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.

SEATTLE REVERTS TO TYPICAL WEATHER

06 Friday Sep 2013

Posted by backyardnotes in Canning & Preserving, Cooking & Eating, Food, Harvest, Pickling, Vegetable garden, Weather

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brandied peaches, fruit vinegars, infusing vinegar, peach preserves, pickling, plum butter, seattle rain, shiro plum, tomaotes

Today’s weather

AFTER A FANTASTIC SUMMER THAT BEGAN IN MAY we are easing back into typical northwest weather. Last night we had quite a light show with 5,600+ lightning strikes! Very unusual for this part of the country. No complaints really. Day after day of sunshine and temperatures of 80°+ has produced some wonderful results in the vegetable garden and loads of pears, beans, tomatoes and more.

A few rainy day photos:

Jaune Flamée tomatoes in the rain

Fucschia “Dark Eyes”

AUGUST WAS REPLETE WITH CANNING AND PRESERVING PROJECTS. I accepted 22 pounds of Shiro plums from my mom’s neighbor.

Shiro plums

Those 22 pounds yielded plum butter, 12 cups of plum juice; half of that became plum jelly, and

Plum infused white wine vinegar; one of two versions

We took a trip to north east Washington to our favorite little lake and on the return home stopped in Okonogan at Smallwood Farms where I bought a box of beautiful, just ripe and sweet Diamond Princess peaches.

Peach infused vinegar

Peach Basil preserves & brandied peaches

I have had exceptional pole and bush bean crops this year; lots to put in the freezer and plenty to make pickled beans too. Nice heads of cabbage. My late spring planting of carrots came up nicely and then quickly eaten by little critters. My second planting last month is looking promising The cucumbers were doing well until we left them on their own for a week when they succumbed to the heat. But I did manage to get a big jar of my favorite refrigerator pickles. Now it’s time to tackle the pears coming on.

HARVEST BASKET CHALLENGE

23 Tuesday Jul 2013

Posted by backyardnotes in Cooking & Eating, Food, Harvest, Summer!, Vegetable garden

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Arugula, cooking, garlic scapes, harvest, herbs, sage, string beans, Summer squash, Walla Walla Onions, winter savory, zucchini

Golden sage, winter savory, Walla Walla sweet onions, string bean mix, French breakfast radishes, arugula, zucchini costata, and a yellow summer squash (under the beans).

WHAT’S READY TO HAVEST IN YOUR GARDEN TODAY?

STRING BEAN, RADISH & WALLA WALLA ONION SALAD: BLANCH the beans until tender crisp, plunge into ice water, drain and pat dry; combine with sliced Walla Walla onion and quartered radishes and toss with a vinaigrette of white wine vinegar, mustard, chopped savory, a chiffonade of golden sage leaves and olive oil. Serve over lettuce if desired.

The dressed salad

CUT YELLOW SQUASH OR ZUCCHINI INTO THIN STRIPS. Coarsely chop the arugula. Choose a long, spaghetti type pasta. Heat up some olive oil in a large skillet. Flavor the oil with sliced garlic scapes, then remove them. Cook pasta to al dente; heat the olive oil over medium high heat and toss in the summer squash and a pinch of red pepper flakes and salt to taste. Cook until just tender. Drain the pasta (leave it a bit on the wet side and reserve a little of the cooking water) and transfer to a large bowl, top with the summer squash, add the arugula and toss gently to combine; add a little of the reserved water if desired to make the dish a little saucy. Add some grated peccorino romano over the top and you have a quick dinner!

Arugula, stringozzi and yellow summer squash.

ZUCCHINI CARPACCIO. THINLY (paper thin) slice the zucchini lengthwise with a mandoline; arrange slices on a large plate, slightly overlapping the slices. Sprinkle with coarse salt, a few grinds of pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Garnish with a little chopped arugula or whole leaves and some shavings of parmesan cheese. This makes a great first course. Who would think zucchini could be so good?

IT’S DRYING TIME FOR HERBS

21 Friday Jun 2013

Posted by backyardnotes in Food, Harvest, Herbs

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drying herbs, harvesting herbs, herbal honey, herbs, lavender, oregano, sage, thyme

IN THE COOL OF THE DAY, just as the sun was peeking over the tree tops and the morning’s dew had dried, I cut bunches of sage (berggarten & golden), oregano, thyme, and some of the first lavender to bloom, for drying. As far as timing goes most of the herbs have not yet bloomed and I was right on the money in picking on Wednesday–yesterday we had rain!

For large quantities I prefer to hang in small bunches until dry. I have tried the microwave method but think that there is a loss of potency and the leaves seem a little more crispy.

After cleaning and removing dead stems, leaves, etc. I made small bunches, tied them with string and hung them to dry in my laundry room. It’s the buffer between the main part of the house and the garage; it remains cool, dark and has good air circulation with some occasional warmth from the dryer. Bunches of lemon balm were well dried in about five days.

After drying I gently strip leaves from stems and lightly crush/crumble them and store in jars. Since I cannot possibly grow every herb and spice I like to use, some have to be purchased; I save the emptied jars, remove the labels and use again for my own storage.

I made sure to leave some stalks to flower for the honeybees. Someone around here is bound to have some nice herbal honey. And a little later in the summer will have a second crop to use.

CANTOBER! IT’S FINALLY OVER…

06 Sunday Nov 2011

Posted by backyardnotes in Canning & Preserving, Harvest, Tomatoes, Vegetable garden

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bread baking, canning, peaches, pears, peppers, tomatoes

RETURNING FROM OUR TETON trip, these were waiting for me, all 26 pounds of them! Not to mention 10 pounds of pears, peppers, eggplants, and more.

AND THE TWENTY POUNDS OF AUTUMN LADY peaches that I bought from Red Sky Orchards just west of Ellensburg on our way home. What was I thinking? They were big, ripe and sweet. I couldn’t resist after the last box that never fully ripened.

SO, I got to work. The bulk of tomatoes went into a roasting pan along with onions, basil and homegrown garlic and then into a slow oven until the onions were soft. A brief straining to separate the juice/broth from the solids and then through the food mill. Yield: 4 quarts of sauce and 3 ice cube trays of tomato broth for later use.

With the tomatoes cooking in the oven I chopped up a colorful mix of tomatoes for Tomato Basil Jam (My Little Corner of Rhode Island) that was mentioned in a Food in Jars post. Yield: 6 half-pints

ON THE LAST DAYS OF AUGUST I used some peaches to infuse wine vinegar and make some peach liqueur. Time now to decant, strain and bottle.

After adding sugar syrup to the infused vodka I have a quart that needs time to sit a few more months before transferring to smaller bottles for sharing.

I wrestled with tossing all of the fruit that had soaked in the vinegar and the vodka–but I couldn’t do it. I made peach chutney. I added some onions, hot peppers, garlic, sugar, vinegar and spices. Yield: 8 half-pints

Autumn Lady Peaches: 5 pints of Peach BBQ Sauce from the Williams-Sonoma book of preserving recipes borrowed from my neighbor. About 5 pounds made their way in to a batch of Peach & Rosemary Preserves. Yield: 6 half-pints

Two Peach Galettes from Rose Levy Beranbaum’s site; one for us and one for the neighbors.

PEARS: 4 pounds of the pears became Pear Vanilla Thyme Preserves with ginger and lemon. Yield: 4 half-pints

I caught a break the following week and we took a 3 day trip to Walla Walla with some friends to celebrate a birthday–so no canning! Had to make a stop on the way home in Bingen, WA at Dickey’s Farms where I picked up some big, beautiful Honeycrisp and Buckeye Gala apples. Soooo good! I indulged my yen for Tarte Tatin with some of the honeycrisp apples.

Nearly every night during October we ate a tomato salad of some kind. Yum! We’ll be sorry when they’re gone.

MORE TOMATOES: Mid-month as more tomatoes became ripe I picked another 16 pounds and combined a lot of them with 3 pounds of peppers for 10 pints of Tomato -Chile Salsa.

I picked all of the remaining tomatoes a week ago Thursday since the weather was cooling and we were headed for New Orleans on Saturday. All of the cherry tomatoes became 8 pints of pickled green tomatoes the day before we left. All of the other tomatoes are either green or in varying stages of ripeness and will have to ripen inside. We will savor every last one–maybe up until Thanksgiving if we’re lucky. It will be many months before we buy a tomato. Total tomato harvest must be close to 80 pounds.

I got on a bit of a baking jag. I had to refresh the sourdough starter (since it had a vacation while we did) and I picked the last of the zucchini and baked off six loaves of zucchini bread and into the freezer.

PEPPERS: All of the peppers were picked and the plants pulled to make room for the garlic. The remaining anchos, Anaheims, jalapenos, serranos became 3 quarts of chile verde sauce (into the freezer); the ‘sweet’ ones and a few hot peppers became 11 pints of pickled peppers.

Who doesn’t love cranberries? Two weeks ago my sister (fabricgirl) came up from Long Beach to celebrate our mom’s 81st birthday and she brought me two, gallon bags of fresh cranberries. I popped them into the freezer to keep until we returned from New Orleans (thank goodness for pre-planned trips). Hmmmm….cranberry wine jelly may be in order. And that should be the last of this year’s preserving. I think I put something in jars at least twice a week, every week of the month. At least that’s how if felt by the last Friday of the October. So as you can see, there was scant time for posting. Whew!