Seminole Pumpkin - A Garden Favorite!

Seed catalogs are arriving now, so it's a good time to share one of my garden favorites with you, Seminole Pumpkin. I was enticed by the Baker Creek seed catalog description "The wild squash of the Everglades… sweet flesh … productive vines … resistant to insects and disease." Squash bugs are often attracted to my organic garden, and I'd lost hopes of growing my favorite butternut squash ever again. (Note: winter squash and pumpkins are in the same vegetable family). But Seminole Pumpkin gave me new hope, and I figured a plant native to the Everglades should find happiness in my hot, humid Tennessee garden. So I ordered a package of seeds in late 2012.


Big squash plants need lots of space for their vines to spread, so I ended up only growing one Seminole Pumpkin plant in the 2013 summer garden (two are recommended, for optimal pollination). But it proved true to its description, growing strong with no damage by insects, and giving me a good harvest of about 5 big fruit, shaped much like bird house gourds. It was a lovely plant too, with large distinctive variegated leaves and huge yellow flowers (edible by the way). I enjoyed the taste just as well as butternut squash, so more good points for the pumpkin.

This past season I left the vegetable garden unplanted, as I renourished the depleted soil. Low and behold, in early summer a couple of healthy plants began to grow out of my compost bin, and I recognized the leaf as that of the Seminole Pumpkin. Evidently, some of the seeds discarded in the compost bin when I cooked the vegetable the previous fall had survived. Never one to throw away a good healthy plant (which explains why I have too many flower gardens!), I carefully dug three seedlings and planted them in the big pile of rich composted mulch from a nearby mushroom factory, which had been left from tilling some into the garden a few months previous. Wow, did they grow! A few times I gently re-directed the vines, as they spread across one of our walking trails.

By early September, ten big squashes had matured from green to tan and the skins were thick, indicating ripeness. Amazingly, I still had one Seminole Pumpkin left from the previous year, stored in our basement which maintains a year-round temperature of about 60°F... so it stores very well. I picked the ripe ten squashes and  continued to harvest individual pumpkins for several weeks. When a heavy frost threatened in mid October, I read that I should pick any remaining squashes and let them ripen indoors; these would not be as good for longterm storage as those which had ripened on the vines. So I picked about 10 more which still had some green skin. Not wanting to line them up in the living room, where the room temperature would be closer to the recommended 80 degrees for ripening, I placed these on my open shelves in front of the south-facing basement window. It took many weeks, but eventually these fruit did ripen, and tasted just as good as the others.

I also recommend Seminole Pumpkin because it is very nutritious, easy to cut, and the seeds roast up as a delicious snack. My raw harvested squashes cut very well with my best bread knife. You can roast, boil, microwave, and cook squashes in a variety of ways; I find it quick and easy to cook large batches in my pressure cooker, unpeeled. Once cooked and cooled, the pulp easily scoops out of the shell. To use fresh pumpkin in baking (especially in recipes calling for canned pumpkin), it is best to drain off the excess liquid from the pulp. After I mash the pumpkin in the food processor to make a smooth consistency, I either

• drain the puree in a colander lined with coffee filters and discard the liquid 
• put the puree in a container and refrigerate overnight, then pour off the liquid which separates from the pulp

This pumpkin freezes well; I measured about 3 cups of puree from each harvested squash, and stored it in zip bags which stack flat in the freezer.

If you want to grow Seminole Pumpkin, just ask me for some seeds and I'll save some I don't eat!

Also, check out these recipes which use fresh pumpkin:
Pumpkin Chai Snickerdoodles
Pumpkin Cranberry Bread
and watch for my future posts (like the yummy pumpkin cake shown here) using this nutrituous delicious vegetable!

No Garden This Year

I've witnessed some expressions of shock when I tell friends I am not planting a vegetable garden this year! The key word here is "vegetable" - I have plenty of gardens outside of the 20' x 40' plot we've dedicated to annual veggies for several years. In fact, I've been working for the last 3 months cleaning up winter leaves and old growth from my "other" gardens! (One reason why I haven't posted here in so long.)

The vegetable garden is not being planted because it is being renourished this year. Since I've been doing year-round gardening for several years, we suspected its nutrients had been depleted and got a soil test done by the cooperative extension service. My 2013 veggie garden was disappointing (for many reasons, but weak soil is likely one). If you are a recent follower to this blog, you can look at the 2011 archives - during that year I posted my vegetable garden activity month-by-month for all 12 months. With stuff planted all the time, it's a challenge to find time for a good work-over. That's why we made the tough decision to keep the vegetable garden empty for a while.

Mushroom compost delivery

So we dumped a 10 ton load of compost from the local mushroom factory on the vegetable garden in December, spreading the mulch to cover the garden area, and then rota-tilled it in. Then I spread buckets of chicken manure, from my friend Susan's gorgeous egg-layers… a great source of nitrogen. Both the mushroom compost and chicken manure are too "hot" and strong until they have time to compost into the existing soil.

Some of Susan's lovely hens who contributed manure!

The next layer was dried leaves from the huge variety of hardwoods I raked off my other gardens, which will compost and decay, adding more nutrients. Once the weather warms up, we'll do a "soil solarization," covering the garden with clear plastic for 30+ days to help kill off blight and other soil-borne pathogens. I am also planning to add some worms and do some "green" manure planting… a crop which will add nitrogen and good stuff back into the soil, instead of depleting its nutrients. Hopefully, this will all result in a great vegetable garden next year.

Meanwhile, my cold frame has produced oodles of kale, lettuce, spinach and parsley through the cold season. Onions and garlic planted in the fall are green and healthy. The wild chickweed was abundant this winter - a great addition to salads and smoothies. My other recent garden activities have included planting a new asparagus bed in my edible front yard, transplanting additional wildflowers to the trailside wildflower garden I started on our "Darla Trail" last year, cleaning/pruning/feeding and other tasks on the many many perennial flowers, herbs, berries, fruit trees, and other plants I have going strong. I love springtime and gardening gives me a great excuse to use some of my "free time" in the beautiful outdoors. Go plant something yourself!

The edible front yard is growing fabulously - strawberries and blueberries are now flowering!

Why is corn so sweet?

Eating on the Wild Side: The Missing Link to Optimum Health is a must-read for anyone interested in eating more nutritiously. Author Jo Robinson has compiled 10 years of research and data from historical documents, scientific journals, nutritional studies, academia, and other referenced sources to present a simple guide to choosing the most nutritious vegetables and fruit as part of our everyday diet.

This book explains how the wild ancestors of today's common fruits and vegetables were far more healthful than our choices today. Natural selectivity and the intervention by hunter-gatherers, farmers, scientists, and big business agriculture have bred nutrients out, often in favor of other qualities. Aren't these supposed to be the most healthy parts of our diets? Modern varieties are less bitter, not so chewy, larger, or in other ways more appealing to the human palate. They ship better and farther, ripen more evenly, or grow to a uniform size, making commercial successes. But science can now measure micro nutrients and analysis shows that these selective interventions have also depleted essential phyto-nutrients (ie. nutritional value in plant substances) from today's popular and most widely grown and marketed fruits and veggies.

Still, there are so many types of fruits and vegetables and so many varieties within each type, that - armed with the knowledge from this book - we can still fill our plates with the most nutritious choices. With each chapter concentrating on one vegetable, Robinson shares info and tips such as:

• how the vegetable or fruit evolved from its wild ancestor plants
• how our mega food industry grows, harvests, ripens, stores and delivers produce
• specific varieties which are the most nutritious and why
• what parts of the veggie or fruit you should eat
• how to select, buy, clean, and store the freshest choices
• the shelf life of phytonutrients
• good alternatives to some of the most "popular" vegetables and fruit
• how to prepare, cut, cook and eat to maintain the most nutrients (some recipes included)

This book is a real eye-opener. Without even considering genetically modified foods (GMOs), Robinson's  accounts of how our crops have been and are currently being mutated, modified, hybridized, and treated are astonishing, and, in some cases, disturbing to me. Check these tidbits:

CORN: 95% of the sweet corn grown today traces back to two mutant strains, one of which occurred when scientists exposed corn seeds to intense radiation during atomic bomb tests in the Marshall Islands in 1946. A geneticist later discovered, rather by accident, that this resulted in an intense "sweetness" to the corn kernel, and crossed it with other corn varieties to create a viable plant.

GRAPES: Since the 1960s, Thompson grapes, the common seedless green grapes sold at supermarkets, have been grown with the spraying of a plant hormone called gibberellic acid, for the sole purpose of elongating the grape and making it 75% larger than normal. Our grapes are "gibbed."

ORANGES, TOMATOES, BANANAS & OTHERS:  Many of our fresh produce selections are picked long before ripening, subjected to gassing in warehouses to make their skins turn the color of ripeness, then sold to us as fresh picked. I've cringed when reading labels on oranges which also confess to "added color."

Read this book (I'm starting through it a second time, taking notes now) and you'll learn things like:

• currants are a healthy alternative to raisins
• red and pink grapefruit are sweeter and nutritionally better than white varieties
• 2000 types of bananas are grown worldwide, but Cavendish is the only one commonly sold in the USA
• more mangoes are eaten daily around the world than apples
• why dried plums are the new prunes
• broccoli needs to be eaten soon after harvest to preserve its cancer-fighting properties
• canned blueberries are better for you than fresh ones

Sweet potatoes I grew in '13 (clockwise): All Purple, Beauregard, and O'Henry

 I just finished the book, and I've been changing my vegetable choices based upon what I've learned from Eating on the Wild Side. I selected the varieties to plant in my new asparagus bed based on Robinson's recommendations. I've tried and enjoyed a new recipe for Garlic Roasted Cabbage. I've developed a delicious black bean soup recipe, made in my pressure cooker, and a yummy recipe for Braised Red Cabbage (I'll share these soon). I'm adding Haas avocados to more dishes - when they are not too expensive! I tried and like dried plums and even chopped some fine to add to my granola, discovering a tasty and nutritious alternative to raisins in future recipes. I am giving more points to the "all purple" sweet potatoes I grew last season, even though they are a bit drier when cooked than the typical orange-fleshed varieties. I understand better why picking your own garden varieties and buying from local farmers markets is so advantageous over buying supermarket produce. Do I prefer eating a pink lady to a granny smith apple? Sure, but my future choices will definitely to be swayed by what I've just read.

Thanks to my "wildside" friend Cathy for recommending this book to me! Put it on your reading list soon, and start getting more health benefits from the fruits and vegetables you eat.

View a video interview with the author, Jo Robinson.

My Summer Garden 2012

Summer has flown by, without any posts on my gardens. I guess I've been too busy getting my hands dirty! It's a dreary wet day, so a good chance for me to catch you up on what I've been growing.

The weather has been odd, with off and on torrential rains through June, then dry and over 100 degrees in July, still hot but with occasional rain in August, and a mixed bag this month. But evidently it has made gardens happy, with a banner year for things like peppers and tomatoes for many local backyard farmers.

My garden strategy this year was not to be overwhelmed with any one crop, and it has been successful. We've had a great variety of vegetables, fruit and herbs. My neighbor shared his abundance of tomatoes, plus sweet and hot peppers; I canned salsa, discovered homemade tomato paste, and made marinara sauce to freeze. Our one cooking Keifer pear tree yielded a big harvest during the last month, which I made into pear sauce (like apple sauce) and froze. Four minutes in the pressure cooker is all it takes for a big batch of apple or pear sauce - try it. (I'll be posting a Spice Cake made with pear sauce soon - it's yummy.) A few volunteer plants popped up in my garden, either from birds dropping seeds or from seeds still viable in my compost soil. Two of these surprise plants turned out to produce wonderful sweet cantaloupes, in addition to the Hale's Best melons I had purposely planted. I found what cantaloupe couldn't be eaten right away can be cut into chunks and frozen in zip bags for a great smoothie ingredient. Another volunteer plant has given a us a regular supply of tasty pickling cucumbers, enough for a couple of jars of refrigerator pickles. Otherwise, we've pretty well kept up with eating everything freshly harvested. Our diet is very healthy!

My bush Blue Lake green beans grew in slow motion at the start, but then provided what seemed to be an extended period of production, largely free of bug damage. I have been growing okra for the first time, a Midget Cowhorn Okra variety and a standard tall one, Crimson Spineless Okra. The midgets produced just as well, on strong stalks not over 3 feet tall, and tasted just as good. I've cooked the okra in many different ways, and we love it. I've panfired the Southern-favorite cornmeal-breaded slices, panfried the okra with onions and carmelized in soy sauce, added slices to stirfries, grilled whole pods until charred then eaten like French fries, sauteed and added to pasta sauce, and cooked them in a big pot of Seafood Gumbo. I even like to eat small okra pods raw! If you've ever eaten okra and found it was too slimy, I would guess it was either sitting around too long after being harvested or not cooked properly. Okra is going to be a mainstay in my future veggie gardens, especially since it's virtually pest- and disease-free.

Chufa, a grass which produces a nut-like tuber

My friends Art and Judy gave me a big bag of marigold seeds and I started a bed early in the spring. They grew wonderfully, into bushy foot-tall plants, which I transplanted all over the vegetable garden. Slow to flower, but once they started it's been an endless flood of orange/yellow blossoms. They add much to the garden: beauty, attraction to pollinating bees, and - I believe, although some authorities disregard this - detering harmful bugs from the vegetable plants. I like the scent; it reminds me of a little garden I planted when I was about 10 years old, so I must have planted marigolds. I've gathered loads of seeds to replant these next year.

As I mentioned in a spring post, I quarantined my tomato plants. This helped to delay and minimize the onset of blight, long enough so I've gotten a good harvest, considering I only grew 3 tomato plants. The "Legend" variety, an heirloom resistant to blight, has done the best for me. Only recently the plants have been under attack by hornworms, so my challenges continue! I seemed to be winning the war with grasshoppers. The white netting I laid over the sweet potato bed when I planted it has filled up with a mass of lush, healthy, un-eaten vines underneath, so I am looking forward to a good potato harvest later this fall.

Other successes in this year's vegetable garden include Japanese long cucumbers, Albino Bullnose sweet peppers (start out an ivory color and mature to bright orange), Patio Red Marconi sweet peppers, and Black Beauty eggplant.

I tried growing Kabouli Black garbanzo beans, but I consider this experiment a failure. Each little pod only produced 2 seeds, and they were all shriveled up. Plus it seemed to take forever to grow. I've also been growing a grassy plant called chufa (or chuffa) which should yield some little nut-like tubers on the roots before frost hits… I'll report on those after harvest. I grew a cucumber-bug resistant plant called West India Burr Gherkins, which I grew in a tall tomato cage. It climbed well up the cage then overflowed, looking like a topiary of Cousin It! The oval spiny fruit is hard to pick and eat, so I mostly used it in smoothies, since it's very mild tasting. Didn't attract bugs, but I don't think I'll grow it again. Cushaw White Squash was also supposed to be squash bug resistant, but succumbed to wilt (usually transmitted by squash bugs) and I had only harvested one big squash. It's been in cool storage in the basement since; we'll eat it later in the fall. Other new plants in this year's garden include lime basil, with fabulous lime flavor, great for pesto or used fresh in fruit smoothies; Perilla Purple Zi Su or "shiso" which is a lush dark red foliage plant used raw in salads, fresh in smoothies, or added to cooked food, like rice, to color it pink; cinnamon basil which is strong in its spicy flavor and will be in all my gardens from now on. Anise hyssop grew wonderfully from seed, has a great licorice flavor for tea or smoothies, and attracted masses of bees to its pretty purple flowers. I'll miss these flavorful herbs in the winter, but I've dried lots of their leaves and made vodka-based tinctures also. I've done the same with my super sweet stevia plants, started from seed, harvested for its leaves.

Black garbanzos

With autumn arriving soon, I've been planting my fall/winter crops. Garlic went in 2 weeks ago and I'll do another planting of it in Oct. I started seedlings in my basement, where the temp is about 65, for Georgia collards, brussels sprouts, Blue Curled Scotch and Siberian kale, Bulls Blood beets, and spinach. I've already transplanted some into the garden, holding back half the seedlings in case hot weather returns and destroys the first planting. I also sowed seeds for a few kinds of lettuce, and a mild tasting green I've not tried before - called mache or corn salad. It's time to plant cilantro (coriander) seeds now too; I've already transplanted one which Mother Nature started in my "excess" garden. I'm going to try a bed of pea pods, which I've only grown here in early spring, to see if I can get a late fall harvest. We've gotten several inches of rain in the past 12 hours, so I might have lettuce and mache growing all over the garden soon!

Garden season continues here in Zone 7. I'm already thinking about different crops; my friend Judy shared Dragon's Tongue Bush Beans from her garden, and they are so tasty I've made her promise to save me seeds. I just tried cooking turnips, prepared as you would mashed potatoes, which I bought from the nearby Mennonite farm, and they were so tasty that I'd like to try to grow some myself. They are a cool weather crop, so if I can find some seedling plants I'll try growing them soon. Tomorrow will be a great day for pulling weeds, with the saturated clay soil all loosened up. Happy gardening!

Easy Homemade Tomato Paste

 Simple ingredients, quick procedure, easy storage, and delicious! I thought it was so cool to make my own tomato paste when I found this recipe online. I followed the instructions exactly, although I am not sure about the necessity of the final low-temperature baking step. I had such wonderful results, that I quickly applied the same method to creating a fabulous marinara sauce recipe (below).


TOMATO PASTE
(makes 1/2 cup)

• 1 lb. fresh ripe tomatoes (about 3-4)
• 1/4 sweet bell pepper (green or red)
• 1 t salt
• 1/2 t garlic powder

Core and quarter the tomatoes. Process all ingredients in a blender until smooth. (My Vitamix super-blender works great for this, pulverizing all the tomato seeds and skin.) Pour the liquid into a 3-qt. saucepan and bring to a boil. From the blender adding lots of air, the mix will be foamy and the foam will rise in the pot, so be prepared to stir and/or reduce the heat slightly. Let it boil for 8 minutes - halfway through the foaming will disappear.

Pour the mixture into a mesh cloth jelly bag, or line a strainer with coffee filters, and place over a bowl to collect the liquid. Strain for 30 minutes. (You can reserve the strained off liquid for soup stock or for a flavorful liquid for cooking rice.) Spoon the thick paste into a heat-proof mason jar and bake in the oven for 20 minutes at 250°. Remove from the oven and cool. Smooth the top surface with a spatula, then pour a skin of olive oil to coat the top of the tomato paste, cap the jar, and store in the refrigerator. As you use the tomato paste, recover the top with a glaze of oil and it will keep for months. Alternately, you could freeze dollops in ice cube trays, then pop them out and bag them, having them available to thaw whenever the need arises. NOTE: I doubled this recipe and the results were perfection!

I think you could use this as a basis for homemade catsup (ketchup) too, just adding a little vinegar and sweetener, maybe some dry mustard or ground cinnamon - I'll try it myself next time I grill fresh marinated whole okra!

=========

I've made homemade tomato sauce many times, chopping ingredients by hand or processing loads of tomatoes in my ROMA food strainer, or chopping everything in my Vitamix then low cooking it for hours to thicken the sauce. After making the tomato paste recipe above, I experimented and made the recipe below. So much faster and easier than any I've ever made before.

THICK DELICIOUS MARINARA SAUCE
makes about 1 quart

• 5 lb. fresh ripe tomatoes (12-15), cored and cut in quarters
• 1 onion, peeled and cut in half
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1 sweet pepper, stem and seeds removed
• 2 t salt
• 2 t fennel seeds
• 2 t dry marjoram or oregano
• 1 t black pepper
• 1/4 c chopped fresh basil

Process all the ingredients in a super blender, like a VItamix, in 3 batches so you don't overfill the blender and end up with a tomato mess when the top blows off! The Vitamix will pulverize everything, making a foamy, smooth pinkish liquid.

Pour all the processed ingredients into a tall cooking pot. and bring to a boil. It will be foamy and the foam will rise in the pot, so be prepared to stir and/or reduce the heat slightly. Let it boil for 8 minutes - halfway through the foaming will disappear.

Pour the mixture into a mesh cloth jelly bag, or line a strainer with coffee filters, and place over a bowl to collect the liquid. Strain for 30 minutes. (You can reserve the strained off liquid for soup stock or for a flavorful liquid for cooking rice.)

I like it as thick as possible, and used the contents of the mesh bag for my sauce, but you might want to stir back some of the drained liquid to create the sauce consistency you prefer.

Try these recipes now while garden fresh tomatoes are available. Freeze well, so you can enjoy them all year 'round

Strange Bedfellows

There are some strange contraptions in my vegetable garden beds this spring. My efforts to garden organically have engaged me in various battles - against insects, funguses, and diseases - using alternatives to chemical treatments. I'm trying various "preventative" measures, some rather unconventional, which I've either read about or invented. I'm using other containers as mini-greenhouses, aids to watering, and other purposes. Here's a look....

You know from my past blog posts that for two years I've lost my tomato crops to "blight," which is caused by a fungus in the soil. This is the same strain of blight which caused the potato famine in Ireland over a century ago. In an effort to avoid the fungus which is likely residing in my garden soil, I have isolated my tomato plants. I've also sterilized my garden tools, tomato cages, stakes, and other items which would contact the plants, with bleach. I've avoided using my compost soil on the new plants as well, since that might have contaminants from last year's crops. The photo to the right shows how I planted a Baby Roma heirloom, which I started from seed. My garden cold frame, with its cover panels removed, has become a quarantine ward. I covered the soil with a layer of weed barrier cloth, covered by a layer of red plastic mulch, since this cold frame is actually in my established vegetable garden (the fungus resides in the soil, and spores bounce onto the lower leaves when rain splashes). I've also trimmed off the bottom 12" of leaves, in case any splashing occurs. The plant is healthy so far, with little bunches of green tomatoes forming.

The photo left shows a second effort to get tomatoes: an isolated tomato garden. I started two tomato varieties from seed which are supposed to be "blight resistant" - Old Brooks and Legend. I chose an area where I've never gardened or planted tomatoes, the spot where I piled the composted cow manure my friend Mitch delivered for a couple of years. I figured this area would have decent soil, since it got run-off from the now depleted manure pile (most of our land is clay and needs to be amended). Again, I covered the soil with a fabric barrier. In addition to all these precautions, I am doing weekly spraying with an organic fungicide, and also sprinkling ground cinnamon, a natural fungicide, around the base of these plants. When I see any discolored leaves, I remove and dispose of them. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Elsewhere in my garden, you'll see various other covers and containers. Descriptions are below each of the photo collages below:

The photo above left shows fine netting over my sweet potato bed. Last year grasshoppers kept eating the sweet potato vines. The leaves would grow back, but I'm guessing that the plants put all their energy into growing new tops, since my harvest of sweet potatoes - the roots - was really skimpy. I planted little plants from a 9-pack of Beauregard sweet potatoes, rather than from slips, since bunches of slips usually include 25 or 50, and I didn't need so many. The dead branches you might notice in the photo are the remnants of the peapod plants which grew in the same spot in early spring, left there to impart their nutrients to the soil. The white netting comes from the fabric department, 72-inches wide for just 99 cents per yard. It lets in the sun and rain, but so far keeps out the bugs. I've held down the edges with garden staples. A hint: tie a piece of survey tape to the staple top and you won't lose it in the soil - it could damage to a passing rotatiller blade. I left one sweet potato plant uncovered, to compare my results. Sweet potatoes don't flower or need pollination, so the netting can stay on for the entire growing period. I've also used this netting over some of my bigger blueberry plants, which are now ripening and protected by the netting from hungry birds. To the right is a celery plant, growing in a plastic sleeve I made by cutting the ends off a big white jug. This is not to fight insects, it's mostly so that the celery plants get a good drink of water when I am hosing the garden, since they like extra moist conditions. I thought it might also "blanche" the stalks, keeping them from being real green, but I don't see that happening... they are green - and delicious.

 

I've used translucent jugs, with just the bottom cut off (and cap discarded), as mini greenhouses. Above left shows a jug covering a canteloupe plant, pushed about an inch or two into the soil, keeping the plant warm and shielding it from squash bugs; the center photo above shows the same plant uncovered. To the right is another plant I used this method for, Black Beauty eggplant, which grew much faster under cover than another which I left uncovered - and grew strong without any flea beetle damage.

 

When I have young perennial flowers, shrubs, and tree seedlings which need special attention, I plant them in a big pot of good soil and submerge the pot in garden soil. The buried pot doesn't dry out as fast as it would if it were above ground, and the pot gets watered and gets my attention when it's in the veggie garden. By next year, a tiny cutting should have grown strong roots and be ready to transplant to a permanent location. In the top right photo above is a fig tree seedling, which I have lovingly nurtured from a little twig cutting from an established fig tree, given to me by my friend Richard. The other two photos above show contraptions I also used last year; in the center, a mesh hamper (folds up flat when not in use) over a gherkin plant - I'll remove it when flowering begins, so the plant will get pollinated. I've used another hamper over a small blueberry bush, to keep the birds from eating the ripening berries. On the right you see a pocketed red plastic Kozy Koat (the pockets hold water, which absorbs the warmth of the sun), keeping a healthy sweet Marconi pepper good and warm, since peppers like growing in hot weather.

Don't be afraid to try unconventional aids in your garden!

March in the Vegetable Garden

March is nearly over, and it's been such a busy time in my gardens that I'm just squeaking in this post before the month ends. Anyone who thinks that Zone 7 is only for warm weather gardening is missing some of the best months of harvests. I've been doing every imaginable garden task this month - weeding, seeding, transplanting, thinning, harvesting, turning soil, raising seedlings, freeezing produce, drying herbs, and EATING great food.... but not having to deal with bugs, diseases or fungi. Unseasonably warm weather (in the 80s) for many March days has made some plants think it is time to flower, like my collards and kale, so I've been harvesting, chopping, and freezing bags of greens (beet greens too). I was concerned when the blueberry bushes began to flower, thinking it was way too early, but the bees appeared just as quickly, doing their pollinating job. I also blame the off-the-chart temperatures on some of my seeds failing to germinate outdoors - particularly several lettuce varieties I sowed, which won't germinate in hot weather. Our average last frost date is April 15th, so I'm still keeping my warm weather seedlings - like peppers, tomatoes, basil, eggplant, etc. - in their pots, rather than planting them in the garden.

Here's what is growing this month:

1. I've harvested greens every day since last October (for our daily green smoothies) and this bed of spinach has been a great producer, particularly since winter was mild. I will need to start pulling whole plants rather than just harvesting leaves, since crowding is one clue that makes spinach think it is time to go to seed. I will continue to harvest, wash, dry, chop and freeze spinach for future enjoyment.
2. I planted a bed of Sugar Ann bush pea pods here in February, and the plants are up about 5" now. Should be ready to harvest in late April.
3. This is a bed of lettuce which has germinated well, even in our March heat. It's an heirloom variety I am trying for the first time, Mignonette Bronze, which is supposed to tolerate heat better than other varieties. Further toward the south in this row were 3 other beds of various lettuce seeds which did not germinate, I think due to the heat.
4. Pointer ends at a lush grouping of Chiogga beet greens, which have generously supplied me since last fall. To the north of the beets I've transplanted Siberian kale seedlings from a bed in the next row where they were growing too close. It's been so hot since I did the transplanting that I have had to drag out the hose to keep the bed wet while the little plants get re-established. Further south down this row, to the south, is a fabulous patch of cilantro. As I've stated before, cilantro will quickly bolt (send up a flower stalk) in warm weather. Since taking this photo, I harvested a huge bowl of cilantro, washed, dried, and pulled the leaves off the stems (which can be stringy). I've now frozen the chopped cilantro in freshly squeezed lime juice, as ice cubes, to see if I can preserve the taste to use in my homemade salsa next summer. I'll report on my success.
5. My strawberry plants - June varieties - began to flower in early March. I have about 6 dozen plants, along this side of the garden and in other beds. 'Can't wait for harvest time!
6. I probably will regret this planting. I grew "Breadseed Poppies" last year, a pretty purple flower I photographed in June in the Vegetable Garden, which produces larger (though still tiny) seeds, suitable for breads and other baked goods. As with my red poppies, I scattered the seeds in one of my flower gardens last fall, but not many germinated. So during the winter, I scattered more of the seeds in the vegetable garden - and loads germinated! I've thinned and transplanted them (I have a very hard time throwing any plants or seeds away!) and now I have a bed of breadseed poppies about 3' x 8'. They will be beautiful, but my challenge will be to harvest the seed pods before they fall all over the vegetable garden and replant themselves. It will be Judy vs. poppies!
7. I took a chance and planted Oregon Sugar Pod Snow Peas in a bed here at the end of January. Peas tolerate cold very well. I was lucky, and they germinated well and now the bush-plants are about 8" tall and I expect they will begin flowering soon. They are twisting their tendrils on the sticks I've stuck in the ground around the plants to support them. I don't like to have to accommodate peas, beans, and other climbers on big supports, since I rotate my plantings all around the garden constantly, so I favor bush varieties. Did you know the leaves of pea plants are edible and very tasty raw? Flowers are beautiful and edible too, but you loose a pod for every flower you eat. Also in this garden row are curly kale plants and brussels sprouts. The brussels sprouts plants I started from seeds late last summer have grown well, but I think this warm weather will prevent them from forming sprouts. Next time I'll start the plants much earlier, perhaps July, keeping them in the window of my 60 degree basement to grow until fall planting time.
8. This row has yielded more beet greens, more lettuce, scallions, and collards all winter. In the front row of the garden are the plants I've awarded the "slowest grower" award - celeriac, a root vegetable related to celery. The seeds I started in July started plants which survived in the garden and in the cold frame all winter… but they are only about 2" tall now. I had hoped to be harvesting a big celery-tasting root during the winter, to use in soups and stews. I'll keep it growing, and I can harvest the green tops as I wait for the roots to develop - but the harvest will be small!
9. My patch of Florence fennel has reseeded itself behind the cold frame. I love the fennel seeds I harvested last summer, using them ground in baked goods or throwing a big spoonful in my breakfast granola. I think I will move these young fennel plants from the vegetable garden into my "excess garden" where it can grow and spread relatively unrestricted, where I grow horseradish, mints, jerusalem artichokes, and other perennial or reseeding plants considered to be invasive… that's where the breadseed poppies were supposed to be growing! Next to the fennel I have planted seeds for two types of Japanese edible chrysanthemums, a new crop for me. My regular flowering chrysanthemums grow well, without any pests or problems, so when I read about these greens I thought they might be successful for me. The curly parsley growing here has provided me abundantly all winter, and we enjoy tabouli salad from freshly harvested parsley, scallions, and mint (click for my tabouli recipe). The Italian flat leaf parsley has grown well in the cold frame, being a bit more cold sensitive.

See how the strawberry flower becomes the fruit.

In addition to what is in the vegetable garden, I also have trays of many different seedlings I've been growing indoors - tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, herbs, beets, squashes, eggplant, stevia, hyssop, and others. My friend Judy's suggestion that my big patch of lemon grass would not survive our winter proved to be correct. Fortunately, I had dug up a portion of it and grew it in a pot in the basement window, so now I've replanted that outdoors. I've also been tending to the grape vines, blackberries, red raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries, as well as to my perennial herbs - sage, chives, lavender, oregano, thyme, lemon balm, rosemary, mints, and others. I've started a bed of marigolds to transplant around the garden, but most of my flower beds are perennials. The ajuga is blooming in waves of blue, my fragrant irises are now open, the lilacs are flowering, lily of the valley are perfuming the air, and carpets of creeping phlox are cascading over my rocks. I love this time of year! 

By the way, in the garden photo there is a leaning flowering dogwood in the background. It had been uprooted when we had a direct hit by an EF-2 tornado last April and we propped it up, buried the roots in good dirt, watered it all summer, and hoped it would survive. It has been struggling, but looks like it might make it. It will probably end up with a lovely asymmetrical shape and much character, like a bonsai. Mother Nature does awesome things.

I've now done a monthly garden post for an entire 12-month cycle. I'll continue to update you on what is in my garden, but more sporadically. I hope this will allow me to devote more of my writing time to bring you new recipe ideas, nutrition information, food preservation tips, and other good food news. Please subscribe to this blog in any one of the ways listed in the right column, and share it with others too. Thanks for reading and for all the continuous positive feedback.

January in the Vegetable Garden

This week we return to 10 hours of daylight in Zone 7, and my new garden seeds will be arriving tomorrow. So my thoughts are on gardening 2012! Meanwhile, I am still harvesting fresh veggies from the garden daily. Our winter continues to be mild, with regular rainfall. I actually transplanted some of those tiny celeriac seedlings from the cold frame to the garden a few days before Christmas, and they are growing fine. I bought a big ugly celeriac root at the supermarket and tried planting it too - no sign of life yet though. Earlier this month the mercury fell to about 15 degrees for two nights and we had a light snow cover; I didn't bother to cover the brussels sprouts and they survived - I harvested some, halved them, and sauteed them with onions and tamari soy sauce one day last week… they tasted excellent! I've been picking and using fennel as a raw veggie dipper with homemade dips (cut like celery stalks), as well as sliced thin in a salad with apples, toasted almonds, and my Caesar dressing. I love the fennel seeds I saved last summer too - they are a great addition, whole, to my morning granola, and I've also ground them and added to biscotti recipes. A few beets are still in the ground from last summer, probably big and woody now, and they continue to provide fresh leaves for harvest. Many wild plants are growing well this winter too; the white clover we seeded as a ground cover has established itself in a healthy patch just off the front steps, and I use the fresh leaves in our green smoothies. My crocuses have begun to flower and daffodils are several inches out of the ground, so spring is just around the corner here.

More of my gardening time is spent indoors this month, as I plan what I'll be growing. Here are the basic lessons which my 2011 garden taught me:

• Don't grow plants which attract bugs and succumb to disease

I am surrendering to some of my bug battles, and simply not planting many of the vegetables most attractive to them. This means I will not grow squash-family plants, since I got little or no harvest last year, due to squash bugs. No zucchini, no butternut squash, no melons. I will try one new heirloom "pumpkin" called Cushaw (which is an edible winter squash) which is described as resistant to squash bugs. I am also planning to grow a gherkin instead of cucumbers, for fresh eating. I am not planting calendula, which is a very pretty edible and medicinal "pot marigold" - even the ones which reseeded themselves in late fall grew full of little bug holes in the leaves. The amaranth I tried to grow also succumbed to bug attacks, so that's off my grow list too, as well as oriental greens such as chinese cabbage, tat soi, pak choy and others I've tried. I now know that fall/winter is the best time for my cabbage family favorites, like brussels sprouts, kale, and collard greens, and, fortunately, their pests are not around in the cooler seasons, so that's when I will grow them from now on.

A solution to tomato blight still escapes me, so here is the 2012 tomato plan:

1. Plant "blight resistant" varieties only (I've found and purchased seeds for two heirloom varieties, Legend and Old Brooks Red)
2. Plant the tomato plants outside the vegetable garden this year
3. Try ground cinnamon on the ground around the plants as an anti-fungal (a tip from gardener friend John)
4. Don't start the tomatoes outdoors as early - makes them more susceptible to "early" blight
5. Clean all the tomato cages and garden tools, so fungus residue from last year is destroyed

•  Don't grow plants with little yield

The only snap beans I intend to grow are my favorite Blue Lake Bush beans. I planted yellow wax beans at the same time, and the yellow beans took forever to mature, with very sparse production. Meantime I was harvesting the green beans continually, and the Blue Lakes are great raw, cooked and frozen. The "bush" nature of this heirloom means it doesn't need trellising, since the plants only grow about 18-24" tall and stand upright on their own.
 

• Don't grow plants which take up too much space, when smaller comparable varieties taste as good

The Thai "long beans" were an interesting novelty, and tasted ok, but their long vines overtook and spilled out of one corner of the garden. Yes, I only needed about 2 beans to make a side dish for two, but they took a long time to mature. And the flowers attracted too many little biting bees. Fortunately, I used up the whole envelope of seeds.

• Grow plants with a longer harvesting season

I was disappointed with my sweet peppers last summer - even though I started the plants very early and grew one in a red plastic Kozy Koat, I didn't start harvesting any for a long long time. So this year I'm growing some described as early, and also described as "dwarf" which should result in quicker harvesting.

• Don't grow too many of one vegetable

If I grow any jalapenos or eggplants this year, I know that one plant of each is enough. I have a large supply of dried and powdered jalapenos, so I only need some to use fresh, in salsa and other dishes. I prefer eggplant used fresh also, and one eggplant at a time is all I need to harvest; one plant will give me a supply over many weeks. I will again limit my planting of basil, since I still have lots of frozen pesto. I am going to try "lime basil" as well as a large-leaf variety.

• Grow more edible greens in the hottest part of the growing season

Since we've adopted a routine of daily green smoothies, I've loved having cool weather greens to harvest. Now I want to be sure to have a variety of greens to harvest in warm weather, when spinach and many lettuces will not grow well. The "heat tolerant" edible greens I look forward to planting this year include: two variaties of edible Japanese chrysanthemums; leaves of black garbanzo beans (I can harvest the pods and beans too); two spinach-tasting plants which are not true spinaches: "strawberry spinach" which is related to lamb's quarters, and "red malabar spinach" which is a heat loving vine of greenery; and a bronze lettuce. Some of these are for fresh and cooked recipes - you'll be hearing more about how they taste later this year.

• Try new plants

I am adding okra to my garden this year. I've ordered seeds for a dwarf variety - only 3 feet tall! As you can tell, this is normally a very tall plant. It grows well here in the south, seemingly with no pests or diseases, and I've developed a taste for it. My friends Bill and Julie grill the whole pods (with a little coating of oil) until crunchy and eat them like french fries, and they are yummy this way. I am also planting more herbs, including lovage (celery flavor), stevia (so I can dry the leaves again, for a great natural sweetener), shiso (a red leaf, used to color pickled Japanese ginger), dock, and cilantro (a hot-weather cilantro).

Start planning your garden for 2012, even if it's just a pot of herbs on your porch!

Warning: Sinus Clearing Ahead

I was such a picky eater as a kid, no one would have predicted that I'd someday be a fan of hot, spicy, and strong flavored foods. Hot chile powder from New Mexico, wasabi paste with sushi, jalapenos - yum! Now I've up'd the bar, with my homegrown, homemade prepared horseradish.

One of those ugly dried roots in the grocery produce section caught my attention two years ago. I wondered if it would grow if I planted it in my veggie garden. I bought it, brought it home, dug a deep narrow hole, and buried the whole thick root in my spring garden soil. Boy, did it grow! Big, lush green foliage sprung up during the hot summer, first from the original root, then from the soil around the root. A little internet research told me that horseradish plants can be very invasive - oh no, I don't need a whole garden of horseradish! At the end of that first summer, I dug up the original plant and all the little baby plants it had sprouted. I replanted most of it, in an area I call my "excess" garden, where I allow invasive plants room to grow unrestricted (like mint). I kept some little roots, chopping fine and using with beef dishes. This was one potent horseradish!

I must add that I continued to pull up little horseradish volunteers in the vegetable garden during this past spring and summer. It wasn't hard to identify them - just break off a leaf and give it a whiff! The leaves are edible, by the way, and make a tasty addition to a salad, or an interesting flavor note in a stir-fry. By July, I stopped seeing any more horseradish greens, so I had cleared out all the invasive roots. In the excess garden where I had transplanted the horseradish the previous fall, the plants again grew vigorously. My November garden post pictures some roots I harvested this fall: horseradish, jerusalem artichokes, and beets.

Now, what to do with the horseradish roots? It wasn't difficult to find directions online for making my own prepared horseradish. I was warned by a friend that I should grind the roots outdoors, due to the very pungent horseradish "fumes" which would be released. If you are a fan of horseradish, you know the taste and smell will rush into your sinuses - a very different "hot" than with hot peppers. I had dug up several large pieces of root plus some long 1/2 inch diameter pieces, and I scrubbed them with a veggie brush, revealing beautiful white roots. It was good that I had harvested a sizable amount, since my Vitamix blender chops best when there is at least a cup of food in the container. (I reserved some horseradish chopped as thin slivers, to air-dehydrate and grind it into a powder, which worked out very well also). I read that freshly grated horseradish root can turn brown as it oxidizes, so I didn't cut it up until I was ready to use it.

So out to the porch table I went, ground the horseradish to a fine chop in the Vitamix - do not inhale when you open the lid! I added a touch of salt, then added a small amount of lemon juice (to keep it from discoloring) and vinegar. One recipe I read calls for 1/4 to 1/3 c vinegar, 1/2 to 1 tsp salt, and 2 cups of freshly grated horseradish. I wasn't so precise in my measurements; I watched the consistency as I blended, adding only as much liquid as needed to make it into a thick paste.

Viola! Extra-potent homemade horseradish! I made enough to fill 3 small jars, refrigerated one for immediate use, and froze two for future enjoyment. Cooking destroys the mustard oils which give horseradish its heat, so it's best to use uncooked, or add last to cooked dishes. Horseradish is traditional with roast beef, great with potato dishes, a good addition to sandwiches, and yummy in deviled eggs. Ask for a taste if you visit!

December in the Veggie Garden

Wild chickweed, edible and tasty, raw or cooked

My December garden doesn't look too much different from November. Our weather continues to be relatively mild with regular precipitation, so the winter vegetables are growing well. I was surprised and delighted to discover some "wild" greens I foraged last spring are lush and green again now. I confirmed the identity of Chickweed with my fellow foraging friend Judy; it's a mildly flavored, very nourishing plant, and can be used in a salad, in a green smoothie, or cooked lightly. It is growing in abundance in the rich soil outside my compost bin, and I am harvesting it to use almost daily.

From the garden, I've been picking romaine and leaf lettuce continually for salads, lots of beet greens (and beet "reds") to use raw and cooked, scallions from the onion bed, and tiny spinach leaves. I've twice harvested enough brussels sprouts for a meal. I lightly sauteed them with onions and they were delicious! As a first-time collard grower, I am waiting to see if the plants grow replacements where I've picked the Barbie-size cabbage heads at the intersections of the leaf with the main stem. I've also loved my collards. One morning I found them covered with beautiful lacy patterns of frost and figured they'd been killed. By afternoon the air was warm and they looked as healthy as ever, so their season continues. My "straw" mulch on the strawberry plants has proven to be a mistake; it's hay with seeds in it, so green grass is starting to grow everywhere - I'll be removing the straw and weeding soon!

I've also got a few things growing in the cold frame, which I keep closed unless the day is sunny and/or above 50 degrees. The flat leaf parsley in the cold frame is growing well, and the other seedlings I planted there are healthy although slow growing: romaine, spinach, red beets, leaf lettuce. The celeriac seedlings are still as tiny as they were months ago; I don't know what went wrong there.

Self-seeded cilantro, growing among larkspur and weeds!

I extended the growing season on some of my herbs by potting them in the fall and growing them by my south-facing basement window, where the temperature is usually 50-60 degrees. The lemon grass is growing tall and strong, so I'll be able to replant it outdoors in spring if the clumps I grew last year don't survive outside. I also have a pot of basil, which is a warm-weather annual. I have little pots of cilantro and mint also, but I am still able to harvest those from the outdoor gardens, along with lemon balm, parsley, rosemary, chives, sage, thyme, and fennel… yum! I planted a cilantro bed in the garden, but I also let it grow where it can go to seed (harvested as coriander) and replant itself, which it does very well. This time of year I also grow sprouts in the kitchen, for additional fresh harvests. I most often grow a mix of alfalfa, broccoli, and red clover sprouting seeds.

For those interested in learning more about cold weather gardening, I recommend the book The Winter Harvest Handbook by Eliot Coleman (fourseasonfarm.com). This man, with partner Barbara Damrosch, makes his living selling produce, year round - in Maine! He uses hot houses, cold houses, row covers, specially chosen varieties, and other means. The book is easy to read, very informative, and has a list of good resources. The successes and failures of his many years in business can be boiled down to methods a home gardener can employ.

If you are considering gardening for the first time, All New Square Foot Garden, by Mel Bartholomew (squarefootgardening.com), gives fabulous step by step instructions. The theory, based on growing in small, manageable raised beds, is helpful to experienced gardeners too. I've watched novice gardeners fail when, in their excitement, they plant a huge garden, only to discover they can't keep up with the work. They end up discouraged, with little to show for all their initial effort. This book helps you start small and enjoy success.

This time of year, gardeners like me start thinking about year's garden, especially when seed catalogs arrive in the mail. Somehow I got on the mailing list and received the most beautiful seed catalog I had ever seen last year. It's from Baker's Creek Heirloom Seeds. You can request it free and can view the entire catalog online: rareseeds.com. What amazed me were all the vegetables and fruits which I never even knew existed! This company has collected heirloom seeds from all over the world, with many interesting stories about the sources. There's page after page of tomato varieties, in all different colors, sizes, and shapes. There are squashes with colorful spots and bumpy textures on their skin. There are beans with "wings". Seeds from Iran, Thailand, former Soviet countries, and all over the USA. I love going through the catalog, over and over. Next month I'll report on new seeds I plan to grow in 2012.

'Hope you'll be enjoying home grown squashes and sweet potatoes as part of your holiday meals!

November in the Veggie Garden

Goodness... November is nearly over, and I haven't done my garden post. Life has been busy, even with my gardening work greatly reduced. My November garden looks empty, compared with previous months, but there's actually lots growing now. This autumn's weather has been the nicest in the seven years I've lived in East Tennessee. The first light frost didn't hit my garden until Nov. 10th, with a heavy frost one week later… late for our zone. Day length is short, but the leaves are off the trees so the garden gets lots of warmth from the sun. The warm weather crops have been dug up and added to the compost bin, and I've covered tender plants when the temps dipped below 32. I'm not certain about  some new things I've planted surviving the cold, but they will be on their own from now on, I'm not going to bother covering them any more. Here are the details:

1. BEETS - The chioggia heirloom beets went to seed and replanted themselves, so I"ve been harvesting both the roots and the greens continually. The heirloom "bull's blood" beets which I planted from seeds didn't germinate real well, but I have about a dozen plants growing so I've been harvesting the leaves for salads. I'd like to let them reseed, but I'll need to be sure both varieties don't flower simultaneously or I won't get new plants true to the parent.
2. LEMON GRASS - I moved the biggest clump of lemon grass to this part of the garden, and I also planted a clump in my "surplus garden" where I can let it grow without restriction. I am not certain it is winter-hardy here, so I've also taken a pot inside and it's growing well enough for me to harvest leaves occasionally… this way I'll have some to replant outside in spring if necessary.
3. STRAWBERRIES - The main strawberry bed is still looking very healthy, and I bought some half-price Halloween straw to nestle around the plants, protecting them better from the winter cold. I loved my strawberries, and I want to be sure they produce next spring!
4. CALENDULA - Also known as "pot marigold", the pretty yellow and orange flowers of the calendula are medicinal as well as edible. My summer plants bloomed profusely and I must have been neglectful in removing spent blooms, since I discovered many seedlings at the end of the summer. I organized them in a small patch, surprised that they would grow in fall. Mother Nature has her own tools for keeping growth to specific seasons; some seeds can lay on the ground for months, needing the freezing and thawing process to prepare them for warm weather growth. I had thought of calendula as a summer plant, like french marigolds, but this self-seeding might prove me wrong. In the meantime, I have some color in the garden, and I can harvest the petals, extract their vital components in oil, and create some nice salves and lotions with the filtered oil.
5. BRUSSELS SPROUTS - The four seedlings planted a few months ago all have formed lovely little brussels sprouts at the intersections of the main stem and each leaf. A little cold is supposed to "sweeten" them, so I am anxious for harvesting soon! The plants I started from seed are still alive, but only a few inches tall, so I should have started them much earlier… next year I'll know better.
6. ROMAINE - All the lettuce I started from seed is doing well, although everything grows much more slowly this time of year. Our occasional salads have been wonderful. Most recently I mixed lettuce greens, the dark red bull's blood beet leaves, the last tomato which ripened on the kitchen window sill, the last of the sweet green/red peppers, some crunchy sliced raw jerusalem artichokes, and fresh sprouts (alfalfa, clover, broccoli) grown in a jar indoors. Topped with my homemade Olive Garden style dressing it was a great meal. Lettuces can generally withstand temperatures as low as the mid 20's. I've also planted some in the cold frame, along with a few bull's blood beets, spinach and parsley.
7. KALE - I haven't witnessed a return of the "woodchuck" type critter spotted eating my sweet potato vines in October, but something ate the gorgeous curly leaves off my kale plants. To protect them from further damage, I have covered them with the collapsable net hampers which I used last summer to ward off fleas from my eggplants. So far it's working, and I just pull up the stakes to harvest leaves.
8. SPINACH - I love spinach, and I've now got it growing well in many areas of the garden, some still too small to show up well in this photo. This is one plant I know grows continually all winter, although slowly, and then takes off fast once the days lengthen in February. Yum!
9. PARSLEY - The curly and flat leaf parsley will likely grow all winter too, and since the onions have strong green tops I can harvest and I still have mint in the herb garden I plan to try using dehydrated tomatoes to make some taboulli.

OTHER GARDEN NOTES:
SWEET POTATOES - I had only planted half as many sweet potato hills as last year, since I was overloaded, but my harvest this year was very disappointing. I am blaming it on the grasshoppers, zapping the energy from the plants to grow more leaves instead of roots.

WINTERING OVER PLANTS - Where I have empty space in the vegetable garden, I have submerged some potted outdoor plants in the soil. Plants in pots are more susceptible to freezing, but burying them gives added protection. I've done this with a lilac bush I had rooted during the summer as well as with some chrysanthemums. By spring the temperatures will be warm enough for me to dig them up and plant them in permanent locations.

HORSERADISH - Two years ago I bought a big ugly horseradish root from the supermarket and planted it in the veggie garden. It grew! Beware: it can be very invasive. So this spring I replanted the major root elsewhere, where it can flourish, and I kept digging up all the little volunteers which popped up. It grew vigorously all summer and I've dug up some roots recently. I'll do a later blog post on how I've preserved some of this spicy condiment.

HERBS - Many of my herbs, besides the parsley and fennel still growing in the vegetable garden, can be continue to be harvested, such as mints, thyme, rosemary, and lemon balm. I discovered a few years ago that cilantro is a cold-weather plant, when I found it had reseeded and was growing strong in the fall. So this year I planted cilantro seeds directly in the veggie garden. They are very slow to germinate, but I have a two foot bed of seedlings growing now. I'd rather have it when the tomatoes are ripe, to use in fresh salsa, but I have other recipes for which there is no substitute for the taste of cilantro.

October in the Veggie Garden

If you think this gardening season is over, you have to see my veggie garden. It's filled with plants still growing from summer and those planted for fall and winter harvests. I love gardening this time of year - everything grows slower with the shorter days, longer shadows, and cooler temperatures. There are no bugs bothering my plants (or biting me) and plant diseases seem non-existent. Hardly any weeds germinate, so that cuts back on the maintenance. This is extra-good, since work and life have been keeping me very occupied lately, and my gardening time has been very limited.

Plants which like cooler weather are primarily leafy vegetables, since there aren't bees around to pollinate fruit. Some, like brussels sprouts, won't grow in hot weather and supposedly taste better after a light frost. Others, like lettuces, will survive in temperatures down to the 20s F, even though they won't grow noticeable when it's really cold. Still others, like spinach, will continue to grow throughout our winter here in Zone 7. We've passed our average annual first frost date of October 24th without frost on my garden, and the next ten days don't show temperatures changing much, so the fall crops are in for great growing weather.

Here's what's growing for me now:

1. AUTUMN - Notice how the leaves have turned color in the last month; our fall weather has been gorgeous this year, and the garden loves it.
2. JALAPENOS - Everyone I know who has grown peppers this year has a bumper crop. My two jalapenos have produced over 200 pods each and are still going. The one in the red Kozy Koat was earlier to ripen, but production seems equal in both.
3. SWEET POTATOES - I dug a couple of plants and was disappointed to find very few small potatoes had formed. Now I suspect the plants kept putting energy into regrowing the vines which were eaten by grasshoppers continually all summer, and the energy didn't go into creating roots. I am leaving the remaining plants in the ground for as long as possible, hoping more time will allow potatoes to form.
4. ONIONS & GARLIC - The onion sets and starter garlic cloves I planted in September have come up great (see closeup photo). Both of these seem to pop up in the garden randomly if you have grown them in the past, so I've also dug and moved some volunteers around. I won't harvest the bulbs until next summer, but I can cut the green tops continually.
5. BRUSSELS SPROUTS - These plants which I bought as seedlings are now beginning to form their little sprouts at the junction of each leaf with the central stem. The ones I started from seed are only about 2" tall, so I might not have enough growing weather to get them to maturity before winter.
6. ROMAINE & LETTUCE - I set out seedlings I started indoors for baby romaine and black seeded simpson lettuce, and the Little Gem lettuce I grew last spring and let go to seed has also reseeded itself. I've been picking leaves and am looking forward to good harvests of all these.
7. SWEET PEPPERS - For many nights when the temps were dipping below 40 degrees I have covered the pimento pepper and Chinese giant pepper plants with heavy black trash bags, since they don't like cold weather, so I am still picking lots of sweet red peppers.
8. KALE - The kale seedlings are growing strong and I've harvested lots, in addition to the collard plants just below the pointer line. Both are highly nutritious and I am primarily using them raw in my green smoothies.
9. COLD FRAME - I replaced the cold frame covers when the nighttime temps began to drop below 50 degrees. In the cold frame now are one tomato plant (all curled up on the ground), several parsley plants I will continue to pick from all winter, and one sweet potato plant in a pot (I'm hoping to be able to pick its leaves; might need to move the plant indoors when it gets really cold). I also have potted tiny CELERIAC seedlings in the cold frame, and they are extremely slow growers. I have to watch the temperatures, raising the cold frame tops when it's sunny and warm, and lowering or closing them when the temperature drops.

ELSEWHERE IN THE GARDEN:

COLLARDS - These greens have been phenomenal. I think I'd see the leaves grow if I sat a watched! I've only been eating them raw and in smoothies, but I'm getting such strong growth that I'll be trying them cooked soon.
SPINACH - I think I finally found a good way to insure germination of spinach seeds. First of all, they will not germinate in the garden until the temperatures are cool - all my efforts to plant them in August proved futile. I have tried cold stratification (putting seeds in and out of the freezer to simulate winter conditions) and don't know for sure if this helps. But I've had the best success by soaking the seeds in a cup of water for a day or two, then putting them on a damp paper towel and into a loosely closed zip bag on the top of the refrigerator (for warmth) for a few days. By then, nearly every seed has a tiny sprout started. When our daytime temperatures drop to the 70s, I plant these under about 1/4 inch of fertile garden soil, and keep them moist… They all seem to grow. Spinach is one plant which will actually continue to grow all winter here, and I usually have a huge harvest during early spring when their growth accelerates. I've already picked a few leaves to use fresh - takes a lot of spinach to make a serving of cooked greens.
BEETS - Some of my chioggia
SQUASH - One butternut squash is about 6" long, but I might not get more than that, due to my late planting and battles with insects. But my friend Susan was kind enough to share her harvest, so I won't go without!

CARROTS - The first bed of fall carrots I planted from seeds only grew one seedling. I'll blame it on bad seeds. So I've replanted a bed this month, with seeds that have grown well for me previously. I mulch the bed so the seeds stay moist since they are slow to germinate. I used old growth from my daylily bed as a mulch, so if this planting is not successful I'll be suspicious that the mulch was a problem, hindering growth.
CASABA - I only got one melon off this plant so I probably will not grow it again. The fruit was very tasty, perhaps would have been a bit sweeter if left on the vine longer.
MUMS - The pre-July cuttings have grown and flowered profusely, and I planted some elsewhere around the house. Most of those in the veggie garden I've cut for arrangements I bring when visiting friends. I'll move the rest of the plants early next spring, to permanent flower beds.
CALENDULA - This edible flower reseeded and it's growing strong. I didn't think it was a cool weather crop, but I've moved the volunteers into a bed and look forward to seeing how long they keep growing.
EGGPLANT - So delicious! Still getting a steady harvest to cook myself and share with friends too.
BASIL - The Thai basil will last until a freeze. It's purple flowers are lovely in my flower arrangements and the flavor of the leaves is very strong and delicious. I'll grow this again next year.
FENNEL - Reseeded itself and going strong. This plant should survive the winter here, as it did with two snowstorms last year.
CILANTRO - I struggled for several summers trying to grow cilantro and keep it from flowering. Then I discovered that some which had gone to seed began to grow again in October and survived all winter, without going to flower. So now I purposely plant it only in the fall. Just disappointed I don't have it fresh when tomatoes are ripening for salsa, but there are loads of other recipes for enjoying it.
CORN SALAD "MACHE" - This is a macro green for salads, and I tried sowing seeds for the first time. So far no sign of life.
JERUSALEM ARTICHOKES - I thought these were best dug after November, but my friend Judy was trying to move some in her gardens and discovered the tubers had formed already. So I dug up under one renegade stem I wanted to remove, and have been enjoying the handful of "chokes" I dug.

So if you live below the Mason-Dixon line and north of Florida and you've dug up your garden, go out and sow some spinach seeds for a bonus harvest with very little effort.