wenjomatic's Journal

By me!!

Warm weather is coming to an end and our first Freeze Warning has just been issued for tonight. I went out this morning and picked the last of the things that might be bothered by the cold. There are still tons of green tomatoes on the vines, but we are about tomatoed-out at this point. I’ll either fry up these green ones or see if they will turn, on the counter top, on their own.

Included in my picking: green tomatoes, I’ll either fry them up southern-style or see if they will ripen of their own accord, royalty purple beans, sugar snap peas these were ripe, their smaller buddies will be fine until hard freeze and ripe tomatoes. Also not pictured, 2 watermelons.

The alert just came across my computer when I booted up this morning.

Game face on!

Heads out to the garden.

Yummo! A nice picking of turnip greens this morning. Probably 2 tight handfuls.

I’ll put them in the frig to wait for more to add to them in a couple days then I’ll stew them up and put on a big pone of cornbread. Oh they are so tender and delicious. Perhaps just a few for a salad today for lunch.

Are you kidding me?!?! I planted okra in the spring, but between the monster squash and tomato jungle, the okra just couldn’t do its thing. So I pulled it up long ago and replanted it with greens for fall.

Well. Apparently there was one very determined okra plant hiding out under the tomato jungle. I dropped a tomato that I’d picked and when I went low into the jungle to get it… there, smiling up at me were these two lovely okra pods. Color me THRILLED!

I KNEW I could grow okra in Pennsylvania. I’m super stoked about it and have begun brainstorming where to put the plants next year for max sunlight.

WOOHOO!

It was a perfectly dreary weekend here, 3 major low systems collided. A nor’easter out on the Jersey coast, the non-named sub-tropical system that no one wanted to admit could have been named, and rain bands from the storm previously known as Kyle all converged over my house this weekend. Actually, it started on Thursday night for a fantastic 3+day raining event.

We enjoyed shopping in the rain, soccer in the rain and harvesting in the rain. The first handful of the Super Sugar Snap peas were ready yesterday morning so I plucked them off the very tall vines. I see more on the way, so I can’t wait to see what the rain will do to plump them up quickly.

OK… I admit it… there were more than in the picture… but only these 7 made it in the backdoor. A girl has to have some breakfast! I’m feeling sesame chicken stir-fry for dinner tonight, with these guys tossed in of course. Yum.

The sky is gloomy, but the fall garden is cheerful. Today’s harvest:

red bell pepper
royalty purple bush beans (first harvest)
radishes
broccoli

I can’t wait for dinner!!

The broccoli was a spring planting and is still yeilding. The trick really is to keep cutting it. These florets will go into tonight’s dinner of steamed veggies.

Super happy with this variety from Park Seed. Marking them available for swap, I have plenty to share.

What a joy these beans have been to watch grow. Gorgeous in their own right as a plant, with an edible to boot! I just came in from picking my first handful of beans. All 6 that I originally planted are producing quite well.

We’ll have a couple weeks of beans to add into meals. This handful will go into tonight’s dinner of steamed veggies with chicken and pasta. I shall surely be saving some for seed.

With salsa canned and plenty of sauce in the freezer I decided to try drying tomatoes in the dehydrator. My friend just did a huge batch of her italian tomatoes after filling every single jar she owned with sauce and STILL having tomatoes coming out her ears. She has had great success with it in the past… having lots of dried tomatoes to go into winter cooking.

By the time these are dried, I’ll have enough for another round. I can’t wait to see the result, my mouth is already watering. I’ll be sure to update when done.

Edited to add…

It was such a simple and easy process.. only taking about 20 minutes to wash and slice all of the tomatoes, the just plug in the dehydrator! Large ones cut in quarter inch slices, cherry tomatoes cut in halves. It took about 10 hours to dry the tomatoes and now I have a stuffed quart of dried tomatoes to add to salads, stews and breads this winter. Yum!