Harvest Monday 17 October 2016

I was wondering what kind of foliage season we would have given the extended drought, but it looks like it is going to be a knock-out. This sugar maple in the woods behind West Burial Grounds in Bolton is a traffic-stopper when the afternoon sun lights it up. The photo does not do it justice. We are planning a trip Tuesday out to western Massachusetts to enjoy the foliage for ourselves, after being inconvenienced all weekend with the peepers out of Boston plugging up town roads. Hope they dropped a lot of $$ at the local orchards and farms.



There is not much left in the garden except for the root vegetables. I pulled the last few beets and dug up a leek for Sunday dinner. I sliced the leek and some Jimmy Nardello peppers and mushrooms and sauteed them, then poached some flounder filets from our CSF on top of the vegetables.



I harvested the first of the fall radish crop, with plenty more left in the ground. Since they grew in cooler weather, they were sweet can crispy with no heat. I would have liked to plant a few more things, but in August the garden was bone dry with temperatures around 100F/38C. The radishes germinate and grow quickly so I waited until temps cooled off and we got a little rain.


We did not get frost at the house but at the garden, 2 miles away and downhill, we definitely had some kind of event. The tomatoes are all dead as are most of the peppers. The survivors are the ancho poblanos, which are still loaded with peppers, and the Hungarian paprika, but none of them are really happy. As happens every year, one killing freeze and now the weather is going to be balmy for weeks with a high on Tuesday of 80F/27C.


This will be the last basket of tomatoes. A lot are green so we should be able to enjoy tomatoes in our salads for a few weeks.


The other thing I planted in August that actually germinated was peas. These are Green Beauty snow peas and the cold weather did not bother them. They are now flowering and maybe I will have a few peas to pick in a week.

That is what happened in my neighborhood last week. To see what other gardeners around the world are doing, visit Dave at Our Happy Acres, our host for Harvest Monday.

Harvest Monday 10 October 2016

The weather has cooperated and I continue to get a few peppers. The ancho plants are loaded with small fruit so we could use a few more weeks of temperate weather to give them a chance to size up. And it would be nice to get some ripe Lemon Drop peppers, please.



Still lots of cherry tomatoes. Boring but nice to have for salads and sauce. Elsewhere, the fall crop of radishes and peas are doing well. We have had a little rain, not enough to break the drought by any means but enough to be useful. I thought we might get some rain from Hurricane Matthew if it tracked up the coast, but then it did its crazy Ivan loop around. This week I have to start prepping the beds for the garlic and onions that will go in next week, so it would be nice if they were not bone dry to begin with.



While watching TV, I heard a humming sound and banging on the house. This is what I found in the front yard, a wild turkey tag team wrestling match on my so-called lawn. I am assuming these are a group of young male turkeys (they all had wattles) practicing their judo moves before challenging the Head Tom. The banging noise came from two of the larger turkeys taking their wrestling match up the front stairs until they were banging into the door.This was certainly an interesting change from the group of hens and chicks that silently pass through the yard almost daily.

That's all that happened in my garden last week. To see what other gardeners around the world are harvesting, visit Dave at Our Happy Acres, our host for Harvest Monday.