Over The Fence

My two pumpkins were beautiful. They were bright orange, plump, and healthy. Until one day when I went to my community garden plot to find that they had disappeared! I called my friend and co-gardener to see if she had harvested them (a little too early, but I would have understood her eagerness), and she hadn’t touched them. I just stood there, dumbfounded, trying to figure out what kind of person steals pumpkins from a community garden? I have faith that it wasn’t one of my co-gardeners, they all have plenty of produce and are perfectly nice people. The problem is that my plot is the closest to the garden entrance, and there’s a walking/running path that goes right along that side. So alas, it must have been one of the runners. This is how I see it going down:

Healthy person running by the garden, “Ooh, what pretty pumpkins” looks around “well, there isn’t anyone here” tip toes into the garden “no one will notice if I just take a couple of pumpkins” snatches them up “it’s not like someone planted them four months ago and have been slaving away to water them and keep them healthy” leaves with her newfound pumpkins…

So even though I won’t have pumpkins seeds, or be able to carve my very own jack-o-lantern, I hope that woman at least gets some joy out of my precious little pumpkins. Or chokes on the seeds. Either works for me.

I will at least have sunflower seeds to harvest…

Kathy’s post inspires me to share this kid-sized structure for vines. A few years back we built the “playhouse” using elm and ash saplings. Fair warning: It’s a fun morning project with helpers, but pretty frustrating trying to do it yourself.

By September of the first year, the entire structure was covered with cardinal vines and ‘Heavenly Blue’ morning glories. Every year since then, the playhouse has been covered with annual vines, including squash and gourds for the past couple years. Whatever we plant, the entire structure is an eye-stopper without fail.

Like Kathy, we set the uprights directly into the soil and expect we’ll have to replace the entire structure in another couple years. We were hoping for 10 years, but the constant irrigation has lowered our expectations somewhat.

One of my garden goals was realized this year. Due to the varieties grown and our above-average rain and warmth this year, we have achieved “Squash-henge,” the name our family has given to the pergola completely covered with squash and gourd vines. Surprisingly, most of the upright-growing squashes don’t have any powdery mildew even though we had over 12 inches of rain in July. The exception is the ‘Kumi Kumi’ squash we are testing this year—a bit of it is visible on the upper left foreground of the photo below. 

 
I also am posting a picture of one night’s harvest a couple of weeks ago, below. Included in the picture are some of this year’s test varieties: green ‘Cajun Belle’ peppers, ‘Pinot Noir’ peppers, and ‘Midnight Lightning’ zucchini. We love to make “no-fry stir-fry” for supper. Make some couscous, cut up all the veggies like you would to stir-fry them, add the swelled couscous, and dress the mixture with a blend of olive oil, toasted sesame oil, garlic, ginger, soy, and lemon juice or whatever seasonings you like in your stir-fry. Let it sit and marinate for a half hour then eat. Yum! And no standing over a hot stove in the summer.

 
The ‘Cajun Belle’ peppers are a winner here. Good size for use at the green or lightly colored stage in a single serving salad, and when they get red and hot, they are a great addition to our salsas and other recipes where heat is welcome. They are not as hot as a jalapeño and the burn goes away quite quickly. They are prolific enough that we may try drying some red ones and making some chili powder out of them. The ‘Pinot Noir’ bells were very quick to take off, however they slowed way down after their first flush of fruit. I will probably grow these again since they were earlier than the other varieties I grow.
  
The ‘Midnight Lightning’ zucchini is another winner. This plant started producing earlier than any of our others and is still pumping out several zukes a week. The plant itself has stayed pretty compact for a summer squash too.

All Fridays should have a tasting party. The Organic Gardening team and other Rodale employees gathered to taste and rate the tomatoes we’ve grown in the test garden. Even a couple of confessed tomato-haters gave the fruit another try. Next time I’m hooking up the web cam to capture some priceless facial expressions.

Doug prepares the tomatoes so the taste test will be blind. It is rumored that one of the tomatoes is grocery store organic, just to see if people can taste the difference. Shh!

We gather in front of the wall, where we post the current issue.

The comments started to sound like a wine tasting. “This has a nice finish…” “Mmm, playful but never precocious…” and of course from the tomato-hater, “I need to come up with a new word for YUCK.”

Update–it turns out everyone spotted the grocery store organic tomato. It got a VERY low rating.

We got our CSA share, and our fridge is pretty full this week. I didn’t want this sweet corn to go to waste. Won’t it be a nice addition to some festive winter stew?

remove corn silk with a soft vegetable brush

drop corn into boiling water

boil for 4 to 6 minutes

plunge corn into ice bath, I put one tray of ice per ear of corn into the bowl...then goofed around with the light and propping of the corn, so the ice is pretty melted here

remove corn from the cob

label and date

freeze