DRIFTING INTO FALL, THE GARDEN SHINES

09 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by backyardnotes in Fall, Fall Flowers, Flowers, Growing, Harvest, Photography, Vegetable garden

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beans, cabbage, comice pears, dahlias, fall, garden spiders, harvest, honeybees, matricaria, savoy cabbage, squash, tomatoes, verbena bonariensis

Mystery dahlia, but quite lovely

AS SEPTEMBER GENTLY NUDGES US INTO A FALL state of mind, there are lovely moments nearly everyday. The colors of late summer and early fall flowers are rich and vibrant. Tomato harvest is peaking. Cabbages are just this side of splitting. Pears need picking almost daily. Cactus are blooming! Winter squash are ripening and bees and spiders are busy, busy, busy.

I’ll let the garden speak for itself.

BIG mystery squash. Came from the zucchini packet!

I think this is a banana squash. The seed came from the zucchini packet!

Bartlett and Comice pears

30 year old (maybe older) mammillaria pringlei.

Berkely Tie-dye

Is this a beautiful blossom? Bean blossoms are often hidden by the leaves

Is this a beautiful blossom? Bean blossoms are seldom seen as they are often hidden by the leaves.

These are EVERYWHERE.

As are these (on the tiny flowers of sedum ‘Autumn Joy’)…

and partaking of nectar from caryopteris ‘Dark Knight’

Bees drinking at the birdbath. We have a beekeeper in our neighborhood–hooray!

and drinking at the birdbath. We have a beekeeper in our neighborhood–hooray!

Savoy cabbage

Matricaria. They look so cheerful and like sunny side-up eggs. They self-sow.

Matricaria (also known as feverfew); they look so cheerful and like sunnyside-up eggs. They self-sow freely.

Many plants in my ornamental and vegetable gardens are volunteers, like this verbena bonariensis whose seeds came from compost. Volunteer flowers in the vegetable garden enliven the scenery and invite lots of pollinators and predators alike.

Many plants in my ornamental and vegetable gardens are volunteers, like this verbena bonariensis whose seeds likely came from compost added to the garden. I like to leave volunteer flowers in the vegetable garden to enliven the scenery and invite lots of pollinators and predators alike.

RADISH FEVER!

26 Friday Oct 2012

Posted by backyardnotes in EAT!, Fall, Vegetable garden

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backyard farm, black radish, Daikon radish, food, french breakfast, planting radishes, radish salad, Radishes, Shrinmei radish

French Breakfast, black, New Crown Daikon, Round Core Shrinmei & Easter Egg.

IT’S A FEAST OF RADISHES HERE at Backyard Farm. Most were planted mid-to-late August. The smaller French breakfast type are now getting a bit hot and woody/spongey. The large daikon type radishes are probably good for another month or more if they don’t become buggy as they grow larger and some of the black radishes are golf ball size or larger.

Pretty round core and assorted radishes.

So far, the favorite is the red centered round core – so pretty, tasty and photogenic! Lots of paper thin slices tossed with a bit of lemon juice, finely chopped parsley, some olive oil, and salt make for a wonderfully sassy and refreshing salad. The daikons are sweet with just a little heat; the black radishes have some heat, need peeling, and good for raw eating if sliced paper thin, but are probably best when cooked (like turnips).

Got a favorite radish variety or ways to eat them?

PLANTING GARLIC?

21 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by backyardnotes in Cooking & Eating, Fall, Planting

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fall planting, garlic, olive oil & garlic, planting garlic, poaching garlic, roasted garlic

Garlic cloves ready for planting.

NOW IS THE TIME TO PLANT GARLIC– at least here in the Pacific Northwest, for mid-summer harvesting. For the last four years or so I have been planting five varieties: Inchelium Red, Chesnok and three unknown varieties; one softneck and two hardneck types started from one head each, originally grown by friends. I plant 25 cloves of each variety. It typically takes 2-3 heads to provide the largest cloves.

Sweet, poached garlic.

After planting the largest cloves I am left with a lot of medium and small sized cloves to use up.

Garlic cloves poaching in olive oil with bay leaves.

My solution for using all those orphaned cloves is to poach all them very slowly in olive oil until they are meltingly soft (place all the skin-on cloves in a heavy pan or metal bowl; cover with a lid and shake like mad. The skins pop off!). Use bay leaves as I did or any other herb of choice for a little extra flavor if it suits you. I end up with two wonderful products: garlic flavored oil (refrigerate) and soft, sweet cloves to mash into just about anything you would use roasted garlic for.

Happy planting!

OCTOBER SNOW FALL

20 Saturday Oct 2012

Posted by backyardnotes in Fall

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beautiful morning, fall, new snow, Olympic Mountains, snow, west seattle

IT’S A BEAUTIFUL MORNING here in West Seattle and lots of new snow showing in the Olympic Mountains. Fall is really here and winter is in the offing.

SURPRISE—NOT A PUMPKIN AFTER ALL; GOODBYE, TOMATOES

19 Friday Oct 2012

Posted by backyardnotes in Fall, Fun in the Garden, Tomatoes, Vegetable garden

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fall, goodbye tomatoes, green tomato salsa, lettuce seeds, pumpkins, squash vine, surprise squash, vegetable garden, volunteer plants

Sure doesn’t look like a pumpkin!

THIS VOLUNTEER SQUASH VINE has turned into a monster in my small vegetable garden and it turns out not to be a pumpkin plant, but more like delicata squash. No matter, as it will soon be a mere remembrance of a generous experiment in curiousity.

Red oakleaf lettuce seeds, like little fairies waiting to take flight. Probably 6-8 generations away from original planting.

Finally seems like fall here with the arrival of some intermittent rain this past week and the dial back of the setting sun, a little earlier each day.

Berkley Tie Dye

With regret, it was time to pull up the tomato and pepper plants on Sunday. Good news: put up seven pints of green tomato-chile salsa on Monday. Ate fried green tomatoes one night and last night a salad of thinly sliced a green tomato, thinly sliced not-quite-ripe pear and some greens made a nice salad. This year I bought tomato and pepper plants due to our trip and found some that I had never heard of: Berkley Tie Dye, funny shaped fruits that ripen to reddish green outside and inside; Porkchop, a large yellow beefsteak with green streaking at the shoulder and Nebraska Wedding, another beefsteak type that was yellow, with a blush of orange. All tasty so I saved seed from each for next year. Now only a few ripe and ripening ones in a bowl on the counter (sigh). It will be six months or more until we taste a decent tomato.