Catherine – Page 23 – Cross Road Gardens

Tomatoes

September 10, 2020September 14, 2020 CatherineLeave a comment

Two great tomato varieties that we really enjoyed this year:

Camp remodel takes shape

September 5, 2020September 14, 2020 CatherineLeave a comment

Beginning of September at Cross Road Gardens

September 2, 2020September 2, 2020 CatherineLeave a comment

The garden is definitely waning, looking dry and scruffy around the edges. I’m still harvesting a lot of food and more to come this month. On my photo-taking expedition this afternoon, individual plants and groupings of plants caught my eye with their beauty. And a few fine specimens of vegetables ready to harvest.

Massive sunflower bouquet sprinkles our table with pollen

I harvested some dill seed today. Nice to grow your own for next summer’s pickles.

Hoophouse. Basil and tomatillo and a few eggplants remain, rest of space is transitioning to fall planting.

Front of garden with tomato row at right and indomitable black zucchini plant at left (slowing down now). I had to remove the costata romanesca zucchini, it was overwhelming.

A patty pan grown a bit large. Have to eat these faster.

What’s in here? A mixed row. Some tomatoes, leaf celery, dill, arugula, beets, leeks, new spinach, kale…Pulled up the bygone cilantro that was everywhere.

Fall crop in former fava bean patch. Carrots, broccoli, and escarole “Eros” planted too close together and all growing well. A few fall peas are starting at the back.

Scruffy broccoli row. Still getting some side shoots.

Potato row – tops are dead, have yet to dig.

Horseradish and tomato row. Still canning quarts of sauce – 15 so far. I dug out “all” the horseradish last year and it’s back, bigger and more vigorous than ever.

Squash tunnel, featuring some Red Kuri . One is damaged with a fence mark.

“Dakota Dessert” squash. I was unable to resist the seed catalog description.

Still getting a lot of cucumbers. Have canned 8 pints of pickles and fermented 6 pints so far.

Under corner trellis. Carrots and kale, some overgrown and stunted lettuce.

Fruit yard. Tango cosmos, another dye plant – love this vibrant orange bloom

Dyer’s coreopsis in the dye garden. I got some beautiful bronze oranges on silk fabric and thread from it.

The upper storey is decorated with sunflowers and Wild Goldenglow .

A nice color combination in the herb bed.

Berggarten sage and monarda, another nice color combination in the herb bed.

And that’s it for now. Gotta be something I should be doing.

Photogenic lettuce

August 31, 2020September 14, 2020 CatherineLeave a comment

I just loved this lettuce and it makes a beautiful subject for garden photos.

Basil for freezing

August 31, 2020August 31, 2020 CatherineLeave a comment

I harvested one row of the remaining basil patch in the hoophouse. Following this blog post’s recommendation of the best way, I washed and dried the leaves and stuffed them into freezer bags. Easy. Much easier than attempting to freeze as pesto in ice cube trays, which was honestly a disaster.

More basil to process, about three times that much again. I like it fresh but it’s starting to get brown.

An Oregon Cottage – Freezing Basil Leaves 6 Ways: Which is Best?

Transition

August 30, 2020August 30, 2020 CatherineLeave a comment

I’ve been working in the hoophouse today. Garden work helps stabilize my mind and heart, even as it fills me with an ominous sensation that fall is coming. Another way to look at it — the future is coming, whether I like it or not. No way to just stay here among this late summer beauty/bounty for awhile.

I’ve harvested some lingering summer veggies. All of the peppers are picked, half of the eggplant, half of the basil, and a handful of okra pods. There are still some remaining: a few eggplant, a few okra, the massive bush of tomatillos (are they going to ripen?), and half a bed of basil.

The rest of the beautiful poblano peppers

I have some alliums curing in the hoophouse. I trimmed these cippollini and shallots and brought them inside for daily use.

There were several trips to the compost, taking remnants out of the hoophouse beds to make way for new plantings of spinach, winter lettuce, and arugula.

The house looked nice from the garden. That billowing row cover was supposed to provide shade to prevent sun scald on some prime tomatoes. I think it’s outlived its purpose.

It’s hard to convey the experience of living within a small forest of sunflowers. All of them were volunteers and currently providing feasts for all kinds of insects and a few birds and small mammals too. A lesson in generosity.

Sauerkraut day

August 29, 2020September 14, 2020 CatherineLeave a comment

I harvested this massive Farao cabbage. Six pounds! A bit overdone as it was splitting and had some rotten leaves at the base.

Chopped up into chunks more or less the size of the food processor’s feed

An extremely dangerous food processor hack that allows the blade to keep spinning while leaving food hopper open to accept more cabbage

Half a cabbage fills the processor with shreds

Capturing weight of shredded cabbage in grams in order to calculate two percent of added salt

Massaging in 42 grams of salt reduces volume. Just harvested cabbage is very moist. Let sit to produce more brine.

We then place the kraut in a well-cleaned and sanitized crock. A little sauerkraut juice from the previous batch is added as a starter. A few cabbage leaves and weights hold the shreds under the brine for anaerobic fermentation. Lastly the lid is put on and a little water is poured in to the moat.