September 27, 2010

digging potatoes

Freshly dug potatoes! I grew 4 varieties this year: Cobbler, All Blue, Green Mountain, and Rio Grande Russet. The Blue potatoes produced very well and are a nice purple color. My favorite is probably the Russets, which grill very nicely. I only harvested about 1/10th the amount of potatoes of last year’s harvest. This year, I planted in a very shady bed in my home garden. Mostly because of last year’s late blight problems, I decided to remove all late blight susceptible plants from my community garden. Next year I…

September 24, 2010

my plot on last day of summer

Lucky I have the giant sunflowers and big purple hyacinth beans this year, because right now, there’s not much else going on in my garden plot. Well I do have a big patch of basil, a patch of sweet potatoes that I really have high hopes for, and nice chiles. But not much else. The beans all succumbed to the beetles. It was a terrible year for beans in all plots at our community garden. I have empty pole bean tepees and empty shell bean beds where I had to…

September 24, 2010

the meadow on the last day of summer

Too bad summer can’t last forever.

September 22, 2010

harvest moon

I just got the following note from an astronomy observer. Watch it right in your front yard— Summer usually ends on Sept 21 or Sept 22 (the equinox.) This year it ends at ~02h15 UTC on Sept. 23rd, i.e. 11:15 EDT tonight. And it’s the full Moon tonight, making it the last full Moon before the equinox, a.k.a. the Harvest Moon. And tonight’s moonrise occurs just before sunset, so the Earth will briefly be illuminated by both the Sun from the West and the Sun’s light reflected by the Moon…

September 20, 2010

pickles!!

My first try at making pickles! They are yummy. I made the recipe called Famous Back Eddy House Pickles from the book Quick Pickles by Chris Schlesinger and others. This book has lots of similar recipes and I’m hoping to try more of them soon. I like pickle recipes that use a mix of vegetables, in addition to cucumbers. I added beets (striped Chiogga’s) to the recipe, which darkened my brine.

September 18, 2010

broccoli mix

I just saw this at Garden Rant: a broccoli mix with a mix of varieties that mature at different times so you have heads all season! Great idea! I will definitely try this.

September 18, 2010

my new ristra

I found some pieces of string and started a ristra. I love that it is something that grows. I can add to it as more chiles ripen. I tied three cayenne or two Thai together at the stem with string then made a loop with the end of the string. The loop gets added to the other chile bunches on the growing ristra. I hung it on my kitchen door – so evil is now warded off!

September 17, 2010

chiles for a ristra

I’m accumulating a lot of small red chiles this year. Time to figure out how to make a ristra. I see instructions at eHOW (eHOW ristra instructions link). They say a ristra is decorative, but its also a good way to dry chiles and keep them for fall and winter use. A couple years ago I made a ristra with wire. It was hard to make and didn’t hold the chiles well. But they did dry and keep well. I used them all winter. eHOW’s method uses string to tie…

September 16, 2010

Belmont Community Gardens

This is an area we have newly cleared at the south east side of the Belmont community gardens. It was all brambles and small buckthorn trees. Its off to the side and out of the main view of the front path into the gardens. We’d like to put our compost, manure and wood chip piles here in the future. We’re also setting up a big bin for composting garden waste here – for gardeners who don’t do this in their own plot.

September 14, 2010

fall seedlings

As the summer crops fade, I am increasing the numbers of seedling I’m planting. Mostly greens: lettuce of all types, arugula, spinach, endive and escarole and beets. They’ll go into my community plot after the squashes and corn are pulled (only 26 days until frost!! OMG). And then, they’ll go into my cold frame when the cucumbers finish. I had such a nice early spring cold frame full of greens that I’m looking forward to fall. I think they will grow well past the first frost. I’ve resorted to starting…

weeks and counting until my last spring frost