Seeds

Yes. I mis-labled a packet of seeds as turnips. They are my best looking mustard greens!
Oh joy! The spinach took! I have the most wonderful bed of itty bitty spinach plants that will grow slowly over the winter. They will produce abundantly next Spring. If the weather holds...
Turnips. I planted them again. Maybe we'll have a warm winter and get something from them.
Peppers! They are still forming! It has been a great year for peppers.
Onions have sprouted in our St Pauls community garden bed. When the beans come out, garlic goes in!

A Brief, But Beautiful, Life

And then, we had an early frost. The beans took it hard.

The Great Green Bean Experiment

I read or watch a video about gardening and food everyday. It's my thing. Back in June when the green beans played out I went into mourning. They are easy to grow, easy to cook and yummy to eat. The only negative is they stop bearing as soon as daytime temperatures rise. Self-pollinators, their pollen literally dies when it gets over 85 degrees. You can plant them in mid-summer, they will grow, they will flower, but, they will not make fruit.
I thought and thought about this problem and devised a solution. Then I began an internet search to confirm my hypothesis. Bingo. At least one other Southern string bean lover had tried and succeeded with a Fall planting. Thus began the Great String Bean Experiment. August 8th we replanted Blue Lake with my guesstimation date for fruit bearing of early October noted in my journal. Sunday, October 4th we harvested enough for one meal. Tuesday, October 6th another small harvest. Yesterday, Sunday, October 10th...

a big bag full of beans! Woop!

Falling into Transition

Geeeet ready!  The easiest Southern gardening season has arrived. 'Tis also the season of tough love. Summer plants that have waned gotta go. That real estate is better used cool weather vegetables like broccoli, swiss chard, spinach, turnips, kale, collards, mustard and lettuce. Okra, peppers, eggplant and surviving tomatoes get to stay. They produce abundantly right up to frost. Peppers and eggplant go crazy this time of year. Neighbors say thank you when I share but I sometime wonder if they're just being Southern nice. I've started apologizing when I give peppers...

We have more than five banana pepper plants...

Herbs

Grow herbs! They're easy! They smell good! On the more practical side, they are packed with vitamins and make food taste better. Scrambled eggs with mixed herbs?! Delish! Turns breakfast-for-supper into a gourmet experience.

I grew some newbies this summer. I bought a small lemongrass plant on a whim at Whole Foods in June. Uh. Two months later it is three feet wide and chest high. Now, I will learn how to cook with it. Also, I am assessing it's place in my 4x4 raised bed. Nice plant but maybe it will work better in my flower border. Guys. It is BIG. And it's year one.

Lemongrass, sage, basil, parsley, garlic chives in four foot square bed. 

When I purchased the lemongrass I also bought an herbal hibiscus. The critical ingredient in Red Zinger herbal tea which I love to drink in the cold, dark days of winter. The tiny plant in the 3-inch pot that is now five feet tall and four feet wide. I wanted it for tea this winter but I have enough to share with everyone I know. I'm thinking Christmas gifts right now.

The red stems and leaf veins give the hibiscus tea it's color.

The blue ribbon winner this year in the herb category is fennel. A gift from neighbor Suzy, it grew to six feet, was topped with umbrels of tiny yellow flowers, each became a fennel seed. The bees loved it. The butterflies loved it. I loved it. When I brushed against it while working the whole garden would be filled the the bold, spicy, fragrance of licorice. I harvested the seeds, gave them to neighbors, saved some for winter, then packed some up mailed it to my son who likes to cook. A happy surprise for us all!

Single petaled flowers, like these atop our fennel, are fast food for bees! 

Celia's Field Peas

Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot...

Years ago a neighbor-down-the-street gave me a handful of heirloom field peas her family calls Celia's Peas. Her grandmother grew them. Perhaps they go back further in history. Who knows their original name? Maybe not even Celia. They are climbers, not bush, requiring a tall support growing at least eight feet this year. The pods are nine inches long with 15  or more peas in each pod, shiny pale green with somewhat darker eyes. I have read that over time heirlooms adapt to their specific growing area and become individualized to specific micro-climates. I like that idea. I grow them every summer, save the seeds and replant the next year. Now, the most common field peas are bush varieties mainly because they are harvested by machinery. My grandmother grew Dixie Lee peas, a bush variety, because she liked how easy they were to shell. I like growing Celia's trellised peas because they are so easy to pick; no bending, no stooping. Oh yes, did I forget to say, they are also delicious!

Note: My grandmother kept a big ole pot of peas on the stove at all times. If the words "I'm hungry." passed anyone's lips, her ready reply? "Fix yourself a bowl of peas." Even if they were Dixie Lees, they sure were good.

the food mill

Oh my! I love my new food mill. I've considered one for years. Today I'm gobsmacked! In minutes I had processed the skins and seeds from our homegrown tomato glut! Minutes, I tell you! We will have a tomato saucy something for dinner. And I will redouble my efforts to keep the tomato plants alive in the god forsaken almost-drought we having.

Next up? Figs. Which I will use in smoothies instead of bananas. Take that all you fig haters. Free vs. 44 cents a pound.