green metallic bee on a sunflower

In place of honeybees, we have lots of Green Metallics and bumblebees this year.

Hymenoptera

beet greens

I thinned some beets and cooked them up. Delicious. There were even a few 1-2 inch roots. Its a mix of three colors of beets, yellow, red and purple. To cook, I wrapped the larger beets in foil and baked them at about 375 about 20 min. I sauteed some onions and yellow peppers (delicious ones from the Belmont CSA farm) in olive oil and butter, then sliced and added the cooked beets. Last I added the beet greens and cooked everything until the greens wilted. The best beet green I've had!

beets (Beta vulgaris)

garden yield so far

I was asked how much my little garden produces. Here's my estimate of what I've harvested so this year:

about 50 awesome tomatoes
60 large servings of lettuce and arugula
20 cucumbers
20 summer squash (zucchini, yellow and sunburst)
10 chile peppers
8 cups sugar snap peas
2 cups shelled green peas
2 cups shelled Capucijner soup peas, dried
1 garbage bag of basil (1 half gallon / 8 cups pesto)
10 little potatoes
5 cups of green beans
5 cups of soy beans in shells
4 small eggplants
20 tiny carrots
4 servings beet greens
10 small garlic heads
10 small purple onions
5 servings broccoli
herbs: oregano, dill, thyme, cilantro, parsley

Throughout September, I expect to have lots more tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash, eggpants, chile peppers, potatoes, carrots and green beans. My fall crops will include lettuce, arugula, endive, broccoli, radish, peas, pinto beans, beets, pumpkins, gourds, swiss chard and kale. I hope my gardening season will continue into December as it did last year (with kale, lettuce and endive under covers).

I added extra garden space this year by taking out a large shrub. My total space is now about 260 square feet (five 3.7x9ft raised beds and 14x7 ft extra against the house).



(It helps to have a gnome working in the garden.)

month by month

April 28 and May 11, 2007

May 25 and June 4, 2007

June 16 and June 25, 2007

July 17 and July 27, 2007

August 6 and August 28, 2007

garden aerial view

giant pumpkin vines!

Thank goodness I only planted four large pumpkin plants! They are monsters! I bet they are growing a foot a day. And I have no doubt they will cover my entire garden by the season's end if I don't keep after them. I tie them to the fence around my garden. Since this is nearly covered now, I will soon let them crawl on the lawn.

The variety of my big vines is Howden, an old standard for Halloween pumpkins and produces fruit 15-25 pounds (up to 40 pounds) in 115 days. Large vining pumpkins usually need at least 100 square feet of space. Let's see, 4 plants times 100 sq ft in my 350 sq ft garden. Hhmmm.... But its fun to see them crawling all over the lawn.

The plants are just starting to set fruit. They've aborted 3 or 4 fruits so far (before blooming). Probably because of the very hot dry weather we have now. The plants seem very healthy, so I'm guessing fruit set will be successful soon.





Pumpkin -- Cucurbitaceae spp.

checking under the row covers

My broccoli seedlings look like happy campers under their row cover. And when I checked my dinosaur kale I was amazed at the beautiful big crinkled leaves. I've never used row cover in the summer before and am impressed at how warm and bright and humid it is underneath. The plants are growing very well.

I covered my kale and broccoli because of green caterpillars of cabbage white butterfly. These were eating holes in the leaves of the kale and eating entire baby broccoli plants.


Brassicaceae
Kale (Brassica oleracea, Acephala Group)

cabbage white butterflies (Pieris rapae)

mystery squash

I had a whole bunch of squash plants that sprouted in my compost bin this spring. Many of them volunteered in the garden, too. This is the first of the fruits. It looks like a gourd I had on my table at Thanksgiving!

Cucurbita pepo (summer squash)

another mystery squash!

This is the fruit of another one of the squash plants that volunteered in my compost this spring. A medium-sized pumpkin. Its still tiny - only about 3 inches across.

Pumpkin -- Cucurbita spp.

storing garden vegetables

I usually don't store many vegetables from my garden, but this has been a pretty productive year. I suppose I often give up on garden work by mid-summer, but this year I have been keeping at it. (Good job, Kathy!)

So far if have stored:
frozen green beans
sun-dried tomatoes
basil pesto
dried soup peas

On my list to do soon are:
tomato puree
frozen roasted chile peppers
dried red chiles
frozen stuffed chiles
frozen grated zucchini
dried pinto beans

Basil pesto: Maybe my most important garden crop. I like to make sure we have pesto to last all season - until next years crop is ready. My recipe is here. This year we used a short cut and froze it partially prepared.

Peppers: I have MANY chile pepper plants this year and in this post and this post the comments list many contributed suggestions on how to store them. I will definitely use these.

Zucchini: I plan to experiment this year with freezing grated zucchini. (Got to do SOMETHING with it.) I have read that this works well for baking winter zucchini bread.

Dried field peas: These are the easiest! Just let them dry in the pod then shell and store at room temp in baggies. I harvested about a cup (1/2 pound) of Capucijner soup peas this year. The pictures are here. I will probably wait for cold weather to make soup with them.

My pinto beans are just starting to bud. Hopefully I will have a nice crop of shell beans, too.

sun dried tomatoes

"Sun-dried" tomatoes: Well, since sun drying takes 4 days even in a dry climate (and I don't live in the land of enchantment but in soggy Massachusetts) I used the oven dying method. Directions are at the Victory Garden: Cut tomatoes in half or smaller and brush lightly with olive oil. Place them on a baking sheet at extremely low heat — 150-200 degrees F — all day long. I store these in baggies in the freezer so they will last 6 months. I mostly use them on pizzas.

freezing green beans

A lot of my beans ripened all at once this year, so I froze a few servings. These instructions are from the Victory Garden Cook Book: Blanch in boiling water for 3 minutes, chill in ice water, then freeze in baggies. Pretty easy. They'll be good in winter stews.

Fabaceae

the garden after vacation

Mid-summer a risky time to leave a garden, even for a few days. As I expected, there were tons of ripe tomatoes waiting for us, a few large zucchini, and green beans plants that just keep on making more beans. My four pumpkin vines were nearly successful at taking over the garden. The hungry green cabbage caterpillars stripped off all the leaves on about half of my young broccoli plants.

After a bit of garden work, all is back in order now. I picked a few bowls full of tomatoes, a big bowl of green beans, and two nice servings of soybeans. (Ooops - I still have to remember to go pick those zucchinis!) I tied the pumpkin vine to the fence to keep it at the edge of the garden. Quite impressive - how large a few vines can get! Baby pumpkins have just started forming.

The broccoli seedlings took more work. I searched for and removed the fat green caterpillars, removed the eaten plants and replaced them with extras I'm glad I had saved (and the caterpillars didn't find). My son made some nice hoops that we covered with garden fabric. I noticed that my covered kale is doing well (its been under row covers for 2 weeks now - hiding from the caterpillars), so I think this will make my little broccolis happier.

I was pleased to see that my young fall pea sprouts are growing well (about 2 inches tall), and my late crop of pinto beans is up near the top of its tepee. On the disappointing side, the lettuce is still not growing. (Too hot!) I keep planting a short row every two weeks or so but very little has sprouted all summer (since early June). I think I'll try an indoor seeding as fall is approaching.

vacation

We've been up in the mountains on vacation. My photos of waterfalls and wildflowers are at Skippy's Backyard.

I wonder what I will find in the garden after being away?

birthday dinner

Last evening we had a little party to celebrate my birthday. I have been admiring my big bowl full of freshly harvest garden vegetables all day. An unusually good harvest for me. Truly a bountiful year! A selection of these was roasted to perfection on the grill. We especially enjoyed the whole grill chiles. Small bites - nice and hot! To finish, rich chocolate cake decorated with oregano flowers.

dog blog

Check out all the dogs working hard in their gardens on Matron's blog Down on the Allotment. There's even a picture of Skippy digging potatoes. Well he was mostly napping while I dug potatoes.

potatoes (Solanum tuberosum)
more pictures of skip