Pumpkinfest!

My word it has been a long time. My poor garden was left to its own devices for quite a while, but I managed to snag some small-yet-delicious ears of corn along with butternut squash, tomatoes, and yes, ridiculous amounts of basil. I have a red kale that has been going since spring and hasn't bolted, and the cool weather has made cuttings especially delicious. I also have a spring broccoli plant that is finally looking harvestable. Back to the nom nom nom of fresh veggies.

The air is whispering frost at me so my first job was to get all my basil out of the ground. Chop some up with a bit of oil. Freeze in cubes for fresh basil options later. Make oodles of pesto. Freeze in cubes for later. Checkcheck.

Anyway... pumpkins. I do not grow pumpkins (yet!), nor was I resourceful or patient enough to buy and "deal with" fresh pumpkins. I found a can in the pantry, and it was a perfect fall day, and I hadn't cooked in a while, and... well. Pumpkinfest.

Pumpkin baked ziti
(with caramelized onions and sage breadcrumb topping)
- probably my favorite fall pasta recipe
- a combination of many of my favorite flavors
- one of those "i can't believe it's vegan!" dishes
- and as is typical of amazing baked pasta, the leftovers keep getting better and better!

Pumpkin cookies
- my first pumpkin cookies ever, and they are knockouts

All served with apple cider... now if I only had my little container of mulling spices from that farm shop in Hadley... le sigh.

NEXT STOP: Butternut squash ravioli made from scratch.

Harvest Monday Addendum

At the last minute I decided to harvest Audrey II (see Sunday's post) as well. She was a cute little cabbage head (mon petit chou!), but no more - now she's chopped into little bits into a coleslaw. My improvised coleslaw was pretty rockin', if I do say so myself. My first cabbage was pretty rockin' too! Now if only I had written down the recipe...

(Let's see... the acid was red wine vinegar.. sweet was agave.. base veganaise and veg sour cream.. added pepper, salt, fresh parsley, dried oregano, and a little garlic [just because I had minced extra when I made herb butter].. I think that was it? Oh, and of course carrots that I shredded in my ancient food processor. Now that was an adventure.)

Harvest Monday

Happy Harvest Monday!

This Monday's harvest was almost exactly the same in variety and volume to last week. Cukes, carrots, and lettuce were the main players here, with the addition of a bunch of delicious-looking collard greens, a couple of cherry tomatoes, and...drum roll... garlic!

This was my first attempt at garlic.

I extensively researched the growing process: 

"If you plant a clove of garlic, it'll regrow a whole bulb!"

"Seriously??"

"Yep."

"Sweet!"

No real need to cure them since the bulbs are sort of small and I go through garlic like crazy. I think this fall I'll plant some more to pull next season. Who knows what could happen with a little forethought?

Beans. 

Underwhelming.

Harvested a couple of delicious cherries so far. 

I am going to need some serious willpower not to eat them all right off of the plants.

The potted plants are ripening; no signs of red on the bedded tomatoes yet.

Loving the herb harvests. 

Fresh parsley, basil (holy basil!), thyme, and dill seeds. 

Peppers, squash, and leaf spot??

Jalapeños! So excited to make poppers...as long as it's nothing like last year.

The first of the Summer Crooknecks.

 

Audrey II?

Septoria(?) Leaf Spot, I believe. It's only on my potted tomatoes - the ones in the bed are looking fierce as ever. I fearfully thought late blight at first but [phew] it doesn't match the description or photos. Any tried and true ways to get rid of it?

Harvest Monday

Happy Harvest Monday! I'm starting to take in a few more veggies and herbs each week, which is just fantastic. The garden is sort of in transition still - some of my spring vegetables are just maturing or still producing, and the first of the summer ones have begun.

Holy cukes! I'm growing a Salad Bush variety, and though I only harvested two today there are many more on the way. I like them in salads, of course, and very much in water also, but I think the next stop may be the wonderful Cashew-Cucumber Dip that Nick made last year. Yum.

The carrots are coming along, finally. I still have quite a few left in my carrot squares to bulk up and lengthen. A few of these were shredded into our scramble this morning.

Also have a very, very small handful of green beans. The bush beans are currently at war with my squash... and you can guess who's winning. Next year I'll plant pole varieties so they can climb up the corn and out of the way, and the squash around the bottom to vine about. The indigenous people of the Americas were right on. This is only next year's plan if the corn is successful this year, which is yet to be determined. Looking lovely so far. Knee high by the fourth of July, indeed. Also only next year's plan if I don't decide to go vertical, which is a real possibility.

 And....drum roll...more lettuce! I must have mutant heat-resistant strains of Little Gem or something. It's getting a little ridiculous that the heads haven't bolted in the constant heat. Unnatural. I'll take it!

Also picked some dill pods for seed and fresh thyme for the scramble this morning.

I decided to make a kitchen message board section marked "This Week's Harvest" and update as necessary. I think that will alert my family that there is freshness in the fridge ready to be eaten. They are very kind (and silly, in my opinion) to generally leave the produce to me, but I'm working out of town too much to be the sole consumer of this year's take.

Mini update on some unharvest-ables

This morning I woke up at a very comfortable 8am and headed straight outside for a quick cleanup/harvest/photo op. Very glad to have woken up at a decent hour, since the heat became oppressive very quickly. 

Lots of green tomatoes! My slicing tomatoes this year are Better Boy Hybrid.

And these are something-Girl Cherries. Check out that almost-redness.

 

Dill seed pods are just forming on this plant. The variety I planted seems best-suited for seed.

Baby butternuts.

Harvest Monday

Point of pride: my very first homegrown cucumber! I was really wondering if I would be able to tell the difference since cukes are so mildly flavored, but the freshness was definitely taste-able. Or it's all in my head. That works too. I was worried because the plant was seeming to vine like crazy but never pollinate, but I guess the good ones just like to hide under the foliage. There are a few more little cukes on the way so far.

Carrots are the first for this season. It is a real struggle for me to avoid pulling them too early. I've made some positive steps here. 

The greenery, though not the first harvest, is all from new-for-2010 plants - collards, oregano (for drying), thyme, and parsley. The collards are going into a tempeh scramble, and thyme and parsley will find some fresh uses very soon.

Does anyone else have trouble telling the difference between broccoli leaves and collard greens? They look so ridiculously similar.

Harvest Monday-I-Was-Camping

I had a single goal when I went outside early this morning: fetch scallions to top my bagel. This turned into scallions to top our bagels, which turned into enough scallions to make a whole tub of scallion cream cheese. (tofutti). The rest of the them will find their way into dinner, I'm sure.

A somehow-glorious head of Little Gem. Surprisingly nothing has bolted yet.

Belated Harvest Monday, sans camera

Where did my camera disappear to?

Snow peas

Holy moly am I overrun with peas! I think I'll blanch and freeze this next group. I've used them in salads, stir-fries, a bf birthday mac n' "cheese", and of course just as hand-to-mouth snacks. It's a tough week for me at work.. I'm really glad that when I've been eating my feelings I've hit the peas first instead of the oreos. 

Basil

Yours truly made her first ever pesto! It rocked. I, therefore, rock. And I guess fresh basil is okay too. :)

Dill

Harvested some more leaves and made some more herb "cream cheese" and herb "butter".  All my dill plants (four total) are flowering now, so I need to decide when exactly to harvest these buggers for good. I wouldn't mind terribly if they seeded themselves, but I don't think I want them in those particular locations next year.

Scallions

Stir-fries, baked potatoes, future sushi, need I say more? 

Little Gem

These little heads are perfect for individual salads. Much love to Little Gem.


For all you gardeners out there, you should check out www.myfolia.com. There are a few kinks to work out, but it seems to be a fun tool for tracking your garden growth very specifically. You can keep track of all your plantings, giving them status updates as you see fit (Showing true leaves, Budding, Flowering, Harvesting, etc), search others' gardens, discuss specific plants, have people help you identify plants, swap seeds, etc. I'm enjoying using it so far. One reviewer wrote that it was "like facebook for gardeners". Agreed.

Cabbage Worms

...Are in my cabbage, broccoli, and collards. Cute fuzzy little caterpillars.... = $%#@! I hand-picked and disposed of the ones I found, and sprayed the heck out of the plants that were, of course, filled with little eggs. I'll keep a much closer eye on them from now on. *crosses fingers for plants*

Harvest Monday

"More of the same" doesn't really do justice to this deliciousness.

I probably have about two more harvests out of my radish squares. A few of these beauties became a gift and the rest served as peppery sweet candy for me. The tops have added nice variety to the fresh lettuce I've clipped for salads. I'm growing mostly Cherriettes, but a few pretty Sparklers also snuck into the plantings (not pictured).

Willpower abounded today and I was able to get a good chunk of peas into the house. Stir-fry, here I come!

Also able to harvest some Little Gem lettuce, basil, and dill. It's my first time growing any herbs whatsoever, so I am fairly proud of their production so far. I've only ever used dried dill, and though I've sampled "supermarket fresh" basil before, there is really nothing like growing it yourself. If we could only spread the love of this wonderful hobby/habit/lifestyle..

My boyfriend has terrible memories of weeding as a child, so though he's perfectly thrilled eating all of my fresh produce, I don't think he'll ever [willingly] pick up a trowel. I am working on sneaky ways to change that mentality.

English Muffin Pizzas

The super minimalistic version. Inspired by the fresh basil on my deck and the need for a quick snack. I can't wait until I have fresh tomatoes to make these with.

English muffins, diced tomatoes, basil, daiya, and dried oregano on top. DAIYA = AMAZING. It's not only palatable, it's freaking delicious and it melts normally, not like those many other vegan cheeses-that-will-not-be-named.

simple side dish... i'm obsessed.

Disclaimer: This is not my asparagus. This is asparagus from my lovely neighbor across the street. I intend to pay him in kind with tomatoes and other goodies later in the season.

You cannot beat fresh asparagus with that store-bought shtuff. No way, no how.

And now, my favorite way to prepare said delicious vegetable:

Rinse and chop off the bottom ends
Rub down with a little bit of margarine (I just use a paper towel)
Season lightly with salt and pepper
Roast at 350 for about 12-15 minutes, or until fork tender

I am so ridiculously lucky that my mother and I are the only ones in the house who eat this stuff.

Vegan Cheesecake.

Vegan. Cheesecake.

I kid you not.

The test - my [omni] parents had slices and said they really liked it. I really liked it. My [vegan] boyfriend really liked it. 

The ultimate reward: my [omni] parents nearly demolished the cake in one day! That, to me, is true success. 

Harvest Monday!

 = First fresh salad. Along with a few cuttings of lettuce, beet tops, and radish tops, I had...

Plump, juicy, delicious radishes, which I sliced very thinly on that epic new slicer/peeler I got last Christmas... along with part of my finger... whoops. Somebody had some epithelial salad... (ewww..).

And of course, the first of the peas, which are such a delicious sweet treat I can't help but snack on them anytime I'm doing work in the garden. It's an issue.









There should be support groups for people like me - the ones who can't even get their veggies in the house because they eat them all in the garden. And the ones who exercise self-control up to a certain point (ie: the cutting board) and then surrender to deliciousness before they make it into the dish.

first mini-harvest and good news

I pulled the three biggest radishes the other day and they were perfectly round and red and beautiful and delicious.

Everything, and I mean everything, is in excellent shape. My corn (! I still can't believe I'm growing freaking CORN) and beans have both sprouted, lettuce is coming along nicely, and the squash and cukes have moved away from death's door and towards good eatin'!

My garden brings me joy. :)

time to watch the garden grow

Everything's in! The only worry I have is for my squash and cukes, which yet again look like they won't make it through the season. I'm trying to preempt all suspected issues from last year, but that doesn't mean I'll succeed.

Nick is making fun of me for not having enough space, but I promise everything is appropriately planted and will not choke to death.

The peas are trellised (unevenly) in the back. Spring veggies include radishes, beets, lettuce, cabbage, peas, kale, collards, scallions, and broccoli. Herbs include parsley, basil, chives, oregano, thyme, and dill. Summer transplants are tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash, and cukes. Summer plantings are corn and beans. Sound overboard? It is, kind of...but I definitely made good use of space and companion planting, and so far (save the squash) everything looks healthy and fabulous.

Every time I look at my garden this year (which is every time I leave the house) I also smell it. The herbs and scallions and tomatoes just all smell so delectable. Nom nom.

The uploader is being super slow today, so I'll hold off on my veggie-by-veggie photo show. :)

It's that time again!

<3 the spring... Tentative plant list:

Veggies
Beans
Beets
Broccoli
Cabbage
Carrots
Collards
Corn (yeah, seriously!)
Cukes
Eggplant
Garlic
Kale
Lettuce
Peas, Snap
Radishes
Scallions
Squash, Summer
Squash, Winter
Tomatoes, Cherry
Tomatoes, Slicing

Herbs
Basil
Chives
Cilantro
Dill
Oregano
Parsley
Thyme

I have a mile-long to-do list and I'm fairly thrilled about it.