What are You Eating from the Garden?

[digitS']

Peppers are something of a mystery to me. Fushimi from my garden were both mild and somewhat spicy. Perhaps it had to do with each year's growing environment.

Either way, they were easily cooked in stir-fries. Somewhat thin-walled, they cooked quickly and were a real nice ingredient choice with mixed veggies. That is, unless they were too spicy.

Having had another poor year outdoors for the peppers (while the hots out did themselves in the greenhouse), we have some sweet farmers' market peppers hanging in the kitchen. Heavier walled, they won't dry quite the way hot peppers will. However, they can be boiled until tender, run through the food processor, and will make a very welcome addition to pasta sauce. At just about any proportion with tomatoes etc., they make for delicious sauce that can be frozen until needed.

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

yes, that's a good reminder @digitS' as it brings the food mill to mind. if the peppers get really mushy but have the skins and you don't want those a food mill should help to get the meat from the skin. then, like you say, you can freeze that in portions or add to other things or make pepper sauce or ...

i'm drooling... i *heart* peppers.

 

[digitS']

Kale, cabbage, mustard greens, green onions ... some pea tendrils .

Yes, the tractor guy failed in his (apparently) scheduled appearance and we made another foraging run through the big veggie garden. There was rain when it was said that he would be there.

I don't much care. It's an added expense and I don't have to look at that garden through the winter months. Still, the plant material is in a better state of decomposition by spring even if the soil is in about its same state of compaction as it is right now. I have had many hours of rototiller work when the tractor tilling is done in the fall and not spring.

Very, very little growing has occurred over the last month - if any. It's a little like, "oh, we missed these!" "Do you suppose these buds off the cut cabbage stem amount to enough to bother with?"

Steve

 

[Ridgerunner]

Steve, why do you do so much rototilling on Fall plowed ground? Grass and weeds or something else? Would it help to mulch it so in the spring you rake the mulch off and plant it, maybe with a quick pass of the tiller? Then reuse the mulch as mulch. In Arkansas I found leaving mulch on in the winter made it a lot easier in spring to get the ground ready for planting though it tends to hold water. I'd have to rake it off and let the ground dry a few days before I worked it. I'm talking about something like straw, not a green mulch that has to be worked in.

 

[digitS']

Compaction, @Ridgerunner . The soil is already 50% igneous rocks.

Mulch - I would need a load off an 18-wheeler. The big veggie garden is 50' by 200' with a 90' by 50' extension.

I can imagine mulching as a good idea ... with happy earthworms instead of a springtime, tilled mess.

Steve

 

[digitS']

Soup!

It won't be as good as earlier in the year. But! There will be more ingredients than that ... . Have to go easy on the peppers!

Actually, these were on a Big Beef plant that was just too difficult to toss in the spring, and after available space was filled in the big veggie garden. Keeping it around, it was seriously root-bound before it was charitably, plunked into a backyard bed.

There was about one ripe one off the plant. The tomatoes with a blush were used about the first of November. These guys were solid green and DW laughed when I brought them in. Shucks. If I hadn't lost track of my Thessaloniki (best keeper) in the tomato patch jungle, there might have been lots more green/red tomatoes sitting around the kitchen.

Now for some insight in digitS' morning kitchen activity -- these tomatoes will wait for the weekend. There's potato and leek soup on the stove. Yay!

Steve

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

Compaction, @Ridgerunner . The soil is already 50% igneous rocks.

Mulch - I would need a load off an 18-wheeler. The big veggie garden is 50' by 200' with a 90' by 50' extension.

I can imagine mulching as a good idea ... with happy earthworms instead of a springtime, tilled mess.

Steve

That is an amazingly huge garden! I guess I have never seen a full picture of it.

 

[digitS']

It's always been a little difficult to take pictures there, @Gardening with Rabbits . I remember when I tried @seedcorn , I believe it was, saying that it reminded him of the garden from his childhood.

Not all the ground is garden space and there is no longer what I consider actual beds. Row crops with generous room in between for the tilling. On the ends of the garden are 5' paths and there are 2 of those 5-footers in the interior. Additionally ... or subtracting-ly ... I nearly came back to edit and take out 15' or 10' or ? to that "extension." It was new this year and I don't really remember .

Steve

 

[digitS']

Here's a thread just from last year when I tried some picture-taking.

The distant view here (link) shows most of what I have in 2018. The ground under those bean teepees and everything to the left of the camera and behind the camera were not part of gardening this year. (Gee, I guess I'm behind the camera! The last few months ~ Must have just been in my imagination .)

Anyway, not having use of that ground, I tilled around the corner up there at the far end. Not as far as that gate and bush in front of the blue garage.

It all appears longer than it really is at 200' from that water pipe. My home is on a lot the common size of many in cities, 50' by 120'. So, the big garden is just a little bigger than the size of 2 city lots.

Steve

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

Here's a thread just from last year when I tried some picture-taking.

The distant view here (link) shows most of what I have in 2018. The ground under those bean teepees and everything to the left of the camera and behind the camera were not part of gardening this year. (Gee, I guess I'm behind the camera! The last few months ~ Must have just been in my imagination .)

Anyway, not having use of that ground, I tilled around the corner up there at the far end. Not as far as that gate and bush in front of the blue garage.

It all appears longer than it really is at 200' from that water pipe. My home is on a lot the common size of many in cities, 50' by 120'. So, the big garden is just a little bigger than the size of 2 city lots.

Steve

That is a huge garden. My lot is called a 1/4 acre and my garden is not even half of that so, picturing yours, I would have to garden my neighbors whole lot, my front yard, the land the house sits on, where the garage and driveway is, the back yard and the garden. If I was 20 years old or 20 people maybe. lol Amazing pictures!