Time is certainly flying by for me. From a plant growth standpoint, the weather has made it seem like late November. The plants just have not grown this fall like they have past Octobers. I spoke with another gardener this afternoon who also bemoaned the small broccoli this year.
I peeked under the row cover this afternoon and I think we’ll have nice small mesclun. The full-size lettuce has freeze damage from those mid-20s nights, but the deer have not minded that at all. The red Roxy butterhead seemed to tolerate the frost better than the lighter Pirat did, but the deer have eaten most of it. It is at the north end of the garden and I haven’t been checking there regularly to notice the deer damage.
I washed some sweet potatoes today and will try to clean more for you. Eat them and enjoy them now because we didn’t get the warm temperatures for curing them so I don’t expect them to store well.
With the longer evenings I am beginning to sort and clean through the summer’s accumulated piles. Came across a stack of folders, and remember now sitting on the living room floor carefully sorting through clippings of recipes. I will try to remember to put them out so you can browse through them for ideas.
It seems like the offerings at this time of year are repetitious. I try to vary things by having white, golden, candy stripe, and red beets, but they are still beets. We have red, white and gold potatoes. I could have grown rutabaga and turnips for you, but suspect that would not excite many. Actually, rutabagas are good mixed in mashed potatoes.
Tony made a great stew for the church men’s night. He included both celeriac and sweet potato along with potatoes, and it was really good.
Here are some easy ways to serve winter squash. Start by either halving and baking or by steaming. Then with the “meat”,
- 1. Toss with pasta, sausage, and Parmigiano.
- 2. Add to risoto.
- 3. Puree or mash with Cheddar cheese.
I meant to give you winter squash last week, but had it inside to stay warm and forgot it. If you don’t see it out Friday, please remind me. I get kind of daffy on Fridays. It is easy to say the rain this week got me off schedule, but I have still been busy on the rainy days so would probably be just as behind with good weather, but I really need to plant garlic tomorrow so I know how much I have to spare. We’ll see. I have kale, lettuce, spinach, celeriac, beets, cabbage, potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, carrots, lettucy mix, onions, garlic, hmmmm, what else ready. Tomorrow I need to cut and rinse spicy mix, arugula if it is ready, broccoli, more cabbage (but that is quick), maybe more beets. The chard is looking disappointing, so will probably be skipped. I hope to harvest more lettuce tomorrow – the romaine, but even today the ribs had ice crystals in them. The salad mix/arugula/spinach type is very time consuming to cut, rinse, pick through for bad leaves or weeds, and spin dry. I am trying something with the spinach – I just put it in containers with holes in the bottom and we’ll see if it drains well enough. The braising mix, arugula, and spinach, tend to be damaged in the handling and centrifugal force of spinning so I am hoping just letting it drain will work.
I had good, no excellent, weed control in the hoophouse this summer, and am pleased that the weeds I have fought in the past are almost nonexistent – chickweed and lambsquarters primarily. However, galinsoga seeds blew into the hoophouse and it is thick in the spinach. It is taller than the spinach and has shaded the spinach and kept the spinach damp, so there are some yellowed leaves to pick through.I spent all day Wednesday weeding and harvesting spinach in the hoophouse, out of the rain.
I have all the potatoes dug, but have found some late blight I think, particularly in the last row harvested because it was next to the first rows to go down. So, keep the potatoes dry and/or cold. I spent days washing and sorting potatoes but still have probably five days of washing to do at the rate its been going. They need to go into storage dry so the weather has thrown me off on that, but as I said, I stayed busy so would just be behind on something else. I am taking Monday off to tour three farms in Washington County who grow greens year round. I have been to all three farms before, but I am sure they have made changes and I will get some good ideas. I just would feel better if I had all the potatoes washed and sorted. It is getting close to time to pull the rest of the celeriac, carrots, beets, and then cabbage and get them into cold storage. At the rate I’m going, it will be Thanksgiving, but if the weather holds that is OK. Until they get actual freeze damage they store better in the field.
I got the ingredients, but haven’t yet made, a winter squash/kale/phyllo pie that sure looks good.
Eggs are available from the refrigerator on the front porch.
See you Friday!
