September Garden Gab

The weather has been exceptionally beautiful late August and early September!  The garden is loving it!

Some of our tomato plants got blight early on, so we harvested all the green tomatoes before the blight got them too!  Most of these green tomatoes (above) have already turned red and been processed. The rest of our tomatoes remain on the plants, all ripening one by one each day!  To help ripen them, we cut off the leaves so only the stems and tomatoes remain. This helps to expose them to more sunshine!

I just had to get a kiddie pool this year... for those times when guest's kids come over...and well, for us too! Enjoying a relaxing evening with each other after a hard day's work in the garden :) Love it!

Sunflowers once again! This year I hope to actually harvest some seeds before they start getting moldy - I'll fill you in later.  I grow sunflowers merely for their beauty, and well, because the bees love them too!

Echinacea! Beautiful flowers! Now to figure out how to harvest them and what to do with them next. Last year I just sprinkled their seeds back into the ground where they were growing. If I run out of time, I might just do the same this year. 

Holy Strawberry runners! Crazy how the strawberries have expanded and are rich in foliage at this time of year. I'm going to have to spend some time trimming them back and transplanting the new shoots!

A view of the garden... so pretty!

So many spiders in the garden lately....and very interesting webs here and there. Check out this spider web (Can you see the hole?) at the base of one of our blueberry shrubs:

We wondered which would win in growth this year... the Jerusalem Artichoke or the Empress Tree?  We can't believe the height of both... and incredibly the Jerusalem Artichoke wins! This plant has been growing back in the same place for three years now... it's getting a good root system growing!

So many apples this year to harvest!

Now what to do with them?

Mmmmmmm... there's nothing like fresh basil from the garden!

Peppers, peppers, peppers!  Ouch! My tongue is burning thinking about them all!

Looks like we'll be making Tomatillo (HOT) salsa!

I think this is the first year we actually harvested corn! Not a lot, but enough for a couple meals! Yum!

So many strange squashes growing in our garden...more like Squizzinis...a mix between a squash and zucchini...cross-pollinated once upon a time. They taste delicious all the same!

Kale!  Love throwing this super vegetable in about anything and everything! So good for us!  Kale in spaghetti sauce, omelettes, stir fries, quiches....

Oooooo.... Patty pans! (a.k.a. star ship squash) So happy to have so many grow in our garden this year - - - from ONE plant to bout! We've already harvested about 25 this year... and they are still growing!  My favorite thing to do with them this year has been grilling them up for breakfast!   

Delicious home-grown tomatoes!  Can't get any sweeter! I've cleaned, cut up, bagged and frozen some... Also made up a tomato sauce with our garden's kale, onions, garlic and basil; and preserved. 

So many cukes this year too!  Enjoying our 0 mile diet Greek salads (minus the feta and olive oil...), Tzatziki, and just plain 'ol cukes to nibble on! Ever tried them with fresh dill?

So many we've been giving them away!  We even tried some pickling cukes this year and have preserved a batch or two!

Well that's some of the fun that's been happening in our garden thus far! It's kept us busy harvesting and preserving... We've also started collecting our seeds: carrots, Japanese mustard, red cabbage, parsley, celery, onions, leeks, chard, calendula and much more.  We'll be attending some seed swaps here in the near future, but will also have seeds available for sale at upcoming markets. 

Now is also the time to dry one last batch of what's still around in the way of TEAS or HERBS. Just harvested hops, calendula, thyme, rosemary, & lady's mantle, for example, this week.  

Finally, there's still much to do to get ready for the winter, including planting the winter crops and spring bulbs. 

Garden GAB with you later!