Autumnal Garden Bounty

We had a frost advisory last night, so Alden helped me pick some of the remaining frost sensitive vegetables in our garden. Here's what we hauled home yesterday. We've tried a few new crops this year which are pictured here - sweet potatoes (woot!), mellons (meh) and Korean sesame leaf, or ggaennip (fun!). I'm most proud of my sweet potatoes, pictured in the upper right, which are not easy to grow in Maine, but thrived in our newest plot. The mellons got a slow start - the worst of our cucurbits - and flowered late in the season. The fruits may not be ripe yet, but I didn't want to risk the frost damage, so I picked them anyway. The sesame leaf has been fun to experiment with. We received these seeds as a gift from our friends in NY who are Korean and American. They love this stuff and grow it in pots on their rooftop garden, so they thought we should give it a try. I had no idea what to expect, but they did well. The plants grew about 33" tall and produced beautiful, serrated cordate leaves with a really assertive and unique flavor. I'm at a bit of a loss to describe it. It's almost a minty, oniony cilantro, but it holds its flavor when cooked, so it's amazing in enchiladas and soups. Sesame leaf also makes a great wrapper for ceviche, sushi, and dolmas, and infuses a brilliant flavor to meats when stuffed in fish and grilled. I've really grown to love it and we're all having fun coming up with new ways to use it.
And of course, the tomatoes. We had reasonably good luck with the tomatoes, but they got septoria relatively early in the season and I didn't keep on top of it, so our plants were reduced to shriveled brown snarls much sooner than they should have been. We grew Orange Banana Paste tomato this year, which makes the sweetest tomato sauce I've ever had. Luscious is the only way I can describe it. We'll definitely grow this one again. The tomatoes pictured above were collected over a week or so and made about 8 cups of tomato sauce, which we froze and squirreled away. We also grew a variety of heirlooms and sun gold cherries, which are so sweet and tempting I don't think they have ever made it out of the garden.

Our CSA

I do not think we had mentioned that since June we are growing food for others in our garden. We have two people who have 'shares' in our produce. Usually Ilana deals with this, but since she is away in Santa Fe, I harvested the edibles.
This week Raspberries came on-line as did blueberries and round zucchini. We still have a lot of lettuce, spinach and kale growing. Peas are producing well and fava beans are at their peak. So this is what the bounty was.
I had some great help. Joseph and Sandy are visiting and Karen was able to watch Alden while we picked, cleaned, and packaged.
The day was hot (90d) so we filled Alden's pool and played with him in the afternoon. The bottom was very slippery so he preferred to be dragged along, back and forth, as opposed to sitting. Karen and Sandy helped him with this, as did I later on.

Maple Sunday 2011

Joseph came for his third Maine Maple Sunday visit, this makes three years in a row so we believe it is officially a tradition. For those not in the know Maine Maple Sunday is the last Sunday in March where local farms in Maine open their doors to show people how they make syrup and sell pancakes. On the surface this sounds great, but in reality it is usually crazy-cold and there are big lines for pancakes. Note the line in the background.

So the way it works is one person stands in line for half an hour while Alden and the other adults go look at the animals in the warm barn. The barn had piglets this time which was very cool, as well as bunnies, chickens, cows, and turkeys

I think three years ago was near the end of the free-pancake era. Most places charge for breakfast these days. I can see the business logic to that, even though folks who attend MMS buy loads of syrup and syrup-related products. The place we chose this time charged $11 for a pancake breakfast which seems a bit much. Although you do feel like a rich how-de-do eating your pancakes looking out the window at the freezing bastards waiting in line to get in.

Of course, Alden loves the food (syrup) once he is inside, and really liked looking at the animals for 20 out of the 30 minute wait.

We may just go out to see the animals and buy syrup next year and then invite our friends over to our house for pancakes... we will see how we feel 365 days from now.

Thanksgiving

We had a quiet celebration at our house this year. My Dad and Kerstin's Mom joined us for some tuna steaks, stuffed artichokes, cranberry relish and a bunch of dishes featuring our garden vegetables (squash, potatoes and kale that was still growing up until Thanksgiving day).
We made a sweet meat squash polenta which came out really well.After the initial toast, Alden wanted nothing to do with the Thanksgiving meal. He refused to try any of the dishes and we had to heat up a precooked chicken sausage for him. He spent most of Thanksgiving tearing apart our couch cushions.My Dad spent the weekend up here and helped Kerstin insulate the unfinished part of the house, including the soon-to-be guest bedroom. We had our first snow the day after Thanksgiving and Alden and I made snow footprints in the backyard. I'll let Kerstin tell you all about the insulation in another post.

Bounty Shots

2010 was a banner year for our garden. We managed to produce vegetables we've never been able to before. Eggplants, red peppers, romanesco, basil -- all the warmer-climate produce that up in Maine usually only manages to eke out a tiny, unripe fruit or two before the first frost, was fabulous this year. And so, here are some gratuitous produce shots.
Alden, his face still messy with breakfast, shows off the zucchini he grew. (He helped me plant all the cucurbits and beans this year).
Our romanesco! We managed to harvest 9 or 10 heads in total and they were absolutely amazing roasted with olive oil and sprinkling of kosher salt.
Benning's Green Tint patty pan squash and swallow eggplant.
Here's a shot of all the veggies I harvested in one sweep of the garden right before for dinner.
Clockwise from lower left: Valencia tomatoes, Zeppelin Delicata squash, Red Kuri squash, Arcadia broccoli (still productive in mid-summer!), Japanese Black Trifele and Brandywine tomatoes, New Ace red peppers, Revolution pepper (large green one), Bulgarian Carrot pepper (green, in little bowl - very hot!), Jimmy Nardello's Sweet Frying peppers (awesomely sweet!), Swallow eggplant, basil.
A fall harvest of salad greens and chard. This is the biggest bowl we own and it still couldn't contain all of the greens I pulled out of one bed.
The potatoes did OK this year. We got about 60 pounds total -- not bad, but definitely not as productive as in years past. They probably won't last the winter. However, the mean size of the potatoes was much larger than in years past. This is the first year that we grew Kennebec, a true Maine spud, so I don't know if the varietal is especially well suited for our climate and soil or if it just produces larger potatoes. I don't have any shots of the starchy leviathans by themselves, but I'll try to get a few posted soon.

July Garden

Our summer garden, facing west.Summer garden, view facing northeast.

The weather this year has been nearly ideal for gardening. We've had a nice mix of sun and rain and an early summer which set us up nearly 2 weeks ahead of schedule. We also installed a drip irrigation system and it really made a difference during the oppressive heat of the last few weeks. There are a few lessons we've learned this year which will hopefully help us with next year's garden:
1. Use floating row covers on all transplants. Gives 'em a fighting chance against the hungry hordes.
2. Seed squash directly. I tried starting them in biodegradable pots made of composted manure thinking that it would allow me to transplant them without disrupting the root system. All my curcurbids went into shock and slowly atrophied for the first month out there in the wild, then got eaten by nearly everything.
3. Plant more peas and fava beans. We had lots this year, but only a handful was ever ripe at any given time.
4. Plant peas/beans and squash together. The legumes will act as a green fertilizer and by the time the squash vines really start to take off, the peas are already dying back.
5. Weed the raspberry patch. Even if you think your raspberries are the most wild and voracious variety, there are weeds out there that will out compete even them. Just our luck every single one of them in the state happen to have landed in our raspberry patch.
6. Birds eat Sluggo. I don't think it's toxic to the birds, since the active ingredient is a minute amount of iron phosphate, but they will trash your plants in the process. More on that below.
7. Pinch back the side shoots on young tomato plants to promote more fruit development and control the overall size of the plant. This was a tip from local organic farmer Michele Roy. It's too late this year, our tomatoes are already an enormous snarl, but we'll have to give it a try next year. So far, our tomatoes are blight free (knocking on wood). The new location and the red mulch are working well, I think.

This year I wanted to grow some more unusual varieties and sought out some highlighted by Slow Food's Ark of Taste. The slender peppers developing above are Jimmy Nardello's Sweet Italian Frying peppers. I'm really psyched to try them.
Another Ark of Taste varietal we're trying for the first time is the Fish pepper. The variegated foliage is like nothing I've ever seen in a pepper. It's an African-American heirloom from the 19th century. The searingly hot fruits of this plant are best described as the gobstopper of the pepper world. Apparently they start off a creamy white with green stripes, then develop an orange hue with brown stripes, and then eventually blush a deep red. I can't wait to see it person!
Revolution, not an Ark of Taste varietal, but I've included the picture here because the sight of sweet peppers growing makes me so excited.Thai hot peppers. We have 3 of these little cuties just bursting with blossoms at the moment.Our zucchinis took a beating this spring. First they were shocked when I transplanted them and refused to grow for about a month. Then they got a huge infestation of striped cucumber beetles and squash bugs. I squelched their uprising with some safer soap, but then the slugs moved in and nibbled them down to stalks. I scatted Sluggo around the squash mounds, but the carnage just got worse. The next morning I found the remaining leaves tattered, the stalks beaten down and the Sluggo completely gone. It took a few days to figure out what was happening. Our local crows really like Sluggo pellets and a whole gang of them were pecking holes through the leaves and mashing the stems in their haste to get all the Sluggo first. I witnessed this feeding frenzy first hand and had to chase them off with a broom like a crazy person. I ended up putting a little floating row cover over the battered remnants of my poor plants and miraculously they came back. Our first zucchini is on the way, 3 weeks late, but still coming along.A Benning's Green Tint Patty Pan squash ripening on the vine.Delicata squash, also a bit late to the growing season after the cucumber beetle/slug/crow fiasco, is now growing strong.Another new addition to our 2010 garden is Romanesco, pictured above. We used to find this amazing fractal vegetable in the farmers markets in Santa Monica and it tasted so much better than any other cauliflower we'd ever experienced. Since we've moved back to Maine, I haven't come across any in the local markets but I gather someone only recently developed a variety that might grow up here, given a little luck and a long growing season. We thought we'd give it a try and see what we could get. The inflorescences have just started to peek out from the center of some plants. They are only about 2 inches wide, but when full grown should be about 7-8 inches across. An heirloom pole bean flower. These guys produce slender red beans with a taste and texture that reminds me a lot of haricots verts. They are just starting to come on line and are lovely.Japanese Black Trifele, a Russian heirloom, and one of the best tasting tomatoes out there. There, I said it!Here's a new Ark of Taste tomato we're trying this year -- Valencia. Fruits are orange and sweet and sound delish. This varietal was developed in Maine!Our artichoke that survived the winter is setting bud. We've named this plant alcachofa in honor of Joaquin.Some lettuce varieties still manage to stay tender throughout the midsummer heat. I wish I knew what variety this one is, but I don't because it came from a greens mix. It's been the only leaf lettuce that hasn't bolted on us.
Edible organic French Marigolds at the start of each row help to deter some insect pests and make a lovely addition to our salads.

Fedco, brunch and crack-frog

On Saturday before Mother's day, we started the day at the Fedco sale. Fedco is a Maine seed and tree company that ships awesome seeds and plants to folks who like heirloom varieties and non-genetically modified plants. Once a year, for three days, they open their warehouse (big barn) to the public and sell directly to folks. They have loads of crazy fruit trees and vegetable plants that are pretty particular. We got two apple trees (Sweet 16, and Lindman Raspberry) two plums (American Plum and Ptitston #9), a bunch of strawberries, asparagus, tomatoes, an American ginger plant, a weigela and seeds for artichokes that grow in Maine.
After Fedco we went to our friend Joaquin's house for brunch. Joaquin has two cats which Alden loves. Lots of good company, loads of other kids. Good times.
The new character in our lives is a puppet we're calling crack-frog for now. We still need to find a proper name for him, but he is a puppet/bath toy Alden cannot get enough of. There is nothing Alden would rather do than play with this frog, and he gets really upset when we're ready to do something else. Usually the game involves feeding the frog things and then watching the frog spit them out.

Garden Bounty

We've begun to harvest our garden vegetables, at least those that the slugs, groundhogs and fungi left behind. Our potatoes succumbed to blight last week and although the stalks had shriveled to a brown snarl, the potatoes came through relatively unscathed. I say relatively because there were a few that got infected with this creamy white goo so raunchy that the thought of it now sends chills up my spine. There is nothing more foul than a rotten potato. Nothing. Our potatoes were harvested during a heat wave and since our root cellar (aka basement) isn't able to remain cooler than the rest of the house when the temperature climbs above 85, we lost more still to basement mold. Still, I think we managed to salvage about 40-50 lbs of potatoes. Not bad for a what has turned out to be a very blightly year for spuds.The tomatoes were also hit with blight. When it first appeared, I looked online to see what we had and discovered that there are about 4 or 5 kinds of tomato blight, all of which seem to be present on our tomato plants to one degree or another. This is really distressing because you watch your beautiful green globes blacken with spores before they even have a chance to ripen. Some varieties (Purple Cherokee, for instance) are more susceptible than others (Sun Gold). I tried to harvest all the healthy tomatoes I could find, even if they weren't quite ripe. There was also a little discussion about the trade-off between leaving them on the vine at the mercy of the blight or picking them green and taking our chances with the hoards of fruit flies in the kitchen. In the end, we opted for the kitchen. I hope the fruit flies take pity on our poor tomatoes.

Most of the ripe tomatoes (above) went into a Gazpacho tonight, which I served on a bed of our very own mesclun greens. (Did you know that the proper spelling is "mesclun"? I made this realization only a few months ago. I've been saying mesculin for years and feel like a complete arse.)

The carrots are looking good, despite a few groundhog attacks.

And of course, the string beans overfloweth. I tried a variety pack this year which included yellow, green and purple beans. The purple variety turns green when cooked, but looks and tastes great raw in salads. Alden loves feeding them to us, but has no interest in eating them at all. Besides feeding beans to adults, he is quite fond of mashing beans into the fibers of the living room carpet and tossing them into the trunk of his tractor.
So far the only vegetable we've been able to get Alden to eat straight from the garden are cherry tomatoes. The rest are utter poison unless they are cooked and pureed or otherwise rendered completely unrecognizable.I received artichoke seedlings from Joaquin (post doc in the lab) who smuggled them into the country from Grenada. Joaquin's dad is an agricultural engineer and insists they'll survive Maine winters, but also claimed that they wouldn't flower until their second year. I've never heard of any one here growing artichokes, but we thought we'd give it a try. So far, we have 6 little flower buds on our little plants, so his dad was wrong on that account. It will be interesting to see if the plants return in the spring. I hope so, I'd love to be able to eat fresh artichokes next year.