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rainbowgardener
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what are you still eating from your garden?

Dinner last night was sweet potato minestrone soup. It had sweet potato from a friend's garden; celery, tomatoes (ripened indoors), green beans (my entire crop :) ) from my garden as well as lots of onions, garlic (5 cloves!) and fresh and dried herbs from my garden; carrots from the CSA. So almost everything local, organic.

Are you still eating from your garden?

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applestar
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I just came in from picking a double and full of snow peas (Garden Beauty) and some shelling peas. Since prediction s 27°F tonight, I also picked some pea shoots with new blossoms growing in exposed areas.

Some celery, radish, and scallion greens as well as three little Coyote mini cherry tomatoes that had ripened on the vines -- I planted it in the corner between house and garage so it's protected and still alive. :D

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digitS'
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Does the kale that was picked a week ago count?

How about the fish chowder with the stored potatoes, celery root & sweet onions that I'm supposed to make for lunch? Okay, the fish isn't from the garden :wink: .

"Counter-top" tomatoes are gone, snow peas are gone. The jack o'lanterns will go to the chicken coop (after steaming) but I've gotta come up with some ways to use these other pumpkins and it had better be quick!

Steve

imafan26
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I had some sweet terrazza cherry tomatoes and manoa lettuce for lunch yesterday. I have a cucumber, grand rapids and manoa lettuce and more cherry tomatoes for today.

I used cutting celery and bay leaves from my garden in my bolognese sauce that I have for dinner with whole wheat pasta and a sprinkling of fresh basil from the garden.

I have had papaya from my tree and I still have Satsuma mandarins for snacks and Meyer lemons for lemonade and lemon meringue pie, and Calamondin limes to squirt on pancit (Filipino fried noodles) and to flavor water.

I still have eggplant coming every ten days or so, and green onions, hot peppers, hon tsai tai, and kale whenever I need it. There are hot peppers (mostly tobasco and super chili) falling off the bushes. The roselle has finally decided it will bloom for me so maybe I will have some calyxes and seeds for Jamaica and planting next year.

I am breaking off pieces of the ginger as I need it, but will harvest the lot when the tops completely die down. And I have a few asparagus shoots I can get if I get to them in time.

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tomf
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Just what is canned or frozen, oh jam as well.

billw
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We're just reaching peak harvest, so lots of stuff. Tons of greens & brassicas. We're trying to wrap up potato harvest this week. Probably still at least a month out from harvesting most of the other Andean crops. Herbs are dying, so trying to get the rest of them in and preserved. Still have a lot of snap peas to pick and they're still flowering, so we might still get several more weeks out of them. We had a windstorm this weekend that laid waste to anything tall, like sunchokes, Yacon, broad beans, but the broad beans are mostly a cover crop and the sunchokes and yacon can stay where they are.

The garden won't really be at rest until January and we'll be starting seeds again in late February. Even in January, we'll have a lot of hardy stuff wintering over and the weeds will continue to grow, and we have seeds drying on almost every available surface, so there is no end to labor. ;)

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rainbowgardener
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My small garden most everything has been harvested. I could probably still cut some herbs if I wanted, but they are coming out my ears. I do have a patch of sunchokes in a flower bed. I have read that if you leave them in the ground until the tops die back, they will be less gas producing, so I'm going to try that. Although since they are still looking so healthy, the ground may have frozen by the time they die back, or I will be digging them out from under snow.

Too bad about the weeds! :? I guess there are some benefits to living in a cold winter climate - weeds, bugs, plant diseases get killed off pretty well.

billw
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The grass is always greener somewhere else. I see a lot of people wishing for a longer season, but sometimes I look out at the weeds closing in around me and think frozen soil might be nice on occasion. ;)

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digitS'
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You definitely live on the Wetside of Washington State, Billw!

I looked at your website and came across those temperature grafts right away. Very interesting comparing high altitudes in the tropics with your climate!

The other day I was comparing east & west coasts of the US. It was something like Berkeley south it never freezes but the line of latitude is about the same as Dover, DE where they only have 200 days frost free. Then, something like average daily temperatures well above 70° in Dover but you'd have to go all the way down to Los Angeles to get even an average daily temperature that warm!

Something like that. Yeah, that Pacific Ocean can sure have an influence.

Steve

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jal_ut
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Potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, squash. Preserves from the berries and fruit trees. Canned green beans, tomato juice and beets. Frozen corn.

Oh, it has all been harvested, not a thing left in the garden, yet we will be eating from the garden all winter.

imafan26
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Today I picked chayote, Satsuma mandarin and Tatsoi. I made sukiyaki with the tatsoi. I still have cucumbers and papayas to pick. I gathered some of the bilimbi and gave it to a friend, she uses it to bathe with. And another friend asked me for some Meyer lemons. I have a few left. I have calamondin, but most of it is falling down as well as tabasco chilies, and Anaheims. There are also a few heads of Grand Rapids lettuce left, and eggplant.

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applestar
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I planted garlic late (again :oops: ) and in the process, dug up some radish that I'd forgotten about.

I had some left over sweet pickling vinegar so I made a little jar of radish and carrot pickles.

They are predicting 28°F tonight and 25°F over Tues night. I think this is pretty much it, and I should dig up and harvest the great-looking Egyptian green onions that I don't intend to keep for producing top sets. Definitely the ones in the patio window box on old picnic bench that will surely freeze solid. I think I have some parsley in there too and a daikon radish which maybe pushing at the bottom by now. (Have to decide what to do with two or three daikon in the ground.... :? I might put hoops over them and cover them and see if they can make it through a while longer -- true deep freeze shouldn't arrive until end of ths month.)

I'll check and see if there are any peas left to harvest, and maybe bring in some arugula, though I think they'll be OK at least until Tuesday. So maybe some kale and ettuce to go with it and I can have a nice salad.

I had some miso myoga last night. :D

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digitS'
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Applestar, you are probably a good person to ask about what I can do with the pumpkins that are in my garage. They are nothing too special, just jack o'lantern type, and kind of big! There are probably lots of HG folks that are better cooks than I am so I'd welcome any ideas.

I made a pie last year and it was just okay. After slow baking the pumpkin, I made 2 pies this year. They are maybe a little better than okay but I could have made 9 pies out of that 1 pumpkin! The cooked pulp went to the freezer for that purpose, later.

Soup may be out . . . I really like cream of pumpkin soup . . . made with winter squash! Yeah. I tried another soup recipe and substituted the pumpkin for the zucchini that was supposed to be in it. I don't much like zucchini anyway. DW didn't like the soup . . . even tho' I thought it was pretty good :roll: .

I'm thinking of substituting it for the zucchini in our family's zucchini bread recipe. That might work okay but there's lots of pumpkins for that! Should I go back to the soup idea -- it was certainly a swing & a miss the first try?

Steve
who can post the soup recipe if anyone wants to try it on his/her family :wink:

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rainbowgardener
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So I went out yesterday and picked a whole bunch of swiss chard, dug up onions, and picked lemon balm, about a bushel, total of everything. I think it is the very last harvest.

Dinner was the bean cheesy swiss chard from Recipes for a Small Planet - our favorite way to eat chard.

But I also made up a big pot of veggie chili to freeze, with ripened indoors tomatoes, the last peppers and carrots from the CSA, the onions I just dug, the last of my home grown garlic, and my herbs, dried and fresh.

I didn't manage to use everything up, so there's still some chard, onions, a few more tomatoes, and three small bell peppers. When that's gone, there will be nothing much fresh from my garden until spring :( .

I do have at least 20 meals worth of stuff in my freezer - pesto, chili, soup, lasagna, etc. - and some jars of tomato sauce and salsa, herbs, and jellies. Definitely not enough to get us through the winter.

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applestar
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I had the lights on in there anyway, so I brought some of my garden inside the garage... :roll: :wink:
Fall/winter greens in the garage
Fall/winter greens in the garage
. I also have a pot of overcrowded celery elsewhere in the garage which I plan to use as cutting celery.

Here are my three mints and pineapple sage for fresh sprigs. I had the Applemint inside last winter and liked that. I always also have lemon verbena and lemongrass inside during the winter.
Pineapple sage, Spearmint, Peppermint, and Applemint
Pineapple sage, Spearmint, Peppermint, and Applemint
The garage temps are getting low enough that I will be bringing the last tomato plant inside -- I accidentally broke the main trunk just above the rootball on this one but it wasn't completely severed, so I straightened it and buried it deep in a new pot to recover.

The peppers and rosemary in here will stay and be left to go dormant.

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applestar
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DigitS I'm not sure about the pumpkins. When they are not very well flavored, I use them shredded -- typically also with ripe/overripe banana added -- for baked goods like breads, muffins, and pancakes.

I harvested more pea shoots -- tender shoots with blossoms and tiny pea pods as well as older tough stems with really healthy leaves (which I don't usually see in the spring-grown peas because by the time they are this mature and vigorous, it's getting too hot and I hesitate to take their foliage and/or because I want them to concentrate to maturing the peas) which I stripped off to use. They were REALLY satisfying as dark greens sautéed in EVOO with parsley, celery, daikon leaves and whole Egyptian onions (greens and white base), then drizzled with ham drippings. (I think I would have added mushrooms if I had any.) ...even DH liked it. I had my second helping mixed into cooked brown rice.

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digitS'
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There's an idea, add a flavorful, ripe fruit. Thanks, Applestar!

Isn't it kind of funny about the pea tendrils?

They taste just like peas! All you have to do is avoid the stringiness (is that a word?). The tender part of the pea vine, pod ~ flower ~ leaf, is very nice. Not only will I eat them late, when there's little chance of their continued growth, I will harvest a few handfuls very early in the spring. I don't think it does much damage to the vines.

Steve

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applestar
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My little garage garden of container greens is growing well with beautiful, firm and glossy leaves, but they are still small. I was able to harvest leaves from lettuce, arugula and ruby Swiss chard but only enough for a single small side salad serving -- but I wanted a full sized lunch salad.

So I went outside with a pair of scissors to see what I could find -- enough still good looking new leaves from lettuce out in the open and full size healthy leaves from arugula and ruby Swiss chard under a floating cover tunnel, and a nice sized icicle radish. :D

Combined with the garage garden greens, they made a large dinner plate mounded salad. Added slices of still crispy myoga (Japanese ginger flower bud) that had been wrapped in a paper towel and stored in a zip lock, match stick sliced daikon that was harvested before the last freeze, and some diced leftover baked ham. Salty aged plum vinegar, dried summer harvested herbs -- oregano and rosemary, plus store bought EVOO and apple cider vinegar with a dribble of dark roasted sesame oil, Himalayan sea salt, freshly ground mixed peppercorns... I added brown rice cooked with popcorn and a handful of pecans for a full one dish meal. Yum!

Also we had baked (store bought) potatoes for afternoon snack. I'm avoiding sour cream so I went out again and got myself a handful of freshly clipped onion greens.

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rainbowgardener
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I am still eating swiss chard and green onions and herbs from my garden, plus the last few picked green and ripened indoors tomatoes. Swiss chard is a bit toughened up after all the freezes, but cooks well.

Otherwise it is all frozen/ canned/ dried and I save that stuff for further in to winter, when I really miss the garden stuff more.

imafan26
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Today I harvested some of my beets, tatsoi, Satsuma mandarin, chayote, and calamondin.

I think I will make harvard beets. It is my best beet recipe. Mandarin juice. And I am thinking of a stir fry with tofu or noodles, tatsoi, shitake, and maybe some hon tsai tai and I do have my first broccoli head so I might throw that in too. I have no idea what this is going to taste like, but it will really be chop suey.

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digitS'
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Oh, it's gonna be great, Imafan! Easy on the shiitake.

We had Southern Curled & Twisted-stem Mustard yesterday. That must all be at an end; it is supposed to be 15°f by morning.

Harvested half the bok choy transplants out of the unheated greenhouse. Covered the tiny plants in there.

Steve



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