PAR Davies 10/2/2013

Hi Everyone,

HARVEST TODAY 54 lbs

YTD TOTAL 2262 lbs

We had a good day today and got much done. Gardeners today were Jamie, Susan, G.A., Maxine, Nancy, Cathy and myself. Jamie was already busy shredding the bean and sweet potato vines when we got there. We are going to have some excellent compost, and Jamie has really beefed up our whole compost area. We have already used some of the compost on the savoy cabbage, which is is flourishing.

Nice rich compost ready to use

Nancy cleaned up the area along the front fence, and it looks so much better. Maxine did us a big favor by weeding all the beds and some along the back fence.  G.A. did some thinning of radishes and rutabagas. Susan and G.A. planted another bed in vetch. We got busy with the harvest so Cathy could deliver, and today picked kale, okra, white icicle radishes, more peppers (bell, banana, jalapeño, serrano, shishito, habanero), tomatoes, eggplant and basil. We are starting to harvest some of the fall crops and still plenty of summer crops are coming on.

Some of our harvest. Look at the pretty white radishes

I thought we'd be pulling out some of the tomato vines today, but there was a change of plans. G.A. suggested that since they look so good and have so many tomatoes still coming on, to leave them until we get a freeze. But we will have to harvest all the green tomatoes when we hear prediction of a freeze. It is amazing how the tomatoes took off. You wouldn't believe that a month ago they looked almost dead.

Wild and crazy tomatoes

We had a visitor at the garden today, Nikki Boertman, photographer for the Commercial Appeal. She had planned on running some pictures of the garden in the Bartlett edition of the paper tomorrow. However, I just got a call from her to say that a reporter was interested in doing a regular article for the paper, so they will skip tomorrow's pictures. We'll be waiting to hear when that is going to be.

Susan and Nikki

Below is a picture of the bed we planted with just a few black bean seeds. I found out that these seeds were an experiment at the University of Mississippi College of Agriculture. This was 10 years ago, and they have been in the deep freeze of the person who rescued them from being thrown away!!! So these seeds have a history. You can't see how nice and plump the pods are, but they are some great beans, and I hope we can plant a whole bed of them next year.

Black beans climbing on tomato cages

I purchased a muscadine vine which will go in the ground later this month. We have plans for blueberries and raspberries next spring, but will have to test the pH where we are going to put the blueberries, and adjust accordingly. Today was the first day of our new hours 9:00-11:00. It is still a little warm, but the garden is not as wet as at 7:00, which makes for 'cleaner' harvesting.

Just a note from my own garden.  I've been enjoying the Shishito peppers immensely.  Just blister them in a scant amount of olive oil and sprinkle with salt.  You can't eat just one!  I'll be planting these again next year!

Blistered Shishito peppers

'Til later,

Dianne

Letter from Dianne 9/14/12

Thank you for the seeds, Suzanne. I was especially interested in the Corno di Toro Rosso pepper. I looked it up and what a great pepper to stuff. I will definitely plant some in my garden next year, and really everything will be tried in my garden. I've just got to figure out where to put the squash!!

I had planned on trying another pepper, Shishito. I still need to order the seeds, but don't want to think about seed ordering right now. I saw a recipe (I think in the paper) for these. They are supposed to be addictive, and the most popular way to fix them is a quick hot stir fry with some sea salt. You can use sesame seed oil or olive oil, and most pictures show them slightly blackened or singed. I like the idea of different varieties of peppers. And I just found this recipe that looks great using the Shishito. Maybe I can get my husband to like eggplant. I have one eggplant this year and have been getting a lot of them. The recipe below really tickled me because I even have the blossoms. There are some garlic chives that come up along the side of the house every year and bloom like crazy. The blossoms look just like the ones in the recipe.

Sweet Spicy Eggplant & Shishito

Note:  Suzanne also gave me seeds for Aunt Ada's Italian Pole Beans and for Long of Naples Squash!