Vegetable Garden - November

Vegetable gardening is done for 2015.  The beds have been planted with a cover crop of barley and field peas.  Surprisingly the bunny has not been in there to eat nor have the voles.

The bed on the right above is seen below in close up.  It's planted with garlic all of which are coming up nicely.  I did see a vole hole in there but nothing seemed to be eaten.

The only plant left to harvest is parsley and with a harder frost this may also be done for the year.  We did have frost this morning but from my window it still looks to be green out there.

Joining Harvest Monday with Dave.

Last Harvest of 2015

This is it - the last harvest of the 2015 vegetable garden.

3 tiny zucchini

a handful of Jimmy Nardello peppers

1 green pepper

and a handful of mild jalapeño peppers

The garlic was one I took out to break part to plant.  I didn't need it after all.  I planted 29 cloves of garlic and I think that will be enough.

I didn't purchase garlic from Fedco this fall because I had such a large harvest and you can see how big they are.

This is the typical clove size too.

I pulled out all the peppers and zucchini and with the exception of the bed of garlic planted this mix I got from Hudson Valley Seed Library.

I'll have to see if it lives up to the hype on the bag.

Joining Harvest Monday now hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.

Pick a Peck

How does that tongue twister go?

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers

How many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?

Well, mine weren't pickled but there sure were a lot.

Tonight we had 4 stuffed with Monterey Jack cheese with jalapeño and one sliced in our salad.  Many more to be eaten.

Joining Harvest Monday

Unpacking the Harvest

This is the basket of produce from my vegetable garden this morning.

Here's a closer look at what's in there.

Two heads of lettuce.  There's lots more to come there.

Zucchini and yellow squash, though 3 of these were harvested yesterday.

A very long cucumber which was a surprise since the plants are dying and I don't know why.

And a Jimmy Nardello pepper.

Almost the last tomatoes.  There will probably some Juliette yet but the others are basically dead.

Three butternut squash.  In cutting the largest one off the vine I cut the entire vine not realizing that at the other end were very small squash starting to develop.  Oh, well.  These are headed to cure in the sun.  I don't know why I do that other than my mother did it with her plentiful harvests of butternuts each fall.  Maybe a fellow gardener can enlighten me on this tradition.

Joining Daphne's Harvest Monday

Tomatoes

Back from vacation.  Lots of tomatoes to pick - two big baskets full.

There is a mix of roma, Juliette, Cherokee purple, Goldie, Tasti Lee and some other varieties.

Most of these went into three big bags, sealed and frozen for winter use to make sauce.

There are more to be picked in the days ahead plus the tomato plants which are rapidly dying need to be pulled.

Linked to Harvest Monday hosted by Daphne.

Garlic Harvest

Here is what is left from last year's garlic harvest.  Most of these cloves have started to sprout and now that I have new garlic to use, they have gone into the compost bucket.

The garlic was harvested several weeks ago and left to cure in the garage.

First task to prepare these for use was to cut off the stems.

Then to trim off the roots.

Rub well to loosen the first layer of paper covering.

These are nice sized garlic heads.

Cloves are huge.

And I have a lot.

Pile of roots and paper.

Finished basketful.

This one I peeled a bit more to show the cloves.

Into the pantry.

Now the decision I have to make is whether to order more from Fedco for fall planting or rely on my stores of heads?  If I use my own heads will I have enough to last till next summer?

Decisions!

Garden Bounty

Beans, zucchini, 3 kinds of peppers, and a variety of tomatoes.

Morning Work in the Vegetable Garden

Hot and humid here so the only good time to work outside is in the early morning.  Did that on this Saturday morning.  I think I was out there by 7 am and worked till 9 am.

All the lettuce and spinach had bolted and needed removing.  The weeds had grown along the outsides of the raised beds.  Thankfully the black plastic mulch is keeping the weeds out of the pathways.  Here's how it looks weeded.

These peppers are doing well.  There is a tiny row of Little Gem lettuce there between the tomatoes and the peppers.

First tomato blossoms are on the Juliette.

These peppers are not doing quite as well,

A bed full of tomato plants.

Some blueberries are ripening.

This bed got another row of beans after I cut down the snow peas. 

Garlic going gangbusters.  I have a full bag of scapes to use up.

Cucumbers will be climbing soon.

Butternut squash in a bed where the blueberry bush didn't survive.

It was a good morning of work.  But the humidity is too high to work any more out there today.

Harvest Monday & What The Vegetable Garden Looks Like

Stop over with Daphne to see what other gardeners are harvesting.

I've been getting some lovely salad greens all last week and on Mother's Day Sarah used some of the tatsoi in a oriental soup.

Love these scissors from Pampered Chef for cutting up lettuce.

Use these snips on herbs - 4 blades cut them fine.

Greens in salad spinner - also a handy kitchen gadget.

Sunday's harvest.

Here's the vegetable garden this morning.  Last week I finished putting down the plastic mulch.

My spinach is the biggest I have had in a long time.  It's Regiment Spinach.

This bed has tatsoi, two kinds of lettuce and two kinds of bok choy.

These lettuces I grew inside and transplanted so much larger than seeded.

Garlic doing well, though bed needs weeding.

Another bed with garlic and varieties of lettuce.

So far the voles have not found this second sowing of snow peas.  Bok choy there too.  I will pick some of them tonight along with spinach for beef sukiyaki.