October in the Garden, Herbs do great

While I continue to document the garden weekly, my harvest is getting limited.
The Swiss chard continues to do great. I'll have an abundance of radicchio well through December I'm still picking leaves and plan to thin and plant out some that I planted in the Elliot plot. Radicchio is great because you can use an aggressive salad dressing and it just takes it.
Tomatoes are kaput. I harvested green ones and am watching them.
The Kiwis are ripe, Time to pick. Many of us have been selectively testing and tasting for a week or so.
I dug up the lemongrass and Vietnamese Coriander last weekend.
Coriander is coming up all around.I saw some by the sage in the herb garden yesterday. Speaking of the herb garden, the sorrel is still a great addition to a fresh salad, there parsley, marjoram thyme oregano rosemary and an emmense amount of sage for the picking. Any gardeners who make Thanksgiving stuffing with boxed cardboard sage should get Xtra work day hours!

The Garden in October Is It Gardening or Photography?

The thinking about the garden is why I started writing but the photographs are why I continue.
Every week I photograph the same space, the garden. It changes. Sometimes because of the seasonal flow, sometimes because we alter it. The photographs document this, and, allow me to respond.

In October tomatoes still ripen. The red noodle beans have shed their aphids and are long and glossey. Still blooming and growing. My snowflake ornament makes a nice juxtaposition to the beans. They're so long that I only need a few for a recipe. I wonder if they're not really beans at all but bean-like. The Mexican bean beetles haven't touched them even though they've devoured Kirks 10 ft tall bean pole in the plot next to mine. The radicchio is getting deep red still growing and the borage has reseeded all over the Chris plot again.

The September Garden Teeming with Cherry Tomatoes

Last Friday I went to the garden primarily to document it. For some reason that I can't remember I couldn't go on Thursday, Oh yes- Elliot had an eye appointment and couldn't drive and I'd declared it a Chopotle, I've had too much rush and can't cook night. I picked him up at Presby and we drove to the City Line branch. Sure the Penn Chipotle was practically around the corner but there are always lines and no parking. Back to the garden, I went early Friday, Jennifer's mother was there, I get camera shy when anyone is there even if we can't talk ( she only speaks Chinese - we wave and smile). She always comes for a year after Jennifer has a baby. Jennifer's mom takes care of the plot. In the fall, they plant a huge amount of garlic. Systematically.

I started my routine of first doing a plot photo with the ceramic sign, then looking closley at what's growing, moving mixing in a plot. What interesting juxtapositions are there. What's growing or fading. Sometimes I need to move around and come back. The interesting shots happen on the second round when I'm not trying so hard.

This morning I started with the Chris plot. Front shot with tomatoes, vines browning but a few nice green tomatoes hanging on. lots of weed. It's hard to see whats going on for all the weeds. then I notice the cherry tomato plant. I thought it was at the end of the plot, somehow, in a week it grew across and around. The tomatoes were not great. Typical volunteer sweet lots of green not so many red and sprawling stems. A thicket. It was crowding the Swiss Chard, the radicchio and some lettuce I planted a month ago. It was time to go. I yanked and yanked clipped snipped and finally had it out. Then I tackled the foxtail grass, the galinsoga, Pennsylvania smartweed and the wood sorrel. When I was done half of the plot was in the path but I could see what I intended to have growing at this stage and where there is room for a fall planting.

The red noodle beans are holding on, they've had an aphid problem that I deal with with soapy water. Theyre great. A few make a meal. I'm going to only keep Egyptian walking onions at the west end so I need to yank the ones at the east end soon. I transplanted the rosemary that I cloned from Carolyn's into the west end of the plot, I'll mulch it heavily. there's a good amount of radicchio still.
In the elliot plot I've hyanked all of the bean beetle infested plants. There is still lots of tomatillos to harvest and strawberry plants to corral. I've got a new planting of radicchio to complement the pretty mature plants. I can thin and spread these new plants out a bit. the arugula dn lettuce is just coming up where there were beans earlier. I love the fish peppers that I got from my ceramics class friend Sophie. They're tasty and hot. Cooley varigated. I'm letting some mature so I can save the seeds.

Late August and the Tomatoes Are Running the Garden

I noticed, today that one of our gardener's plot is a 8' x 8' mass of cherry tomatoes, a sight to see. Then I went to the Chris plot. I decided that it was time to remove the clarey sage from the path at the west end. It was dried and took up so much space that getting into the plot was a balancing challenge. After I removed it I noticed that that little volunteer cherry tomato plant by the beans was extended over the lettuce and tomatillos almost touching the east end of the plot. Fine. You can have a bit of space but really. I yanked it over and wound it around a part of the trellising exposing lettuce and lots of little borage plants.

I learned this week that my 23 year old son cannot stand eating tomatoes. Weird. Where have I been. It's like not noticing for 8 years that my daughter Rebecca doesn't like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. She stashed them everywhere - under the couch cushions in the umbrella stand, under my bed!! It turns out that William likes cherry tomatoes because they're compact but to bite into a wonderful chunk of Brandywine is really unpleasant for him. More for me and good thing there is this crazy volunteer.

The end of August means back to school, shorter days and fewer gardeners visiting their plots regularly. In our garden, we have gardeners who summer here in West Philadelphia but live during the academic year elsewhere. Visiting a few time in fall and winter. Garlic is planted, late tomatoes harvested.

I even find that come September visiting after work each day is a challenge. Good thing I got that iphone flashlight app.

Tonight it's stuffed peppers. Not mine. A buck a pound at Whole Foods for organic. They were huge. I was tempted to do the as my mother did. Stuffed with beef and rice and topped with Campbells tomato soup but couldn't do it. I loved them. I stuffed mine with brown rice and black beans, added mushrooms browned with onions, seasoned with lots of thyme and parsley from the garden, salt and freshly ground pepper, I added some grated fulvi romano cheese. I topped the peppers with tomato sauce I made while sauteing the mushrooms.

I only buy organic. Almost always, anyway. I bought six Hatch chiles last week. I can't grow them, I've tried. Finding them fresh in Philadelphia is rare. I'm waiting till fall to order dried red NM chiles, but fresh green unthinkable. That's why I need to spend the fall in Albuquerque. That'll happen. I grow mostly little hot peppers. I've especially enjoyed the Fish variety. Great flavor and nicely hot, Riot is good too and I'm going to let the last Tennessee Cheese peppers ripen to red. There is such a temptation to go wow a nice big one and pick it green. Big for Tennessee Cheese is golf ball sized. For some strange reason I ended up with only one of these plants. Lots of Riot & several Fish.

I'll make a tomatillo green chile sauce. I've got this handy grill that I got from the Santa Fe Cooking School called an asiado for grilling chiles on my stovetop.

The red noodle beans are growing like wildfire. 4 make a meal, and they look wonderful. They attract ants but so far not bean beetles. This may be because I planted them late. But the bean beetles are all over the bush beans in the Elliot plot planted about the same time. I like to steam/ roast them and add them to my late summer radicchio sorrel big tomato and basil salad.

Red Noodle beans and the Gardeners Year

The gardening year.
That was my point of doing this blog.
In the spring, I would be able to look back and make plans based on real intel. Now I find that it's a reason to do weekly photographs. Yes, looking at the plots. what works and what doesn't. Also what in interesting to me. Not just in my plots. What great juxtapostions can I find. What works with a focus on focus. Green black, Purple, magenta yellow. How do the colors relate.


This week the red noodle beans are coming into their own. They are really long and kind of thick, thicker at what I think is maturity that your average pole bean, and the Mexican bean beetles don't seem to target them. tonight I cooked some of both the red noodle and mostly bush beans provider variety, devistated by the beetles despite my efforts, together and it w0rked fine. The red noodle are more gelatenous, tasty and add that deep purple to the salad like perilla.

This weekend, I made a chicken marinated in lemongrass, nam pla, lime juice, rice wine vingear, sugar, fish peppers and chopped red onion. I saved half of the conconction for the salad and used the other to marinate chicken breasts boneless and skinless (on sale I prefer thighs - we thought Rebecca was coming we hoped (it's fun to see her).
The hurricaine Bill made my grilling choices simple. Grill on the porch, watch people run in the rain hop and gestuclate wildly and be glad that the sparks from Whole Foods current charcoal dropped on a very wet surface. The chicken and grilled vegetables were quite nice.

I'm really liking the fish peppers, especially the ones from Sophie in the blue pot. This plant is very prolific, the peppers have a great taste and are hot.

Crazy Dog Days of August in the Garden

Crazy hot humid August days in the garden in Philadelphia, even Georgia the dog isn't fond of the dog days of August. Everything is ripening. Tomatoes, peppers, beans in abundance. Lots of herbs to accent the late summer salad of radicchio, arugula, tomatoes, sorrel, garlic chive sprouts in a lemon vinigrette.

In the Chris plot the red noodle beans are starting to grow. I had the first one this week now there are quite a few and lots of flowers and several developing beans.

Every day I battle the Mexican bean beetles 23 beetles, 17 larvae and 2 leaves of eggs today. Where do they all come from. It's like a cartoon. you squish them all and more sprout up out of nowhere. the beans are productive but the leave look like lace.

I made Asa Zuki from some of my last turnips and thinly sliced beets. Nice with California roll with red perilla. I work the perilla into lots of dishes. I let it grow thickly this year because its such a visual statement in the herb garden.

In the Elliot plot, in addition to the beans, we had quesadillas with tomatillos last week and the fall planting of radicchio is coming up. I'll plant more lettuce and arugula next week. It's been so hot and humid that I've waited to replant seeds. Next week probably.

Tomatillos Gone Crazy

It feels like I look at what's growing with harvesting, ripping out and replanting in mind. Sure it's important to have a sense of the cycles. I do. But right now I'm enjoying the lushness of the garden. With all this rain, plants like tomatillos are wild and sprawling. Growing over the beans and strawberries out of the back of the Elliot plot. They're sprouting up through the burlap bags trying to make plots where paths are meant to be. Crazy plants.

I have pinto beans soaking for quesadillas with tomatillo sauce and epazote and cheese filling. I have packs of whole wheat tortillas in the freezer. Easy dinner. I'll also toss some rice with coriander(cilantro) and lemon juice, lime would be a better choice but lemon will do. Brandywine is my favorite tomato. I've had a few huge vine ripened ones so far. The last was still warm, almost hot, from the vine when I cut it for salad. They have just the right acidic intense tomatoey taste. Unfortuantely, someone nicked one of the plants in the chris plot uprooting it. It's pretty wilted. I reacted quickly replanting it and mounding soil over the stem some to encourage new roots. Time will tell if it survives.

The fish peppers are actually growing larger in the garden in the big blue pot than in my back yard. This is a first. Maybe its the blueness. The pot is bigger, maybe they grow to the size of the container like the colocassia plants. The peppers in the yard are growing fine. I'm letting some of the the riot variety turn red.

the noodle bean plants are growing lush and climbing the bamboo in the back plot. No beans so far, and no Mexican bean beetles on that plot. I check every day. Yesterday I got 11 beetles several nymphs and one leaf with eggs in the Elliot plot. The leaves are suffering some but the plants are still growing and flowering. Tonight I'll pick the first bush beans from the first sowing of Provider variety. I love string beans. In the summer, just roasted until the color turns bright they make a great addition to a summer salad. A bit of radicchio, arugula, sorrel some herbs and beans and of coarse chunks of jucey ripe tomato all in a lemony mustard vinegrette.

Lushness rain and heat are also great for the weeds and they are really enjoying this weather. I try to yank some each day when I visit to pick for dinner but the plots could use a good concenated weeding.

I had pesto again last night. I like it with pasta that has crevasses to catch the sauce. I used whole wheat shells this time. Leftovers for lunch today. The mint surrounding the basil is flowering and needs to be clipped. Something for the upcoming work day.

Tomatoes and Tomatoes: The Fickle Way They Grow

Last year I wasn't thrilled by my tomato choices. I grew too many varieties too close together this year it was only Brandywine and the Rutgers variety Rampo.

The first place I planted out tomatoes this year was in the Chris plot. Only three plants, about a foot and a half apart. I mulched them with salt hay. Two Brandywine, one Rampo those Rutgers, famous for Campbells tomato soup, varieties.

I start my tomatoes from seed. About 8 weeks before our local last frost date May 10. Ruth Fine's birthday. This means that I start lots and lots of plants. Some are still in little pots in my back yard. My process is to plant out at least twice as many plants into quart pots as I think I want to grow, just in case. This year the plan was three in the Chris plot, three in the Elliot plot, one in a container in the backyard. I had easily 20 plants.

I planned to plant the ones in the Chris plot where there was a big bunch of Egyptian walking onions. I harvested the onions, leaving a few in the corner. I planted the three in the Chris plot 2 Brandywine, 1 Rampo. I had planted turnips in the Elliot plot and replanted lettuce that I intended to transplant. A week after I planted the tomatoes in the Chris plot I planted 2 Rampo and one Brandywine in the Elliot plot.

As it happened, one of our gardeners, Joy was going to be out of the country until June something. Her plot became a galinsoga jungle. We all tried different methods to help this plot form putting plastic bags, cereal and pizza boxes on top of the weeds to yanking them out and putting them in one of the hot compost bins. At one workday one gardener emptied a hot bin and put its content on the south side of Joy's plot. I had 10 extra tomato plants at that point. I planted 4 in her plot and a few radicchiow transplants.

Right now I've had 4 huge, intensly tomatoey tasting, ripe tomatoes from the Chris plot. The Elliot plot tomatoes are kind of spindly but improving. Worth it considering the great turnips I've harvested. The plants in Joy's plot are huge with darker green leaves than the others and loaded with tomatoes. I did nothing after planting them, no water no special kelp stuff or comfrey juice, they were on their own. I'm still not sure if Joy has returned. We see email but she could be in the middle east. The Chris plot has the best biggest tomatoes so far. But Joys are getting that ripening, yellow shoulder, look.

So plant early, give them room, ignore them.

I guess, until they grow into the path and you have to devise a way to latch their supports to the bean supports with more Lonely Planet shoelaces and old bathing suit parts and Rebecca's snakeskin jeans.

Mexican Bean Beetles Are Not Ladybugs in Yellow Costumes

We still have gardeners who think Mexican Bean Beetles are their friends some type of alternative ladybug.

It's bean beetle battle season. First it was a neighbor's beans. Almost all she grew and they were swarming with bean beetles. Two plots over. Now my beansa are coming in nicely but the beetles found them. Everyday, when possible, I inspect the plants. first a worms view to find the nymphs and clusters of yellow eggs, then birds eye view for the beetles. The only thing to do is squish them.

My bush beans are beginning to produce too. One these plants get past the being nibbled by rolley polleys stage they're fine until the beetles find them too. The key is constance survalence. I havested the last of the turnips. Harlequin bugs got their leaves, but the late leaves weren't great to eat kind of bitter and gritty. I have enough turnips to roast with potatoes and to make a small batch of Asa zuki. MMMM

A Week of Firsts. First Pesto, Tomato, Garlic Chives, Beans.

This has been the week of firsts, the first batch of pesto, the first ripe tomato, the first garlic chive shoots and the first pole beans.

First the pesto. I love it and once the basil is big, I make it once a week.

I gather a big bunch of basil. This is good for the plants, they divide and grow more shoots.

The important thing about basil is do not let it develop seed heads. First you see a tight cluster of leaves tiny leaves, then before you know it the flower shoot sprouts.


When the seed head forms the plant sends all of it's energy into the seed formation.
For a long season of big basil leaves, pick, pick, pick.

I'm kind of a basic pesto person. Basil, garlic, olive oil, salt, pine nuts and a combination of Fulvi Pecorino Romano and Parmesan cheeses. I like lots of garlic and pine nuts. I don't use a recipe. I fly with the proportions and taste a lot. It goes something like this:

A big bowl of basil picked from the stems,
8 cloves of garlic,
1/2 cup pine nuts (at least)
1 cup of grated cheeses.

Whirl the garlic and olive oil in a food processor, add the basil in batches, add the pine nuts then cheese and salt remember, you can always add more. I like the whole wheat pastas in shapes. I like the way the pesto clings to the crevices. I boil the pasta reserving some of the cooking liquid. Toss it with the pesto.
Taste and adjust the seasonings adding more pasta water if the pesto seems too thick. I like it with a nice mixed green garden surprise salad - whatever greens are going in the garden, some foraged wild plants like purslane and dandelions (I've kept one dandelion plant going in the Chris plot for tender leaves), some nasturtiums, borage flowers, and sorrel. tossed with a simple mustard vinaigrette dressing.

My first ripe tomato isn't quite ready yet it's one of the rampo variety. It was quite pink so I picked it.

It seems somehow wrong not to let it get completely ripe on the vine but I have been the victim of the squirrel once too many times. You notice an almost ripe tomato, dream about is slice with fresh mozzarella and those big basil leave in the basil mint plot. Next day you go by and there it is either on the ground with big bites out of it or maybe still on the stem with little bites all over or the biggest insult is to arrive and there the little grey furry one is on the back of the garden bench munching away. pieces of the lovely tomato all over the back of the bench. Someone should invent little tomato cages that you put around almost ripe tomatoes. They'd have to be rigid and big enough to keep the squirrels clever little hands from touching the fruit. Day dreams.

I love garlic chive shoots.

The tenderer the better. I put a big cluster of them in a dry cast iron pan and roast them until their color turns bright green. Nice as an accent on a grated cabbage, nam pla based salad with Vietnamese coriander, some perilla and hot chiles. Chive sprouts are also great on pasta or over marinated roasted tofu.

The beans are coming in nicely though the tomatillo jungle has reduced their numbers this year. But I do love tomatillos. As I pull up the turnips I've been planting rows of bush beans to compensate some what.

Sadly, the Lebanese cucumbers were short lived. They were sweet and tender but got wilt fast.

Early Light, Cucumber, More Turnip and Mexican Bean Beetles

I walked into the garden, the usual Thursday, camera in hand, visit. I usually go to thee garden after work on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, skip Wednesday because of pottery class and return on Thursday with Georgia to do the photographs. This week I also went at 6:30 Saturday morning. Critter watch. I pick salad greens,herbs and leafy green vegetables every day, extra on Tuesday to get me to Wednesday. Early in the season, when there was constant rain, which was great except for the aching in the morning, I'd bring seeds and do succession sowing of lettuce, arugula, and radicchio. Now I usually do some watering in spots and a good soaking twice a week. I'll walk in start on the driveway side check out the herbs how is the tarragon doing, it's its second season. we used to have an established tarragon patch but the sage and Greek oregano over-powered it. I started these plants up front. The big competition is the lambs ears. They reseed and grow everywhere. I live the fuzzy texture and sagy green color. They are a great contrast to the nasturtiums with their tropical bright flowers round funky patched leaves like unusual geometry lessons. Anyway, the tarragon seems to have settled in alongside the marjoram and lemon thyme. I can never figure out what to do with these lemon-this and that herb. Not very thymey a little lemon pledge like. I like the yellowish varigated leaves though. the dill is coming along nicely,Ill resow somemore soon. There is parsley patches in two places and they seem to be thriving. The perilla, the perilla is aggressive, dark magenta and crinkely the leaves are almost iridicent. they are growing through the bamboo strucutre I built last year. It's weathered now, The Vietnamese coriander (Rau Ram) is pretty established under the shade slats. I go herb by herb then. In the chris plot the walking onions by the big boulder are rooting, creating the next generation. The chard is looking fine, the lettuce that I transplanted from the Elliot plot was doing well almost ready to start harvesting until... The cucumbers are flowering and climbing like crazy. I had a small one with dinner last night, tender and sort of sweet. I keep trying to train them up the trellis and they march across the plot towards the radicchio. Soon the red noodle beans will be climbing. The tomatillos are filling out their husks, the tomatoes are still green. They are at the stage where I need to carry strips of rags to tie them up anchor them to posts they are beginning to spraul. The tying and anchoring begins and goes on all summer.

In the Elliot plot the beans are flowering and the dreaded Mexican bean beetles have arrived. While I don't have as many plants as I like I still want those beans. I find that I need to do daily inspections to squash the beetles and their larvae, or else they chew away the leaves until all that's left is a lacey shadow of a leaf. The leaves turn brown the gardener gets frustrated and yanks the whole mess out. Gives up. I want those beans. I've pulled lots of turnips in the past week. One big bunch I roasted with lemon, garlic and fresh bay leaves ( my next door neighbor topped her bay plant to get it to branch, it was so tall that it touched the ceiling when she had it inside for the winter- I put the top in a bottle of water and I've been using the fresh leaves. Tonight I made another batch of Japanese pickles, Asazuke. Easy as pie. slice the turnips thinley rub with a tsp and a half of salt and half a tsp of sugar I crushed a dried red chile into the mix rubbed the spices in, put it into a jar and refridgerated it for an hour. Very crunchy and fresh. I'm doing succession sowing of bush beans as I pull out the turnips. Next I'll plant more chard and radicchio for the fall.
Georgia met a cat at the garden who didn't even wink when she did her grr woof, not quite a bark thing. the cat just sat there.