Basils and More Harvest

You've heard me blab about my new found fondness for variety in my basil patch so I thought I'd introduce the stars before I hack them back and puree them into pesto. Whew. Don't read that sentence 5 times fast.

Italian Basil.

Thai Basil.

This is my favorite basil and one I would plant its own patch of as I use it often in what I call "Noodle Bowl". NB is a combination of any veggies, wheat gluten or tofu, some kind of soba or rice noodle with a little broth, cilantro and Sriracha sauce. It has a black licorice flavor. Yum.

Ruffled or Lettuce Leaf Basil.

This one would be good as a stuffing basil. 

Lemon Basil.

Bush Basil. (centered)

This one is nice because you don't have to chop it before adding it into a recipe as the leaves are already small. It would be a good one for a small garden, a pot or even a decorative edging (if you're into that sort of thing).

Holy Basil.

This one is not in my basil patch. A friend gave me a plant several years ago and it reseeds and returns in random places each year. I haven't actually cooked with it. I both love and hate the smell of it. I can't put my finger on it, but it makes me sneeze sometimes. It smells like sickening sweet candy. Kind of.

HARVEST

I harvested my first potatoes of the season today. It looks like it will be a small harvest. I'm wondering if maybe that has something to do with getting my seed potatoes from the northeast. I need to find a midwestern source. I'm not giving up though. I've been trying to figure out what fruit or veg will provide the most food per square foot and I think this may be on the top of the list. So, what you're looking at here are Adirondack Red and Green Mountain. The reds are really pretty and the Green Mountain are really white.

The only other thing worthy of mentioning is I'm going to try some late summer crops that I haven't attempted before. I'm going to sew more summer squash and zucchini (started in a pot last night), bush beans (soaked in a cup of water today) and some cucumbers. I also planted some brussel sprout seeds last night too (in pots). I ordered some seeds for the fall garden from Pinetree Garden Seeds. I read yesterday about growing chicken feed and my girls love kale in the winter so I thought I'd plant them some winter wheat and kale in the orchard for them. Once I harvest the potatoes I will plant the wheat and kale there. It is chicken-wired already so until the kale gets big enough I can keep the wire up and once the wheat goes to seed I can open it up to them too. The wheat will double as a green manure as well.  

I'll leave you with some baby melon progress- cantaloupe and mini-watermelons.

Cantaloupe

Pony Yellow melon.

The Dog Days

After at least 2 weeks of neglect it was time to get some chores done in the garden. It hasn't rained for 2 weeks and has been in the upper 90's and low 100's the entire time. I've also had visitors, but lets be real I just don't get into gardening in the middle of summer as much. I've got everything set up so it can kind of do its own thing in the time being, but in order to have a fall garden I can't slack for too long. I got up and out early to beat the heat and until my stomach said it was time for breakfast. There is a lot to do. Not entirely necessary, but I wanted or needed to be outside. I'm done with this air conditioning bit. Sweating got me thinking about "the dog days" and wondering where that came from. Seems it has to do with the brightest star, Sirius, in Canis Major and the idea that it brought about heat. I pulled this from wikipedia: Dog Days were popularly believed to be an evil time "when the seas boiled, wine turned sour, Quinto raged in anger, dogs grew mad, and all creatures became languid, causing to man burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies" according to Brady’s Clavis Calendarium. 


I have noticed an air of hysteria around here lately. Anyway, the etiology of words and phrases interests me and apparently our "dog days" can last through September so we have a ways to go. Try to be kind everyone.
So...so much to do. This is a time of harvest, regrouping, prepping and replanting. My old camera also broke so I have lots to make note of here as it's been awhile since my last post (confession?).

HARVEST

Last spring and again in early summer I planted Danver's Half--Long and Cosmic Purple Carrots. I'd planted other carrots in the spring, but really decided they weren't worth much so I let them go to flower since the are a great food source for so many insects. Today I pulled out all of the carrots that had flowered and gone to seed and then noticed the Danver's were still harvestable- wow, another reason to love them. Typically, when a root crop is allowed to go to flower it is no longer good as a root crop. All the energy (sugars) are redirected from the root into making flowers and thus seed- progeny. The Cosmic Purple carrot bed quickly became identified as a great dusting bed by my 7 chickens and all but the few I got protected were harvested today. They are gorgeous. 

I grew a new-to-me lettuce variety this year called Winter Density. I love winter gardening so I had to try it out. It is also a keeper. It is a romaine-type and was thick and juicy and took a long time to bitter and bolt so I decided to collect some seed. I've never intentionally harvested lettuce seed before, but I have let my plants go to seed 1) because the colorful plants are pretty and 2) perhaps it is beneficial to some bug and 3) laziness. I'm not particularly fond of cutting old lettuce- it has sticky sap. The seeds also have parachutes and are tiny, so I'm not really expecting to get a ton of seed out of them, but I cut the head and tossed them in a paper bag to dry and collect. The seeds I purchased were more than likely not grown in a climate similar to mine so IF I have success collecting and regrowing this variety over time what SHOULD happen is that I end up with a genome better suited to my soil and weather, but nature is a moving target. There is no perfection. There are only transitional beings or death and extinction. It sounds so melodramatic, but it is true. Here is what lettuce seed looks like while on the plant and being harvested. 

Harvesting into paper bag.

Onions harvested this week and curing on the picnic table. I need to cut off the dry tops and store in the basement.

A friend asked how long these would last. Since nearly everything I cook starts with "saute 1 onion" I can't imagine I will have them long. I remember when I bought the small paper bag of baby bulbs this spring and it seemed like a ridiculous amount then. Maybe I will count them and remember to post when I'm done with them. Maybe.

Strung these bachelor buttons up to dry about 2 weeks ago and they are also ready to be snipped and stored for planting late winter. BB or Cornflowers will germinate in fall many times and overwinter. These plants are usually very hardy. 

Sorry they were spinning so it was hard to get a good shot.

I also need to start collecting Zinnias and Orange Cosmos seeds.

PREPPING FOR SECOND HARVEST

This is what it looks like where I tore out the old carrots. As you can see the soil level has dropped in the raised beds and each year I have to bring it back up. Today I just used whatever I had around- I sprinkled a little bone meal, I added a 5 gallon bucket of composted chicken manure and 2 wheelbarrows of crap from the back of the truck- old straw and some decomposing mulch. It didn't quite bring it all the way up, but some fall leaves will cover that. In rotating the crops this will be a site for a fall/winter garden (which it was last year). The 1 x 2's that are still there are what holds up the plastic sheeting that I use in the winter, so the 2nd tier of concrete blocks is really to hold up the plastic, the wood and create a little bit of a wind break since it is on the northern side of the bed.

After harvest. Before soil amendment.

After soil amendments- bone meal, chicken poo, straw, rotting mulch.

And now that it is prepared I can plant. I started 4 Okra plants a few weeks ago. I don't LOVE okra, but I do like it in the fall in a stew of mixed veggies with some slurry of warm and cozy sauce. 

And to end today's post...a friend bought me this handy little guide. It's is called Clyde's Garden Planner. You simply line up the red line with your expected frost date (there are 2 sides, one for spring and one for fall) and it tells you when to plant or expect harvests. I didn't think I would use it so much, but having it on the fridge is a constant reminder of what I could be planting. I like it mostly because it reminds me that I can plant for several harvests when I use to just plant seeds one time. This is what it looks like:

First Tomatoes!

I'm not sure whether to be happy or sad about my first tomatoes. I'm happy that I have some, but sad that it is looking like I will have the worst ever tomato crop. (The sky is falling. The sky is falling) I'm not even sure if I will have enough to can. Oh, the horror! Let's try to focus on the positives. The winners are: Jaune Flamme (a medium, orange) and Orange Icicle (orange, roma-type). Is it just a coincidence that the first to develop are both orange or did I miss this in previous years? Ok. Other positives. The plants are still alive, even though they have a little touch of a fungus on the bottom leaves, they have flowers and there are some fruit, however few, in various stages of development. I'd expect to see a lot more fruit this time of year. Other news from the Bright Side is that I have tomatoes AND plants, where I know a lot more people who are having bigger issues. This is just another pat on the back for me in bucking up and going with raised beds. It was a lot of work, but so worth it in so many ways. I will never regret it and I'd never go back. I don't even want to talk about the negatives. If you garden around here you already know what is going on. I did a little investigating and found that prior to yesterday's 2.0 inches we were already at 32.23 inches for the year. Our average annual precipitation is about 39 inches. We should be at around 20 inches, so we're talking 1+ foot of rain over average at this time of year. Oh well, such is the nature of gardening.

Here are the winners!

I'd write more and while I know there is a lot more good going on in my garden than bad, it's hard not to notice the bad stuff and I don't want to be a downer. I'll leave you with this quote, which I find hilarious.

“There is no need for every American to be lured into gardening.  It does not suit some people and they should not be cajoled into a world they have no sympathy with.  Many people after all, find delight in stealing television sets; others like to make themselves anxious with usury and financial speculation; still others rejoice in a life of murder.  None of these is very good material for a gardener.” - Henry Mitchell, One Man's Garden

Beans and Babies

The babies are here! The eggs that were laid on the glass door by the Green Stink Bug hatched. The little specks just kind of hung out near the shells for a couple of days and then this morning they had all dispersed. This photo is from their underside. They are not green like mom, but were brownish-yellow and mottled on top and not yet with wings.

I planted beans on April 26th and collected my first harvest this morning. Ten weeks from planting to harvest. I think these are Blue Lake bush. I planted them next to the cucumbers and then some Tithonia popped up and later and on down the row some Sunflowers popped up so there are various things shading them. How will I prep them? Just give em a rinse. My favorite way to eat green beans is fresh and raw. If I had a second favorite it would be in Red Curry.

I don't know how long I can harvest these bush beans, but I do know that Yard-long or Asparagus beans will produce all summer for me. Even in drought. These are Vietnamese Red Noodle. I can start harvesting at this stage or wait until they are bigger and longer. No hurry. These will go in some kind of stir fry for sure.

See the Sunflowers down the path? Those showed up last year in some chicken poo I had spread from the coop. They were the first successful sunflowers I had in years. Something had been biting off the heads just before they would open. So, I get it nature- you're in control, not me. These are the progeny of last year's crop, likely dropped by the Goldfinches that adore them. I will continue to let them do their thing and not intervene as I have learned my lesson to not plant another Sunflower again. I like it better when nature does it anyway.

More deformity to come- still in the Cucurbits, but this time a Winter Squash. I think this is Sweet Dumpling- an acorn type. I noticed two fusing, just like the yellow squash before. Must be a propensity in the squashes for this to occur.

I know I ragged on Fireworks Gomphrena on another post, but I saw it in another light this morning. I suppose it could be good for taking up a bunch of room (a filler) if you need something like that in a flower border. It is blooming more now, which ups its score, but I'm still bothered by the fact that I never see a single bug on it. Here's a photo of the entire "bush".

I discovered something fun a few years ago. It isn't something that I want to eat everyday, but it is adorable and grows on a vine and the fruits look like miniature watermelon, but taste like barely sour pickles and they are easy to snack on whilst in the garden. These are Mexican Sour Gherkins. I'm experimenting with growing them in a pot this year. They haven't flowered/ fruited yet, but they are still a cute little plant and something for the balcony gardener.

If I can remember, something I've been thinking about doing is photographing the entire garden each month of the year. ha. So if I can remember I will start with July. This was taken the morning of July 4th just at the end of our 3.7 inches of rain.

To me this picture makes the garden look small. It is made up of 5 rows that are at least 4 ft wide and approximately 35 ft long. The last row is a little wider. I think I will have to devote an entire post to the making of this garden- the whys and hows.

And just because I can I will end this post with a cat. Toby basking in the window.

Pipevines and Pesto

So, I told you I've give you an update on the Pipevine Swallowtail eggs that I saw being laid on the Pipevine right? Well, I ended up finding hundreds of these wicked looking caterpillars. They are black and red-orange with lots of threatening tentacles sticking out of them. So cool. Lots of gorgeous butterflies to come. It is amazing how just having 1 unique plant in your yard can change the dynamics of the fauna in it. It impresses me that they are able to find a plant where there was never one before. Here are the caterpillars munching the Pipevine (Aristolochia tomentosa) at my house. 

You thought you were hiding under the leaf, eh?

See the black poopers and munched leaf evidence?

Pesto: Harvested my first crop of basil for freezer pesto. It takes 8 cups of leaves just to make about 1 1/2 cups of sauce. So, I found this recipe at Everyday Food, which now I can't find, but essentially it is: 8 c. basil leaves, 2/3 c. olive oil, 2 cloves garlic, 1 c. walnuts (toasted on a pan) and S & P to taste. The new thing that this recipe calls for which I've never done is flash-blanch the basil by dropping it in boiling water, immediately removing and running cold water over. This is suppose to keep it green, but I noticed it started to change and there are so many walnuts in it anyway it doesn't end up being very green so oh well. I loaded this into freezer containers for later fare. It's suppose to last 6 months in the freezer. I know I've pushed that limit before. 

It's kind of unattractive, but oh the flavor!

I think my camera may be dying. She is taking fewer and fewer focused photos. She has been to other countries and been to a beach or two, got rough-handled in baggage check, probably x-rayed and I could barely see her scratched screen images from her travels, but she has done me well. As a result I may not have much to blog about until her replacement or unless she sees this note and steps up. 

What to do with Abundance: Overgrown Cukes & Summer Squash

It is all too easy to miss a stray cucumber here or a zucchini there. Don't beat yourself up over it! When life hands you cucumbers, make pickles. I have this super easy and quick fridgerator pickle recipe that I got from Martha Stewart. I know, you didn't think I knew who she was, right? They are called Dill Pickle Chips. A friend of mine has a slightly easier recipe (if that is possible) and they only cure 2 days in the fridge. I'm testing that one now. You can tell in this pic that I REALLY missed one of the cukes- it was already turning orange, but it was still good so pickled it is.

There is this gray area between planting too many and not enough zucchini. You don't know how many will succumb to squash borers or beetles so you over plant and hope to overwhelm the pests. At THIS moment and I hate to even say it, but none of my squash have died. So, I have 2 zucchini and 3 Summer Squash plants. I got my first Summer Squash and Zucchini this week. So, guess what we're eating?

One of my favorite, easy and kid-friendly zucchini or summer squash recipes is a healthified Quesadilla. I vary the recipe depending on what I have, but generally it calls for- 1 small-med squash/zucchini, 2 green onions, 1 can drained/rinsed black beans, 1 jalapeno and some cheese. Shred the squash, sprinkle some salt over it in a colander and squeeze as much moisture as you can out of it. Today I mixed yellow squash with cilantro, 1 ear fresh corn kernels, 1 can black beans, 1 large green onion and about a cup of cheese. In a pan over medium heat place a tortilla, load up the veg mix and top with another tortilla. Lightly brown on both sides. Serve with salsa on top. It's so good even the kid thinks it isn't healthy and said "I'd better eat some applesauce so I at least have something healthy for dinner." Fooled her.

Quesadilla stuffing before.

Quesadilla after. 

The Yellow Season

We are entering the yellow season. There seems to be more yellow flowers starting mid-summer and lasting into fall. Here are a few of the yellows bursting in my yard and garden. 

The Cucurbits: Squashes, cucumbers, melons, gourds, pumpkins, etc

My first Summer Squash of the season. I hope this one isn't an indicator of more oddity to come. This one seems to be a fusion of at least 4 squash and stems. 

Another wonderfully scented, especially at dusk, lily. She's an Oriental.

And another Oriental. Also with a lovely aroma. 

This Native Shrubby St. John's Wort (Hypericum prolificum) has a somewhat tropical-looking flower. 

Gray-headed coneflowers (Ratibida pinnata) just beginning to burst in the front yard prairie.

A random Black-Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) that appeared this year in the garden. 

Dill has Yellow Flowers! 

Other yellows not pictured also in bloom:  Tomato, Cosmos, Sunflowers, Daylilies. 

Ok, so Kiki (Maximus adorablus) isn't yellow, but she has apricot highlights and this pose is the "but look how cute I am and wouldn't you rather pet me than look at those dumb plants?"