August Hate- An Annual Tradition

I've noticed a theme developing. I hate my garden come late August. I looked back to last year's August post and I have the very same thoughts today. Synopsis: the garden was fine and then we got a lot of rain and the weeds and mosquitoes took over and I don't want to be in it. (3rd wettest July in recorded history btw)

I wore long pants, a flannel shirt with collar up and clogs to do a wee bit of gardening in this morning and still got swarmed in the face. I asked the hubs if I could borrow his bee veil yesterday. He asked why- to garden in, of course. This is a note to you, dear Laura, to lower your expectations of August. In fact, have none.
All this being said, the maters, peppers and eggplant are still producing, but the smartweed is smarter than I and conquers my world.

So, when August hell comes I turn to garden indoors. I have to get excited about something and that something is going to be Fall & Winter gardening. Each year I think I become more in love with Winter gardening. There are no weeds and no bugs and a lot fewer other yard chores to distract me. It's just simple. However, everything grows at a much slower pace, but the veggies are much sweeter. Trade-offs.

I need to keep better notes on when I start seeds for fall/winter plants. I thought I wrote something down when I started the first ones for this year, but now I can't seem to find the date. I believe it was the last week in July or first week in August. Regardless, the first flats have moved outside and under bug cloth.

From R to L: Bunching Onions, Nero Kale, Bright Lights Chard, 

Frilly Mustard (my fav), a lettuce mix and more frilly mustard. 

I started another couple of flats last night and ran out of potting mix. Ran to the store. Then I decided to do some more indoor-garden greens, as I remember having success with them in year's past. I used some old containers, fresh potting mix. The three below are: 2 lettuce mixes and 1 Siberian Dwarf Kale. Want to fill this entire shelf with fresh winter indoor greens.

Indoor winter green beds started today

Outdoor Prep

The spring/summer beds in the orchard were pretty much done. The perpetual chard had gone to seed, the kale had been eaten back to nubs, the ruby orach (don't grow again-same as Lamb's Quarter) seeded, so I weeded what needed and opened the bird netting to let the chickens do the rest of the work, which they got to scratching in no time. The free garden prep is nice considering the skeeter hell. I believe I have about 48 square feet to fill in orchard beds. The Minutina/ Erba Stella (a perennial, info here) has grown well all summer and now the leaves are a bit hairy, so I've decided to not eat it until winter. I tried it this summer and it was ok. Hoping it will sweeten with lowering temps. There is also some very small Good King Henry (also a perennial green) that made it under the shade of the Ruby Orach and 4 alpine strawberries in one bed. The soil needs to be raised a bit and then I will plant transplants in all of the beds once they are ready and the bugs and heat have subsided. Ideally I would like each of these beds to hold some perennial food that the chickens and I can enjoy. 

Garden inspired food stuff

Spinach, caramelized onion, brie

and roasted tom, basil, brie pizzas

 Chinese Eggplant, Frying Pepper and Tofu stir fry.

 Tomato, Red Onion, Olive, Mint over Polenta cubes

 Left: Roasted beans over polenta cubes

Putting Up or By

I haven't canned anything yet. Only froze a couple of bags of maters. Bought a dozen ears of corn from the local farm yesterday. Froze 6 ears. Peaches in at the farm- fresh eating only.
I really need to get on canning some tomatoes and freezing eggplant before things get away from me. Oh, and clean out the freezer from last year's put ups. 

Loathing and embracing August hell. Happy Gardening, L

70's in July?

We had a week in the 80's. It was nice. Now we are experiencing a week in the 70's. Are you kidding me? I wore flannel all weekend. I actually started to wonder about how it would impact my peppers and tomatoes. Is it too cool? Never had that thought in July before. The worrying is ending there too. I'll take these last 2 weeks of weather any July without issue.

Lots going on. Today I sowed seeds in the garden or pots- spinach, collards, kale, carrots, turnips and rutabagas. A few days ago I sewed some okra seeds. We are due for rain today through tomorrow and then back in the mid-80's.

Tomato harvest is about 5.5lbs each harvest, which is every couple of days. Most of the maters are Black Plum or Black Russian, Ivory Egg and German Lunchbox. I've started to get some Gypsy, which are pink, squat and small. They are acidic and prone to cracking. I'm taking them off of my list. Adding to my must keep list are the Ivory Eggs.

The Ivory Eggs are the yellow, egg-shaped ones.

Peppers are also coming in. Eggplants are small yet. 

I roasted the tomatoes, almost cut all the way through down the middle. When done, stuffed them with a mix of garlic, aleppo pepper, salt and thyme and marinated them in olive oil. Allow to marinate in fridge at least 24 hrs. I crushed them and put them on crusty bread with melted smoked cheese and some sliced olives. Rave reviews from the the housemates.

Lemon squashes are arriving. I picked this variety because

Baker's Creek said it was very productive and one of the most resistant to bugs. 

It is more sprawling than your typical summer squash.

I roasted the squashes and red onion and made a lasagna with tofu. 

Patisson Strie Melange- scallop squash

Yellow Crooknecks

All of the squashes are doing well under the tulle. 

Although, I did notice one seemed to have rust on the leaves. 

The cowpeas I bought from Baker's Creek, Old Timer, were described as being a bush size.

They are climbers. I didn't plant for that, so now they are ramblers. This is my first harvest of varying

maturities. I found a recipe for a Tunisian Tagine that called for white beans so I shelled and used these instead. It was outstanding! I did not use the cheddar cheese called for because it didn't seem to fit and I subbed berbere spice for the paprika (also seemed more authentic). Pre-bake it looks like this:

It's gorgeous and puffy when it comes out of the oven (and smells as lovely), but I didn't get a post-pic because we were too hungry. 

The above amount of unshelled beans yielded:

When these are dry they are tinier and mottled brown. Pretty.

Mom and kiddo picked thornless blackberries. They weren't much on flavor so 

I mashed them up for jam. 

I roasted a tray of maters, one large red onion and four jalapenos, blended them up with salt, a few dashes of smoked paprika and a little cumin for this salsa or sauce. It's fairly hot as I didn't seed the peppers. 

Can you tell I am on summer break? 

Classes ended Thursday and I've got 3 weeks to squeeze in some pleasure. 

So- more projects! I'm really happy about this one:

Part of my new fence. The color was inspired by Hayefield's Nancy Ondra and her rust colored fence, which seemed to go well with her log cabin and all of the colors of her flowers. I guess rust goes with anything?

And another quick project of random scraps:

The "new" wren house. I was inspired by a house wren gathering twigs this week.

Is the cool weather making them broody? Wren houses are suppose to be 4 inches tall, wide and deep and this can fit the bill. 

I had an idea to clean out the coralberry bed one evening. The next day I went out to inspect it and 

I found it was covered in tiny blooms AND all sorts of pollinators- hover flies, small bumbles and these bee-mimicing flies. I saw two different varieties of these flies this weekend. The other one was all over the calamint. Needless to say, my plan was promptly thwarted. The pollinators are much too important.

Fly that mimics bees

See the hover fly on the right and the fly butt above?

The bumbles would come in from below making it impossible to photograph.

Here is a closer shot of those tiny, but awesome flowers.

A mess of calamint, snapdragons and agastache.

 Nicotiana- Fragrant Cloud

Prairie Dock 

Brown Eyed Susans 

The last tiger lily. 

A friend let me know about some bee research going on at U of I where you can submit your

photos and they will id your bee and in turn keep track of pollinators throughout the state. It's called

Beespotter. So far it is only open to Illinois residents. I submitted 5 photos and found out I had 4 different species in them. Yay for Citizen Science!

A kid plays in the wilderness of Foggy Bottom Refuge.

Peace.