Frost

We've had a frost every night since Saturday (10/9). Last night's was the hardest frost yet. I went out this morning to photograph some of the beauty (and the destruction).

Here's an over view of the garden from the back porch.
Here's the beauty of the frost.
The frost on the kale almost looks like snow.
On the carrots it is like a white outline.
On the brussels sprouts it looks like crystals.
It accentuates the different textures of the weeds.
It is a sugar coating on the marigolds.
Now for the destruction.

The end of zucchini (and the peppers, eggplant and basil too).
And most interestingly, the stems of the marigolds seemed to have been ripped open by the freezing of the water inside them.
This afternoon the marigolds, zucchini, peppers, eggplant, beans, and basil all went to the compost pile. Everything left in the garden is frost hardy to some extent. Before we know it it will be snow covering the garden.

Post Script: Here's the after clean up photo the next morning. I've left some of the sunflowers for vertical interest in the winter garden. You can see some of the rows of winter rye beginning to green up, especially the row in front of the brussels sprouts.

Fall Garden Clean Up

The garden has changed quite a bit in the last two weeks. Here's what it looked like on September 14th.
Two weeks later on the 29th, I had taken down the cucumbers, harvested and weeded the potato row, pulled the last of the winter squash, and brought down the tomatillos. I seeded winter rye in all those places, except where the tomatillos were.

Only a few days later on October 2nd, the tomatoes came down, the hoop house went up, the pumpkins went out, the cold frame windows went on.A few details.
Around September 20th, I dug up four pepper plants and put them in pots.
From Left to right: Habanero, Hungarian Wax, Purple Bell, Cayenne. I sprayed them daily with a soapy water solution. This past week we got some rain and then a bigger storm was forecasted with cold temps to follow. I brought them in on Wednesday because I didn't want them water logged when they came in the house. They are sunning themselves in the front windows and so far are doing ok. I'm continuing to spray hping that I don't have aphids with them. I'm hoping to overwinter them.

Tomatoes
Here's what the tomato support looked like after 5" of rain. It was worse, the metal props had fallen away and it was leaning even more. I propped it back up so that I could at least cut down the tomatoes.

Here's the after photo from the other side. I haven't weeded it yet, nor seeded it. The bed to the right is where the winter squash were and has been seeded with winter rye.

Here's how the winter rye looks in the potato bed, seeded a week before.

I also planted garlic in the former pumpkin bed. I ordered 6 heads of Red Russian and 3 heads of Music. All total it was 60 some cloves planted. It took up half of the bed.


So in all the garden is looking a lot more like fall. Many peppers and eggplant remain in the garden and that's the only thing I'm covering to protect from frost. We had a light frost in the back field again on Saturday night. Each time, it creeps closer to the garden. I'm sure it will get the last of the beans soon.

Still Here

Just a note to say I'm still alive and around. I've been extra busy with teaching, travel, visiting friends, and trying to finish some sewing projects. The garden is still going, with harvests about once a week. I'm sure I'll update more once the dust settles, whenever that may be. In the mean time, here's a shot from early last month.

Fall Garden Plans & Overview

It's been a long time since I've shown any photos of the garden as a whole and what is going on there. Since I did some work to prepare for fall crops this past weekend, I took some photos so I could give a tour.

Here's the bed with all the warm weather crops.
As you can see, the tomatoes have no foliage left on the lower half of the plants. The cherry and green zebras are holding their own against the early blight, and two of the heirlooms are putting out lots of new growth at the top with a few green tomatoes. I'm going to let them hang on and see if we can at least get green tomatoes from them. The romas look the worst, and have stopped putting out growth. I'm just waiting for the last three fruit to ripen. The empty spots in the bed are where the zucchini and green beans were. I harvested 1 zucchini this year from 3 plants. They had leaf mold and were still only putting out male blossoms so I pulled them. The kale is looking great at the back of the bed, but we're a little tired of it at the moment. Two peppers are at the front of the bed. One just finally bloomed a few weeks ago and is only starting to develop fruit. I think I'll be trying to bring these inside to see if we can get the peppers to ripen off them. The cucumbers didn't get enough sun, they were shaded by the beans which were in front of them. They didn't climb nearly as high as I thought they might. They may still give a few more cucumbers so I'm letting them hang on until frost.

My other bed looks lush and green in comparison. This is where I'm planning on putting my cold frame in a few weeks to protect winter greens and to see how long I can continue to harvest. Here is a closer look at some of the things in this bed. On the near side, I have swiss chard, carrots, & winterbor kale.
I've also started Italian Dandelion (Chicory), though something snacked on it when I forgot to plug in the electric fence.
Under the Italian Dandelion, I seeded mache which is supposed to be very winter hardy. Near the carrots, I seeded claytonia, another hardy salad green.

In the middle of the bed, I transplanted tatsoi, arugula, & broccoli raab (not pictured).

I also have some fall kohlrabi, which I started from seeds earlier in June and transplanted in mid-July. It is starting to create the small stem swelling that you eat.
I planted sorrel from seed this spring because it is supposed to be a hardy perennial and it is now looking like it is big enough that we can harvest some. I've tasted a leaf and it is very lemony. I found a recipe for sorrel soup that we might try.
At the very end of the bed, I have tatsoi, freckles romaine, and a mesclun mix that are all doing very well, though they won't entirely be within the cold frame when the time comes.
The only thing planted in this bed that isn't frost hardy is the basil in the far back corner. The whole bed won't quite fit under the cold frame when the time comes, so the basil wouldn't be included anyways. In summary, here is the list of hardy greens and other crops that I'm planning on having under the cold frame:

• Winterbor Kale
• Italian Dandelion (Italiko Rosso Chiccory)
• Quarantina Broccoli Raab
• White Vienna Kohl Rabi
• Claytonia
• Verte de Cambrai Mache
• Mizuna Japanese Mustard
• Swiss Chard (semi hardy)
• Purple Haze & Chantenay Red Core Carrots
• Arugula
• Tatsoi
• Broad Leaved Sorrel

It should be an interesting experiment to see which crops survive with the protection of our cold frame.

Thanksgiving Recap

I realize it is a bit late to share our Thanksgiving meal with you, but it has taken me a while to be able to sit down and sort through the photos from those wonderful few days. Here's some photos of the yummy food.

My contribution was purple mashed potatoes and cornbread dressing. Since my mom was making Yukon gold potatoes as well, I roasted a head of garlic and added that to the purple ones to distinguish them from the others in flavor. Here's one of the blue potatoes when peeled. They had a white later immediately under the skin and then purple underneath. However, when peeled, the spots came from where eyes might develop in other circumstances. I was taken by the pattern on this one.
Next the purple mashed potatoes on the day of the feast.
And then the next day. We were puzzled how they deepened in color overnight.
The wonderful turkey.
The Herbed Oatmeal Pan Bread.
And the entire spread along the breakfast bar: cranberry sauce, turkey, pruple mashed potatoes, Yukon gold mashed potatoes, peas, blueberry jello salad, cornbread dressing, sweet potato casserole & rolls.I neglected to photograph the pies, but there were 6 for the 10 of us: 2 pumpkin, 2 pecan, and 2 chocolate. They were all wonderful.

We had so much food we enjoyed an essential identical meal the next day for lunch. Then we cut up the carcass and made two pots of stock. I took home half and left my mom half. We thoroughly enjoyed a turkey-barley soup when we returned home.

Seed Pods

Growing up, we had day lilies of numerous varieties and colors all over the yard. I remember being fascinated in the fall when the seed pods dried and cracked open. I enjoyed breaking them apart and dumping the seeds on the ground. I always wondered about the seeds and whether they would really sprout into a day lily because I knew my mom always spread them by division. I still haven't found out if you plant a seed whether you'll get a day lily or not. Currently in our yard there is just one or two. The texture and color of the seed pods grabbed my interest for a picture a week or two ago.

Here's how it looked back in August. Soon the seeds will be buried under snow.

Thanksgiving Meal

Last Thanksgiving, my husband and I hosted in our home for my parents, sister, and a gaggle of college students since we were close to where my sister attended college. I had a lot of fun planning the menu of yummy veggies and side dishes and my husband did his part by smoking the turkey in the home-made smoker. Looking back at the pictures, we never got a shot of the whole turkey, but did capture part of the spread.

In the photo, counter-clockwise from top is the Smoked Turkey, Pear-Cranberry Sauce, Salad, Herbed Oatmeal Bread, Braised Carrots, Blue mashed Potatoes, Green Beans with Browned Butter, & Stuffing.

When everyone arrived, our starters included: Baked Brie with mango chutney, Grafton Cheese, and cream cheese with Raspberry pepper jelly all served with crackers. These were quickly devoured.

Our dinner included began with Tunisian Pumpkin Soup from the Moosewood Daily Special Cookbook. It's a favorite recipe of ours. My husband smoked a lovely fresh turkey that turned out wonderful.

Our vegetables were blue mashed potatoes, braised carrots, and green beans with hazelnuts and browned butter (no green bean casserole for me!). I'd planned in advance and bought 5 or more pounds of blue potatoes in October to save for this meal. I wanted to excitement of the colorful potatoes. We also had a salad with pears, craisins and pecans. My husband's family is from the south and turkey is always accompanied by cornbread dressing so I made that for the first time. However, I couldn't let go of stuffing, so I also made a Bacon-Apple stuffing. I also made a favorite from my family, Oatmeal-Herbed Rolls. I couldn't make just plain cranberry sauce, and instead ended up with a Pear-Cranberry Sauce.

For dessert we had homemade pumpkin and apple pies.

I get hungry thinking about it all. This year I don't have to plan the menu, we're going to my parents and my husband's immediate family is joining us too. We said we'd bring the cornbread dressing and the Grafton Cheese. When we get there, I'm sure we'll have a hand in the cooking as well. I can't wait!

Forgotton Pictures of Fall

These pictures from October have been languishing on the camera for a while and I finally pulled them of and found the best ones.
Here are two of the famous Cornish-Windsor Covered Bridge. The historical marker near it says it is one of the longest covered bridge in the U.S. We took this photo one Sunday in October on the way home from church. We'd decided to take the more scenic route rather than the interstate since the leaves were at peak.
The rest of the photos are a from a walk some afternoon in October. I was struck by the beautiful shapes and textures of the Queen Anne's lace in its variety of forms.

One was even still blooming.

Garden Update

Here's how the garden looked on an early evening this week.

All that remains in the first bed are the chives, the roots of the swiss chard, four leeks,miniture carrots that I'm leaving as a test, and my seeded garlic. In the second bed are my brussels sprouts and kale.

My August seeded kale plants are still quite tiny. They had a rough go of it for a while with the white moth caterpillars. They're recovering now and this one has a beautiful purple color to the leaves.

One of my brussels sprouts has picked up the purple color as well, while the others don't have as much. It may be that this one is more exposed on the end, while the others are more sheltered. The sprouts don't seem to be getting much bigger and I'm very tempted to pull them and eat them at their current size. However the right opportunity to properly savor them hasn't arisen.

And finally, the sun set just after 4 o'clock in the afternoon.