Last night's harvest

I know it doesn't look like much. It's greek oregano (which is threatening to overtake it's bed - reminder: move out of the potager in the spring!), basil and parsley.
I had several tomatoes sitting on my counter that ripened beautifully. Inspired by this recipe:
Summer in a Bowl
I cut up the tomatoes, added some green peppers (also from the potager), some chopped onion and garlic, the chopped up herbs and a splash of balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil. Basically it's a Bruschetta. Yummy enough all by itself.

But wait! Then I put it over hot spaghetti and grated fresh parmesan cheese on top.
It was delicious!
How wonderful to eat something so summery on a cool night in the middle of October!

Foggy Morning Potager

The lack of vegetation and early morning fog makes it look so empty!

Sunday Afternoon in the Potager

I saw an episode of the Barefoot Contessa where she prepared a snack for her husband and they ate it in the garden. I keep telling my husband I need to expand the potager so we can fit in a small table and chairs. He thinks I'm nuts. But we did have lunch in the potager today.

Cheese, apples, some crusty bread and a local (to my daughter) wine - life is good.
(Even if it's not as pretty as the Barefoot Contessa's garden table!)

Putting (part of) the Garden to Bed

While there are no frost warnings forecast, I realize that it is getting dark earlier and that if I am surprised by a frost warning, there would be no time after work to gather all my vegetables, so I decided to put my garden to bed early - well, not the fall garden obviously, but the tender annuals. This is what my garden looked like at lunch time:

And this is what was left by dinner time:

I will add lime and compost to this beds and cover them with a mulch of grass, 

but for now they look so forlorn!

 

However I ended up with this:

A BIG basket full of produce - I should show you the bottom layer -

That's a LOT of jalapenos! The jalapeno was the only plant that was not affected by the cooler weather we've been having.  It kept producing like mad! So I will make jellies for Christmas gifts, freeze some for winter chilies and ...who knows what else?  I'll let you know what I do with it all!

Green Tomato Bread

Green Tomato Bread

There has been plenty of rain and not much to do in the garden, so early this morning I decided to do something with those green tomatoes I had harvested. I decided to make Green Tomato Bread!

I started by cutting up the green tomatoes to go into the food processer (a blender would work too). I cut up four tomatoes.

 The cut up tomatoes were processed to a mush.

The mush was drained of it's liquid. I ended up with 2 cups of the drained mush, which is what you want.

The resulting mush juice went into my compost pile. There has got to be a ton of nutrients in that!

 In a large mixing bowl, I mixed together 2 cups of white sugar, 1 cup of oil (I used Canola) and 3 eggs slightly beaten.

 When that was mixed I added 3 cups flour, 1 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. baking soda, 1/2 tsp. cloves, 3 tsp. cinnamon and 1/2 tsp. nutmeg.

I mixed this in with the egg mixture.

At this point I was thinking I should have used my stand mixer. It is a very thick batter at this point.

Then I added 2 cups of the green tomato mush and 1 teaspoon of vanilla and the batter loosened up a bit and was much easier to stir by hand.

I then stirred in 1 cup of chopped walnuts. This is totally optional. If you don't like nuts, leave them out.
 It was suggested to me that raisins would be good in this bread also. So if you like raisins you could add 1 cup of raisins in addition to or instead of the nuts.

 Divide batter between two bread pans and bake in a 350 degree oven for one hour or until done. Let cool in pans for a bit before you take them out.

Voila! A beautiful loaf of Green Tomato Bread!

It was really very good! Try some.. it's a great way to use up those green tomatoes that may not be in good enough shape for ripening indoors.

Autumn Potager

 The face of the Potager has changed. It's getting cooler and Tropical Storm Nicole knocked over some plants, so it was time to give the garden a fall clean up.

The two large Ugli tomato plants were knocked to the ground by the storm. I picked off the green tomatoes and took the plants out. I'll let the healthiest looking green tomatoes ripen indoors. The other will be chopped up and made into something yummy.

The empty space where the tomato plants dwelled was refreshed with lime, fertilizer and compost and some more asparagus was dug up from the old bed that was destroyed and put in. Now the Asparagus bed is full, as I planned it and should remain undisturbed for the next 20 years or so.
Unfortunately for us, we won't be eating any Asparagus from our garden for a few years. But the fond memory of how wonderful the fresh Asparagus tasted will give us the patience to wait for it.

The turnips and radishes are getting big and the beets and swiss chard are looking good too.
I'm not sure if the carrots will get big before the first frost, but this whole box is liking the cooler nights.

 I love Mums. The Zinnias had done their duty in the garden. They needed to be removed. The mums add a pop of color instantly.
Mums are perennials and would come back in the spring if I were to leave them there, but I am planning on treating these like annuals and tossing them once they die back.

The bell peppers are doing really well with the cooler temperatures. They are producing dozens of flowers which I will remove so all the energy can go into these peppers before the first frost.

 The jalapenos are heavy with peppers. I'm hoping to make more jelly and freeze some for use during the winter.

The basil will continue until the first frost. It will be completely picked before then and made into pesto for the freezer.
The parsley, or what's left of it after the caterpillars, will be available until Thanksgiving, and then should survive as a cutting until Christmas. I've never had luck digging the plant and keeping inside.

And lastly the lettuce is getting bigger daily, as is the volunteer dill. The red leafed Merlot lettuce has all come up, most of the Black Seeded Simpson is up and getting big, but only about a third of the Little Gem Romaine has come up and is growing very slowly. I'll cover the lettuce when a light frost is predicted, but will have to rig up some kind of a cold frame to give them more time to mature.
I can't believe how quickly this gardening season is passing!

"There ought to be gardens for all months in the year,
in which, severally, things of beauty may be then in season."
-  Sir Francis Bacon

Summer's Winding Down

The harvest basket is less full. A lot of basil to be made into Pesto for dinner. Some cucumbers that should be pickled before they go bad in the refrigerator (oops - did I let that happen?), a few tomatoes and wax beans. Summer is winding down.

Now we sit in the garden in the evening and it gets too cool for us well before it gets too dark or too buggy. The eggplant has gone into the compost pile and will soon be joined by some other plants that have stopped producing. The tomatoes are hanging in there, but I have been looking for recipes using green tomatoes to be safe.

But the peppers are going strong and the seedlings are looking good. I have never tried a fall garden, so this is an experiment for me. It's all about timing - did I get everything in on time? Did I calculate the first fall frost correctly?  I am no expert, but I am having so much fun learning!