint, chives & lavender)
3. harvest and dry the edible marigolds
4. harvest the nasturtiums and make something with them for dinner
5. pull down the malabar spinach. It has spots all over it now, since it is a tropical plant I think it is hating the cool weather
6. sew the extension onto the agribon covering the lettuce bed

Jeesh! It is a lot for one day. I've also got to clean my house since I'll probably have people over for a Halloween party this weekend, and I need to put another coat of plaster/joint compound on a drywall project in the upstairs bathroom. I'm sure I won't get everything done, but, I'll try my best.

Another Squash Post?!?! You've Got to Be Kidding

Nope, I'm not kidding. Here is squash post #5.

As you can see to the left, I had three more to deal with.

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to make anything with them until a week after picking and the big one got soft. Whoops.

But the other two were still good, so I don't feel too bad about letting one go into the compost, with everything I've used them for all summer.

They ended up in a Zucchini, Potato and Cilantro Soup. I found the recipe on epicurious.com, and figured it must be good since it is rated with a resounding 4 forks. But wow, it exceeded my expectations. I hate to hype it up, because then you'll try it and be like "meh", but I can't stop raving about it!! I really am not a huge fan of soup. However this was hands down one of the best I've ever eaten. It was perfectly balanced.

The only thing I had to change to make it vegan was use Earth Balance Buttery Spread instead of butter. I also only used 2 tbsp instead of 3, to make it slightly lower fat. But even without that, it is a low-cal recipe. Plus, it was super easy to make, and also used up some jalapenos from my garden. (Even cooler, if I had my dream half acre of land, it could be made almost entirely from home grown ingredients. *sigh* Someday.)

Here it is sauteing in the pot before adding the broth. Which, btw, was Imagine Organic Vegetable Broth that I got a whole carton for only 99 cents at Jack's in Manhattan! Gotta love Jack's. Wuhoo.And the final product (unfortunately the picture does not do it justice). No croutons were needed.


My partner doesn't even like squash and he ate his all up. It was so good I had two huge bowls! This is definitely my new #1 favorite soup. I look forward to making it in the winter with the squash I dehydrated a couple weeks ago.

I've only got 1 more squash left on the vines. I think they are pretty much done for the season, what with all of this cool weather we've had. (though, no frost yet) So I guess this will probably be the last squash post until next year. :-(

Fordhook and Rainbow Swiss Chard

This is a picture of my strawberry/swiss chard bed on Oct. 11th. The strawberries are in the middle, and the chard is in a row at either end. Right behind the fountain is a row of Fordhook Giant Swiss Chard, and in the back, a row of Five Color Silverbeet Rainbow Swiss Chard. Last year I grew the Rainbow, but it grew quite slowly and never got that big, although I did get a few harvests and it was tasty (plus pretty). So this year I decided to try the Fordhook Giant, which was recommended for my area by the local Master Gardener program.

Well, it surely lived up to its name!! I couldn't believe the gianormous leaves I harvested from those plants. To the left is a close up with my hand on a leaf for size comparison.

I've gotten at least 3 or 4 nice size harvests off the plants so far, and there is plenty left. They're also biannual, so I'll probably be able to harvest them again next year.

I still have a few plants alive of the Rainbow from last year in another spot in the garden (now under the row covers). Unfortunately, they did get attacked a bit by leaf miners, pretty much chard's only pest. It is amazing how the critters manage to zoom in on their favorite plants so quickly, when just last year my yard was only weeds! At least so far, the leaf miners haven't touched the chard in the strawberry bed.

At first I was a bit worried that the chard would be bitter with the huge size of the leaves and dark green color, but to my pleasant surprise they were amazingly tender and delicious! You can see the last harvest I picked to the right, on the same day I cooked the Italian Brunch described in the last post. Most of it is the Fordhook, with just a bit of the Rainbow that's reddish-purple. It did also grow in yellow, white, and orange-y colors.

I often use chard in cooking in place of spinach. Personally, I like it even better - it tastes mild and delicious to me. I'll put it in tomato sauces, veggie sautes or even lasagna.

Most often though, I just saute some minced garlic in a bit of olive oil, (and sometimes red pepper flakes) then throw the roughly chopped chard in until it just wilts. Then I squeeze on a generous amount of fresh lemon juice, and maybe a bit of salt and cracked pepper. Simple yet outstanding as a side dish. That's how we ate it that day at brunch. Here's a picture:

Basil Pesto and NYC Style Pasta Brunch

I had this whole epic post about sweet peppers 3/4ths written, and then discovered that the central recipe for the post has disappeared. I have no idea where it is, and it is one of my favorite recipes. Boo!

In the meantime I'll just have to post this quickie leftover from a September Sunday brunch. Which isn't so bad, since this New York style brunch (i.e., it happened in late afternoon) was super delicious.

As you can see above, it was a simple pasta dish. I made the sauce with diced tomatoes and peppers from the garden (bell, italian green fryers and jalapenos), plus shredded carrots, onions and garlic from the store. I slow sauteed these things with my usual herb combination - thyme, oregano, marjoram and bay leaf, then served it over angel hair pasta.

I'd usually put some basil in there too, except this time I made a basil pesto to go with it. That's the dollop on top. It is sort of a funny color since I used purple basil, but wow was this purple basil delicious. I'm not really sure what type it is, since I bought a mixed pack of assorted basil. It was very floral. Even though it had bolted and grown flower heads by that point, it didn't taste bitter at all - just the most wonderful flavor.

Below is the best picture I can find of this mixed basil patch. You can kind of see it behind the Calendula flower bed. From left to right it is green, purple, green, purple. I had no idea what they would end up like when I planted them, or else I would have done it differently. It was basically like a basil grab bag. I think there was definitely some kind of lemon basil in there, which I really didn't like - it tasted medicinal. Also, some kind of really short basil with beautiful flowers. I think there was at least two plants of good old green Genovese - that and the purple (maybe Opal?) definitely tasted the best. Next year I think I'll definitely grow those two.
Below is a picture of the leaves before I pureed them, with a bit of olive oil (not a lot, b/c of the diet again), nutritional yeast, walnuts and garlic. I probably put salt and pepper in there too - I didn't use a recipe, just whizzed it all in the food processor. It's hard to go wrong with these ingredients inmho.Then I also had the italian pepper almond chreeze discussed in a previous post dolloped on top, and on a whole wheat english muffin. See, it involved an English muffin - thus making it brunch. haha

I wish I could have more leisurely sunny Sundays spent in the garden like that September day...

Four Season Harvest "Chenilles" Low Tunnels Completed

Just finished building two low row covers for my winter crops. I did it as described on page 89 of Eliot Coleman's book, "Four Season Harvest". Apparently this is a French innovation - to have little loops on each hoop so you can tie a rope to hold it down, rather than burying it with dirt. This makes it easier to harvest and vent.

I used #9 wire, and bent it into a semi-circle shape a little longer than he said, actually 8' long instead of 6.5' since my beds are wider. (approx. 40 - 42" rather than 30 - 36" he calls for) I used needle-nose pliers to put a loop about 1.5' from each end, again a bit longer than he called for (1'). It needed to be longer to accomodate the cinder blocks. I pushed them about a foot into the ground on either end.
Then I laid the #30 Agribon over it. (actually this was better as a two person job, and Mr. Aubade helped a lot - both with cutting and shaping the hoops, then with laying down the fabric) I finished it by tying poly outdoor rope like a shoelace through each loop.

The first one came out too short, so I've got to staple on about 2 feet more. It had lettuce, arugula, mache and mustard greens in that bed (not pictured).

But the second try, as seen here in the pictures, seemed to work pretty well. This bed has carrots, chard and turnips in it. It didn't come out quite like I had hoped, as it seems a little wobbly - but I think it will be ok since my backyard isn't too windy. Guess we'll see how it goes. This is definitely an experiment. I just want to see how long the plants will live.

Nuts about Nasturium

I just absolutely adore these flowers!! They grew so beautifully this year, it went far beyond my expectations.

My garden is edged with a gorgeous array of spicy edible plants. It makes me smile every time I go outside to see these bright and sunny flowers.

Even on rainy days, they are so brilliant amongst the green they practically glow. None of the pictures I've taken capture this effect as intense as it is in person.

Who needs skittles when you've got Nasturtiums? They're a real rainbow of flavors.

They grew in various shade of yellow, from pale cream tinged with peach, to solid buttery, sunshiny yellow through neon bright yellow with red or orange triangles inside the flower. There is also bright orange, and a beautiful deep ruby red. I also love how the leaves look like little lily pads. One plant is a lot frillier than the rest - I'm not sure if it is another type that got mixed in with the packet of mixed climbing rainbow that I bought.
But the red is definitely my favorite. I am going to try saving some of these seeds for next year.
This weekend is going to be all about trying to save these beautiful plants before they're destroyed by frost. I'm thinking of drying some using the new dehydrator, but can't find too many things to do with them. I think I am going to invest in a Sunwave flower press, so I can make cards and other crafts for christmas presents. But in the meantime it looks like next week will have to be chock full of eating various nasturtium dishes. I've found a ton of ideas!

Aside from just tossing the blooms in a regular salad, this Apple and Sprout salad looks great (and could use some of the season's best fruit if it stops raining long enough to go to the nearest u-pick or farmers market).

This looks like a decent recipe for stuffed flowers, but probably instead of tofutti I'd use my homemade almond chreese. Another recipe for blackberry stuffed flowers features maple sweetened tofutti. I can't quite imagine a sweet stuffed blossom tasting that great, since they are quite peppery. But maybe next year when my blackberry bush is ripe I'll try it out anyway.

Nasturtium & Grape salad seems like a good basic salad but with a yummy twist (the grapes). Here is an even simpler fruit salad featuring strawberries. I should have made this green bean and tarragon salad before my haricot verts gave up the ghost, since it would use them and some of the huge tarragon plant I've got but never know what to do with. Well, there's always next year.

Of course there is the ubiquitous nasturtium vinegar idea - that recipe looks better than most I've seen around the web. I'm not going to bother with a pickled nasturtium seed recipe, since there are so many on the web and I don't plan on doing it this year I don't think.

Then there's nasturtium lemon butter, or a jalapeno nasturtium aioli that sounds amazing! I'd have to try one of these vegan replacements for the egg, such as jarred mayo or cashews, tofu or maybe white beans.I also just came across this lovely PDF press release about 15 - 20 foot long nasturium vine displayed at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Apparently it takes them 10 months in the greenhouse to grow these vines, and they've been putting them on display for visitors since 1903. I would love to try one of those recipes, perhaps lavender nasturtium syrup. And now I must visit Boston in April!!

I really like this idea, "for a tangy alternative to chives, chop nasturtium leaves finely, and sprinkle them over a jacket potato. " Sounds easy and baked potatoes are a freqent favorite in my house, so this is definitely one to try.

I definitely need recipes for the leaves since there are soo many about to succumb to frost. This pesto looks interesting. Here's another idea: nasturium leaves wrapped around sundried tomato, flowers & basil almond chreese stuffing, tied with a chive.

Here's a recipe for Nasturtium potato soup that would use up a lot of leaves, although I have to say it doesn't look like it would be very tasty from the list of ingredients. Although this soup recipe from epicurious also seems rather plain - perhaps the nasturtiums add so much spicy flavor you don't need much else. This carrot and nasturtium soup looks a little more interesting, though I'd probably be too lazy to do carrots four ways for it. I guess the only thing left to do is try them and find out.

Now for something completely different: Nasturtium pizza or how about nasturtium tostadas? OOh! I could even make Emeril's nasturtium risotto for Food Network Fridays!

Of course my list of recipes wouldn't be complete without some nasturtium tea sandwiches. This one with cucmbers looks delicious.

Wow, there's even a recipe for nasturtium bitters! And a hair conditioner that uses dried flowers. Doubt I'll be that adventurous this year, but maybe some day...

Ok, now that I've officially gone nuts and compiled enough nasturtium recipes to last a lifetime, we'll just have to see what comes out of the kitchen over the next week.

Guess What? Yep, More Super Squash!!

Just look at these things!! They measured a full 32" long. The one on the right I definitely left on the vine too long, but I was super busy with those darn reports (which are finally done!) and just couldn't get to it fast enough.

I made the one on the left into an awesome lasagna. I didn't use any recipe - just made it similar to the way I always make my lasagna for Christmas dinner, except I used a mandolin to make 1/8 inch thick long ribbons, and used those instead of lasagna noodles. Then I layered it something like the following list:

1. Squash ribbons
2. sliced fresh-picked Rutger's tomatoes
3. Italian frying peppers and diced onion
4. fresh herbs including thyme, marjoram & oregano
5. tomato sauce
6. a few big leaves of chard
7. cashew ricotta from veganomicon
8. lentils
9. more squash ribbons
10. Italian frying peppers and diced onion
    
11. more herbs & sauce
    
12. chard again
13. cashew ricotta
14. lentils
    
15. halved grape tomatoes
16. a layer of basil
17. the last of the squash ribbons
18. more ricotta, a couple dehydrated grape tomatoes, crushed black pepper and chreesy almond sprinkles on top
    

Then I slow baked it till everything was tender. It was sooooo good, you could barely even tell it was squash and not pasta. I would definitely make this again.
The rest got dehydrated for later use. It made a boatload! I figure I can puree it into soup. Some I could even eat as chips. Others I dehydrated in the ribbon shape may even be able to be reconsituted and made into another lasagna. I don't have a good picture of the result, except in a group shot with the other stuff I dried. But it will show up sooner or later in another post.
















The best thing of all was when I came home from grocery shopping last Saturday, my neighbors called me into their yard. They wanted to know if the squash that came over their fence was ready to pick! I couldn't even believe it...luckily I had my camera in my bag so I could get a few pics. As you can see, just one huge squash was suspended through the fence. There was only 4 little leaves - it wasn't even a whole vine that had climbed over. Somehow just the squash grew through the slats. Once again, this squash managed to amaze me. I love it! I told them they could prepare it any way they would regular zuchinni. I had already given them some of the bread I'd made, and they said it was really good. I can't wait to find out what they made with it.

Six Tips for Harvesting

As my husband and I were picking some dinner last weekend, it occurred to me there are a few basic guidelines I follow to decide what to harvest.

Of course, when it comes to things like tomatoes or peppers it is a simple enough thing to know when they are ripe and ready to eat. So this is more for the trickier plants like herbs, lettuce, chard, or mustard greens that continue to grow through multiple harvests.


I never really thought of it clearly before we were talking and picking together, so I think it is helpful even for myself to have them spelled out. That's why I'm now going to record them here, so we can best turn the above mustard green plants into this all season:

1. This one is pretty obvious, but trim in such a way as to optimize the plants growth. For example, never trim too much so it dies back, and try to get the older leaves but leave the smaller ones so they'll soon be big enough to eat.
2. Look for bigger, older leaves that still look good - if they haven't been munched on by a caterpillar yet, they will be any second so time to pick.
3. Cut parts that are growing too close to other plants and taking them over. (I'm looking at you, oregano and shiso!)
4. Trim parts that are growing onto the path or the edges of the beds, because they'll end up trampled and bruised soon enough.
5. Harvest any that are just starting to touch the dirt. Once they start laying on top of it, especially if it rains, they'll end up muddy and rotted anyway. So cut them before that happens.
6. Try to trim them in an aesthetic fashion. Since these plants will keep growing and the garden is small, it's nice to keep an eye for beauty when harvesting. Like, don't cut off all the leaves just from the front, or one side. Try to keep the plant looking natural.

Japanese Purple Shiso (a.k.a. Perilla)

The shiso started out innocently enough.

Here it is on May 29, right after planting.



Cute, right?





And now, here it is on October 6th, MONSTER PLANT!!! It's trying to take over. And this is even after I trimmed off about 1/4 of it. Well that's ok. I've got it back there with the crazy other mint anyway. I left the flowers on it this year too, because it is an annual and I'd like it to self-sow for next year. Hopefully it won't be too hard to control! Guess we'll see..
Mostly I've just been tucking it into sushi. But one night I actually made something with it, and couldn't believe how delicious it was! It looks a little strange, what with the dark purple color, but it has such a lovely delicate taste. I had 2 cucumbers left from the garden so I chopped them, then sliced two big handfuls of shiso leaves into 1/4 ribbons and mixed them in a bowl.

For dressing I whisked together 1 tsp umeboshi plum paste, 2 tsp sesame oil, 1 tsp sugar and about 6 tsp rice vinegar (I like my dressings more on the acid side, plus I'm still trying to keep the oil amounts down for my diet). It was simple but really delicious. I love this plant!

I think I will also dry some to preserve them over the winter.

DIY Solar Cooker

So last night I was just about to fold up and put away that good ol summer staple to prevent burning hot steering wheels - the silver windsheild shade - when I remembered seeing this website: http://solarcooking.org/plans/windshield-cooker.htm.

Aside from being a really wonderful organization that helps people in developing nations, the site has detailed plans to build a solar cooker out of the shade. Supposedly, it will get as hot as 350 degrees F, and cook your food almost just like a regular burner.


I first saw the plans years ago, and thought it was such an intriguing idea. My mom is forever buying me these things for my car, which usually end up lying aroud unused, just like the one I was about to put away last night. It would be soo cool to set it up in the garden and cook some veggies with nothing but the power of the sun. Especially now that I was the Solar Energy Garden Spirit in the Earth Celebrations Pageant, I've got to try it!

I resolved not to put it away and to try it on the next sunny day that I'm home. According to the FAQs on that site, you can do it even way up in Canada all but the three coldest months of the year, so I think I still have a little time to try this experiment.

Unfortunately it probably won't be this weekend, since rain is predicted until Monday. But in the meantime I'm at least posting this so I won't forget. Stay tuned for another post about the results!

Raging Mint and Its Best Friend Corn

This is just a quick post to catch up for vegan mofo. Although it is a super simple dish, minted corn is one of my favorite things to eat. It makes the corn so sweet, you barely even need butter (well, Earth Balance).

Unfortunately I don't have enough room to grow corn, but I sure do have a lot of mint! In the lower right of the picture above is pineapple mint, which I planted last year. Right behind it is white mint that grew from one tiny little plant I purchased in June.
For a minute last year I didn't think the pineapple mint was going to grow back. I thought all those people who say mint is invasive were lucky, since mine was so small. Well, obviously I was wrong! It is growing like wildfire now. Some of it jumped out of the bed and started growing all around the gutter's drain pipe. I'm glad I put it in the back corner, so I'm not too worried about it. At least we'll have plenty for mojitos!


To make the minted corn, I just throw a sprig of mint (above you see the white mint) in an inch of two of boiling water, and then put the corn in a steamer basket. About 10 - 12 minutes later, it's done. I still remember the first time I read this recipe was when I lived in Seattle in 1997. I thought it sounded so weird, but I had my first herb garden in the backyard there so I tried it. I've been eating corn this way every since. You've got to try it to believe it.

Tomatoes in October

So there the tomatoes are, on October 3rd - in all of the garden's late fall glory. I just love how the climbing nasturtiums are growing up amongst them.

I'm also glad the tomato cages we built worked well. Sometimes it was a bit hard to fit my hand or the bigger tomatoes through the smaller holes, but not too bad. As you can see they haven't rusted at all so I think we'll get many more seasons out of them. Over the winter I think I'll cut some more big squares to fit my hand through, and use a dremel to file the sharp edges - since I did get a few scratches from the cut wire edges this season.
Above is little bit more close up - I know it doesn't look like much more than a huge tangle in these pictures! You also don't see many ripe ones because I had picked them all just before taking the picture. I dehydrated those as an experiment in my new dehydrator, which you'll see the results on in one of the next posts.

You can also see the plants got kind of brown towards the bottom. That actually started happening over a month ago, so it isn't just normal late season browning. I think that was also caused by the terrible weather earlier this summer.
Mr. Aubade picked more all throughout the week, that we ate with tacos and in salads. And here is the harvest I got today - along with two more amazing squash!! Can you even believe these things?? I actually got out the measuring tape this time, they were a full 32 inches long!! I'll also post more about these later.

Now let's check out a close up of each individual plant, all taken last weekend on October 4th. First, the Roma:
















Here's the grapes - yellow on the left and red on the right.
















Finally, here is the Rutgers. Most of the green towards the top of the left picture is actually the red grape that grew over onto the Rutgers cage. It is really just the little curled up plant towards the bottom. And the big red ones on the right are what I picked today that are pictured above.

2009 Tomato Season History

OK, so here are the promised 2009 tomato pictures. Here they are in the new tomato cages we built on June 6th, a few weeks after I first planted them. In the front, on the left is a yellow grape variety, and a red grape on the right. In the back on the left is Roma, and Rutgers on the right.


The grape tomatoes finally started getting ripe on July 17th. I think these two were the 1st ones we picked this year. Ever since then, we've had a constant supply of grape tomatoes, around 1 - 3 bowls per week.


Below you can see the first four good Romas I harvested on July 30th, but there certainly wasn't a constant supply all season. Maybe a few batches of 8 or so each during August.

Unfortunately they appeared to have a mild case of blossom end rot. Many of them ended up a little rotted on one end, with black on the inside. So I'd say maybe as much as half of the Romas ended up in the compost. I figure it was probably caused by a combination of the poor weather and that my soil needs more compost/organic matter added to it. The good news is, as the season progressed it got better. I also think my compost pile will be ready by next spring, and I am going to mulch all the beds with straw over the winter. That should add a decent amount of nutrients to the soil as it breaks down.










Then on the above right, the first, and one of the only Rutgers we got this year, picked on July 25th. We picked a couple more in August, but hardly any at all, maybe a dozen.

This plant did terrible this year, which is so strange because the same variety did fantastic last year in a spot just a few feet behind where it is now. You can see on the left on August 29th, very small and not looking so good.

I'm sure at least part of it was from the terrible weather we had - I think it just got off to a very slow start and never really fully recuperated. I think it also may have been shaded a bit too much from the grape tomato in front of it. We actually picked our biggest haul from it that same day, pictured below. I guess I should just be happy it didn't die from this year's plague of blight!
Only now are we getting some from this plant - just picked 6 nice ripe red ones today. However, all that's left is maybe 5 green ones, so I don't think we'll get much more. I am going to make a separate post for the tomatoes today, since there are already so many pictures in this one.

You can see many of the things I made with all these tomatoes back in this older post.