garden :: kitchen

the garden is shifting over to a late summer/early fall garden.  flowers are covered with bees and gorgeous blooms, the garlic is cured, the onions are drying, beans are coming on strong still and the squashes and pumpkins are succumbing to powdery mildew.  the tomatillos look good and the okra is almost ready for me to pick a little bit (there isn't much out there, just 8 or 10 plants) so I can try to pickle some.  I'd like to do the same with some of our beets.  the tomatoes are still looking good, and I've got my fingers crossed against the blight this year.  we've got fewer tomato plants than usual this year (maybe a dozen or so) what with all of our own starts not amounting to much with the late start and little care they got early in the spring when my mother was so sick and there was little time to plan for and ready the garden.  we ended up being given several happy and healthy starts from a farmer friend, and while they are some of the tastiest and most colorful tomatoes I've ever grown, I may have to supplement what we've got with some others for canning as about half of them are cherry varieties.  (oh but wouldn't a tomato sauce made just with sun golds be amazing?)

in terms of fruit, the melons are ready, we're still munching quite a few blueberries, and the strawberries are flowering again and giving up just a few sweet little berries here and there.  one of our two apple trees has about 8 or 9 apples on it and the couple we've tasted so far were quite delicious.  the peach, pear and plum trees are yet to fruit, as is the blackberry.  our elderberries were looking pretty good but the birds were on them immediately and I figured since I've still got nearly half a pound of dried berries left from what I bought last year for syrup making, I'd let the birds have them and net them next year.  I expect we'll have a second fruiting with the raspberries again as we did last year, but I remember (not fondly) how very quickly the fall raspberries get taken over by the spotted wing drosophila (little flies that lay their babies in the berries as soon as they start to ripen- how mean is that?).

recently sown seeds are sprouting (kale, beets, lettuces, carrots, radishes, chard) and I'm heading out to seed more broccoli raab and pac choi.

I thought the chickens would enjoy having their coop fancied up a bit with a nice new sign.  plus it will help in case we forget where the coop is, of course.

I didn't take many photos in the kitchen this week~  it's been toast with blueberry jam or yogurt with blueberries and honey for breakfast,  snack trays (cheese, crackers, veggies and such) for lunch, and a mix of garden goodness (heavy on the salads and greens), Chinese takeout, and a squash casserole my dad pawned off on me (given to him by a neighbor but "what was he going to do?" with a whole casserole?) for dinner.  there was also some more canning- dilly beans and curried zucchini pickles.  next up, more dilly beans and hopefully some pickled beets and okra.


*joining along with both Amanda and Heather for their garden and kitchen series.