Fall 2013

All is well in the garden. The summer vegetables are gone. Bugs got zapped by frost a few weeks ago so the greens are growing undeterred by pesky pests.

Curly Mustard

We have Tuscan kale (and tuscan salts), mucho beautiful, mucho delicious lettuce, broccoli, mustard, turnips and brussels. It is so much easier to garden without bugs. I have been seed saving as the summer plants matured and died for a few years now. I saved field peas and marigolds this year, and will soon be bringing in the okra seeds. 2012 seeds from  Summer Crisp seeds sprouted and will soon be transplanted into the garden. Freeeee foooood! Garlic is our oldest saved plant. We've been growing from one grocery store bought clove for about seven years now. Each year the crop gets bigger a crazy experiment in exponential growth. Pay it forward, garden style.Therapeutic the first year planted, still providing years later, I am especially fond of the stinky root.

Tuscan kale

How much do we harvest? Hmmm. I counted. We have ten kale plants growing in a 4' x 4'  raised bed. I harvest once a week and share each picking with a neighbor. Lettuce grows in two raised beds. We have a salad every night and have for weeks now. We always share it also. Same with the mustard. Rarely do I buy vegetables. It's all we can do to eat what we grow. 

Herb Salt

I have discovered herb salt. Well, not so much discovered as learned how to make. Coastal North Carolina is the New World Mediterranean. Herbs like thyme, rosemary and parsley and sage grow year round here. My friend, Joy, uses rosemary as skewers for her marinated grilled chicken. Too fun, right?! I could write about longitude and latitude but instead I will share what I have learned making herb salts. Easy, yummy, herbs and salt.

1/4 cup kosher and sea salt (or just kosher) This is important.
2 cups chopped herbs
Sheet of aluminum foil
Time-up to two days

Harvest fresh herbs, chop, spread out on aluminum foil, sprinkle salt on top. Occassionally swirl it around with your fingers over the next two days. The herbs change color and the house smells delicious. Use the foil as a funnel and slowly cascade the salted herbs into a glass jar. Breath deeply. Use in cooking as you would regular salt. Sparingly.

Farmers Markets and such

Daughter Kate lives in Raleigh, home of NC State University, North Carolina Museum of Art and possibly the state's busiest Farmer's Market. I've visited them all this month. NC State is absolutely beautiful, a little known fact about the university outside the student population. Makes me wonder if they really appreciate it's beauty because it does truly rival or surpass Carolina. I'm just sayin'. State does not have oldest campus but it does have some of the most beautiful shaded quads I have every traversed and it is immaculately kept. Go NC State! There's treasure everywhere. For example, the Head Librarian at NC State has been there over 30 years. She has slowly acquired a most lovely collection of glass art. Eyes wide open! It is an art gallery within a busy, bustling university library that sells locally made ice cream.

Our family spent an afternoon at NC Museum of Art this weekend. We had a lovely brunch at IRIS cafe, enjoyed the free, yes free, permanent collection and meandered the outdoor sculpture garden. Nice.

The State Farmer's Market is a wild and crazy sensory experience. There are flowers and cookies and bread and cakes and all manner of vegetables and houseplants and garden ornamentals and people!  On Saturday's there's a crush of people, be warned.  But this time of year a trip yields the most scumptious apples on Earth. Crisp, juicy and oh, so fragrant. The air literally smells of ripe grapes and apples! Do I have pictures. Nope. I am so overwhelmed when I go I spin around in circles. Put it on your list of must does, just once.

Now

Now is the time to plant fall and winter foods. Instead, I found myself, broccoli seedlings in hand, to be thinking of spring. Where, my mind insisted, will the potatoes go? This is my gardening Achilles heel: Planning.  I decided to take pictures...

Tee-pea :)

Field pea blossom

Late summer zinnias

Transitions

A few weeks ago the sunlight changed and the cicadas began their summer song signaling a seasonal shift. I knew, even as I watered the heat-loving field pea seedlings, it was time to begin the cool weather crops. Consulting Felder Rushing's The North Carolina Fruit and Vegetable Book and Mother Earth News' "What to Plant" pages on the internet (Google) the time is now for planting some of my favorites.

Out came the beet seeds. I planted them between the field peas and the tomatoes so they would be shaded and not get burnt by our hot August sun. They were up in just two days! Next the broccoli and cabbage seeds were planted in saved seed pots. They too sprouted in record time. I will nurture them for a few weeks, then plant them between the rows of okra for shade until the heat abates. Last night I sorted out all the seeds of plants that can tolerate cool weather. Kale and lettuces are on the top of the pile.
Summer veggie update:

•  Snap beans are on the menu daily.
•  Field peas are flowering.
•  We have okra!
•  Homestead and Rutgers tomato plants are still alive, fruiting and beginning to turn red.
•  Peppers are coming on strong.
•  Parsley got eaten by caterpillars. Must get on that.
•  Summer squash is...words fail me.
•  Sweet potatoes are vining.
• Figs. OMG! Figs! How could I forget them?! I have been making the most delicious jam. Google microwave fig jam. Kudos to neighbor Suzie for sharing the recipe and to Scott for picking the figs. TEAM!

Brilliant! 

Bohemian Paradise

The windows are open as I type. Today's temperature is 71 degrees and at 9:30 am I have not one bead of sweat on my brow following an hour of gardening. It's a August miracle in The South!

I pulled up Round One of the green beans this weekend. Round Two is beginning to make beans.  Round Three has flowers. Blackberries are trimmed for the coming winter. In the spirit of full disclosure, squash is a bust. I'm moving on to Fall and Winter planting beets, broccoli and swiss chard today. The Southern delicacy and nutritional standby, field peas, are be-a-utiful! Stop. There is a cool breeze coming through the window, must enjoy. Cicadas stridulate, birds sing. Life is good, glad to be here.

Snap back to reality: I took a chicken break and loved up on Casey The Sweet Dog.  Neighbors are trippin' and critters needed care. These neighbors have a most exotic, bohemian/man-cave sanctuary. I just love it and the good times we have there. Flowers everywhere and gigantic Elephant Ears give the garden an exotic tropical feel. Open the gate, step into the tele-transporter machine in Star Trek, open your eyes and you are in the Holodeck. Part bar, part farm yard, home to a middle class family. Pictures, nor words, do it justice but here's a feeble attempt.

Casey photo bombed this one! 

Beans and Peas

I planted green beans sequentially but it looks like they are all going to produce at the same time. Sometimes the only thing to say is OMG! How'd that happen?

Then, thinking, 'I sure would like some field peas', I planted seeds from 2010 expecting a so, so germination rate. Uh. They all germinated which led to the hard, right thing. Thinning.  They are growing like crazy on my tee-pee/tripod structure I made from cast off, found wood. That bad boy is over eight feet tall and is totally awe-some. I am very proud of my lashing attempt and the fact that I did it all by myself. Cool. Pictures later. It's about to storm.

State Fair Zinnia