Fall in the Garden

It's been a couple weeks since I posted and I thought I should gabble a bit about our garden:

All the tomatillos have been harvested and processed into 'green salsa'. We like to call it "That be damn hot salsa, quick get me the fire department!" It's loaded with all sorts of chillis :) Unfortunately, this year we forgot to plant our 'damn hot' chillis and so we had to make several trips to the market to buy some.

The rose hips have been plucked from their thorny hosts. Scraping out the seeds and hairs on the inside proved to be more difficult than expected. The finished product doesn't seem worth the effort. However, I will leave it up to their taste appeal to make my final judgement call. For now, they are in the freezer until I find the time and decide on a perfect recipe for the taste test.


                                

I harvested a armload of rhubarb from our front garden. It's growing in a front flower bed, filling in space, and looking pretty - so I didn't want to hack too much of it away. I chopped it all up and added some to an apple rhubbard crips (using the apples harvested in our yard). The rest I put in a zip lock bag for the freezer for another day (maybe a jelly, or a pie, or a syrup....possibily?)

 

The winter wheat has been planted.  The squash have all been harvested.

The garlic cloves have all been planted in time before the winter frost. Approximately 1300 garlic cloves (of 15 different types) have been planted in time before the frost (thanks to Jason's amazing garden superpowers:) We planted our garlic crop at my father's place this year - his soil is well cultivated and deep. He even rotatilled the ground to make raised beds. We expect the garlic to fair much better this year under these conditions. Next, we will plant our 'bubil' seed garlic at our place - because it grows much more slowly/smaller than garlic started from cloves. We want to keep it under close observation as we have never started garlic from bubil seed before.

It's now 'soup season'.   It's this time of year when we make our delicious home-made soups from scratch and freeze our leftovers for cold winter days when the garden is no longer in bloom.   Bortsh is a popular one -full of garden fresh potatoes, onions, carrots and beets.   Curry zuchinni, and spicy squash soups are also tasty delights.  I tried a cream of jersalem artichoke soup the other day and the next soup on the menu is 'cucumber'something, as we have a bunch to use up.

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We began to dig up our Jerusalem artichokes (otherwise known as 'sunchokes').  They're not really artichokes, they're a tuber.   They have the consistency of a potatoe, but the flavor of an artichoke.  We really enjoyed them cooked in butter, garlic and lemon.  The creamed soup was also really delicious.  Now to come up with different recipes for this unique vegetable.  

A couple things about Jersulem artichokes that we really like. 1) They make beautiful greenery in the garden, growing about 10 feet in height.  2) They grow back every year (so make sure you put them in a place you would want them to be next year).   We pull up/out the plant to harvest the roots and then put the stalks (with a bit of root on them), back in the ground to grow again next year. 

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We witnessed the first sign of frost in the mornings this past week. So we need to use up our leafy vegetables that are still growing... spinach, lettuce, chard.  The collards and the kale will keep a while yet.  The others can be put in the freezer for later use (e.g. frozen spinach is great on home-made pizza:)

That sums up our garden gabble for the week.   Now to carve up those giant pumpkins in time for Halloween:)

Slowing Down

It's now October and we have slowed down a great deal in the garden.  One, we have become busy with other priorities including work and school.  Two, we have had a great deal of wet weather.

All the tomatoes are now gleaned and processed.  A large number succumbed to blight. Several pounds remained green. And a fair share were and continues to be enjoyed in salads.  There is nothing like fresh, sweet garden tomatoes :)    All the green tomatoes and tomatoes showing the first signs of blight were made into salsa and tomatoe sauce.     A big batch of Chilli and (spagetti sauce) in lasagna was also prepared and put into the freezer.

Jason has rotatilled several areas of the garden. It's ready for the winter wheat.  The remaining garden items are the carrots, beets, chard, kale, collards, squash and giant pumpkins.  Everything else has been turned over into the soil.  This weekend, Jason also added another two layers to the root cellar this weekend, during the sunny break in weather we had.   We are crossing our fingers that we get another couple breaks of sunny weather so we can get the cellar done before the winter.

Left to do...

Pull out the summer bulbs (gladiolas, dalias) so they don't freeze over the winter and plant the spring bulbs (iris, daffodils) so they flower in the spring.    Also, its time to harvest the rose hips.  They have turned bright red and sweet.  Apparently they keep well in the freezer. If I don't have time to use them, that's where they will go and so we will find out how well they keep. 

The biggest jobs left to do before the winter are:  planting the garlic and trimming all the trees; and moving the odd tree around in the yard.   

And that's about it.  We have slowed down, like the garden.  There is never enough 'thyme' to spend in the garden.   And so I leave you with advice by Ilan Shamir:

Take Thyme for yourself.

Cultivate lasting friendships.

Enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Plant seeds of kindness.

The grass is greener here.