Autumn!

Of course!  That's it!  Time seems to be moving rather swiftly and once again it is two weeks since my last post.  But of course, mon cherie, there is less light everyday so there are fewer hours to be out in the garden.

Last week I planted my first few short rows of winter foodstuffs.  I put in a hardly lettuce from Seeds of Change, www.seedsofchange.com , Winter Density lettuce, Detroit red beets, Renee's Gardens, www.reneesgarden.com , yellow and orange Sunshine Mix carrots, and Tyee spinach.  There really isn't a lot of available space in the garden beds yet as summer veggies are still producing.

Saturday! and that means today is gardening day.  I need to move a few shrubs and perennials that aren't happy in their current spots.  It is hot here in summer and too wet in winter so autumn is a fine time for replanting. It is almost like winter is early spring here as the hills all turn a lush velvet green.

I have cut open the first Galeux d'eysines winter squash.  the thickest part of the flesh is almost three inches thick!

It is a wonderfully delicious squash and has a great texture, almost no strings and lots of plump seeds. It is a softer squash and cooks much faster than other winter squash.  I have roasted it, cut in cubes tossed with olive oil, red bell peppers, garlic, rosemary and Parmesan. This usually takes about 40 minutes to bake but the squash was really soft when I took it out of the oven.  Still delicious, just roasted past perfection.

My second cooking was a simple risotto. The ingredients were the rice, chicken stock, onions, the squash and a bit of fresh oregano. I put the squash in too early,  and when the risotto was done the pieces had "dissolved" but oh what a beautiful color and wonderful taste! YUM!

This second photo doesn't do justice to the overall size of the squash but I love the shadow...Halloween is coming!

Down from the mountains

A beautiful stay at the Lake.  Yesterday morning while we walked the dogs we spotted a bear cub, and then another. They froze. Then the mama bear appeared and the two cubs scooted over to her. Mama bear looked like she wanted to climb the tree they were by for a short while; she was hugging it and the cubs were peaking over our way.  She decided to skeedadle and off the lumbered.  Beautiful...a little scary but they were not super close...just beautiful.

Here's pics from this late morning just before we left.

 

September is almost gone!

That fast and September is almost gone.  Too many things on my plate and the days slip by and it is now autumn. Wow.

I harvested my Galeus d'Eysines a few days after my last post.  Look at these beauties!

The 4 plants had about 12 tiny pumpkinettes to begin with but inconsistent watering and not the richest of soils caused the pumpkinetes to drop. Still and all, it is said this is delicious squash.  I am actually glad we don't have 12 that many pounds is probably more than we will want to eat. Stay tuned for the taste test later in the autumn.

I have begun to harvest the Italian green beans.  I love them more than Kentucky Wonder type green beans.  Tonight I toasted almond slivers in brown butter and with tossed blanched beans, salt & pepper and chives.  Yum!

We are up at the cabin at Lake Tahoe. I brought the following from the garden: chives, garlic, rosemary, basil, Italian green beans, turnips, eggplants, peppers, tomatoes and figs. I also brought Comice pears and Jonagold apples a friend grew.

These pics are from the restaurant where we had lunch.  It is perfect weather this week.

This weekend I begin with soil amendments and some fall planting.  Looking forward to it while loving this down time at the lake.

Harvesting Yellow Perfections

I grew one yellow tomato plant, Yellow Perfection, this year. It grew really well and gave us lots of 2 to 2 1/2 inch fruit.  To bad it turns out I don't really like yellow tomatoes.  I miss the acid of the reds. I have given most of them away, which of course is a really great gift for friends. Well, that is unless like me, my friends are not fond of them but no one is saying!

So today I harvested the whole plant. I'm going to have to make something tomorrow with both the ripe and the unripe.  It was a prolific plant.

And what would a summertime post be without an update on the Galeaux d'eysines.  I keep wondering whether it tis time to remove them from the vine. I have five of these.  This is the one I have posted since the beginning. It is also the most salmon colored.

It's a beauty!

For Jerry and Ann E

For different reasons, this photo essay of my garden is for Ann E and Jerry.  One is a welcome home and one is a happy birthday!  For you, I love you!

Look close and you can see me seeing you in the reflection.

Prune plums almost ready to pick.

A volunteer zinnia and happy am I.

Bountiful tomatoes...

And for the autumn garden:

And my happy winter squash

Love you!

And it is Sunday again!

Love Sunday!  Is it because of a Monday through Friday routine since kindergarten? Is Saturday a day to go wild and Sunday a day to muse, be calm, and be part of my home?  Maybe so, although "go wild" has a much different meaning now than it did at 20!

So, first, the Galeux d'eysines this weekend.  The vines are winding down and starting their last days.  We are soon going to be tasting this beautiful squash. The photos are dark because I took this shot shortly after dawn.

An this is the tomato haul today, plum, slicing, cherry and salad types.  The plum type are San Marzano and are in the oven as I write.  I slice them in half, remove the seeds, place on a baking sheet and sprinkle on olive oil.  I roast them at 350 degrees till soft and tinged with roasted juice.  After they cool I process either chunky or to sauce and freeze in quart freezer bags for the winter.  That's it. The best tomato base anywhere!

One year I sprinkled chopped garlic and thyme before roasting but decided that though delicious I didn't want all my tomatoes to have this flavoring.  And having some herbed and some not is a bother. It is easier to just pull out a bag of sauce from the freezer and then season then it is to rummage around in the freezer for the herbed or plain.

And one last photo, the sun's rays taken from the train platform on Thursday morning!

Summertime! August

Late summer is the time of bounty.  And I am harvesting beautiful zucchini and delicious tomatoes. They have been my best performers so far.  But the Galeux d'eysines are coming!

     "C. maxima 105 days. An elegant French heirloom with an appropriately elegant sounding name. Magnifique! This stunning squash has beautiful salmon-peach colored skin covered with peanut shell-like warts caused by sugar in the skin. Traditionally used in France for soups and sauces, when cooked, the sweet, orange flesh is as smooth as velvet. Each flattened squash weighs 10-15 pounds and can store for up to 6 months. Definitely a show stopper in the garden or on the table."

But, and isn't there always a "but"?   My busy season at work is late June to early August so the garden can suffer.  The garden is my sanity and sanctuary during this time but hot days, cooler nights and watering don't always sync up. 

Take the Galeux d'eysines; I have five beautiful squash. I really have enough for my family of two but hoped for enough to give away.  The vines grew long and lush enough to support ten.  I had ten tiny ones once but the watering inconsistencies brought me down to the five.  Alas, I'm not going to be giving away a lot of gorgeous warty squash. 

Writing of warts, the first are coming on board.

The zucchini are very happy but I have two different varieties from the same packet.  They are similar, and they are similar to the plants of latter summers. But they are different.  The variablility of heirlooms? The crap shoot of open pollination?  Now, these are delicious. Some of the most delicious zucchini ever. This one is prolific.  This squash, although almost a foot long, is just perfect tender with almost no seeds yet.

And this is the sister plant.  Less prolific, smaller overall, fruit not as lengthy or dark, and the leaves themselves are more flat and smaller.

No matter. I will probably be growing these again next  year, they taste so wonderful.

How fast they grow

The winter squash are incredible!  I did have a mishap a week or so ago during the heat wave. I misjudged the evaporation rate and over watered.  The tiny new squash drowned and are falling off.  Thoae out of infancy are still growing at a rapid rate.

This the first photo and last Saturday's.  I noticed this morning that it's color is beginning to deepen.   

Winter squash one week later

I planted 4 winter squash and they now occupy about 14x5 feet or more!

In the middle, at the bottom behind the two lowest large leaves above is the squash I have been posting. It now a good bit bigger than a softball and only what, three weeks?

On a Not working so well note, I am worried about my Liberty apple and Seckle pear. They may have fire blight.  Both have symptoms as the books describe, sort of. Aargh!  However it is manifesting differently on each. The pear's leaves are turning. These photos are the pear:

 The apple's problem started in spring. A foot long year old, healthy looking shoot died back to the end of the prior year's growth.  No other damage occurred until this spur up and died:

Any ideas?  If it wasn't Sunday evening I'd head out to the local nursery for advice.

Sunday Sunday

Two years in a row I planted chives in the garden's raised beds.  They were sickly.  Black aphids attacked them.  Green aphids attacked them.  Well, last year's poor plants must have set seed because the biggest, strongest and happiest planting of chives ever....are in the path!!!

I took this photo in the afternoon so the color is a bit washed out.

I do believe the winter squash vines are growing a foot a day.  Here's a pic of the same squash as in last week's post.  It is still very small but may be twice the size.

And this beauty is a winter squash blossom with a hard working honey bee.

Before the sun hit the back garden I replanted all the bearded iris now that the palm tree has been removed.  It was a lovely old palm and it just up an died.  It did shade the raised beds a part of the day and now I have a beautiful space for the iris so I am okay with the trade off.

I planted a row of turnips, carrots, beets and parsnips today.  The first three are supposed to be 60 days to harvest.  I hope so.  The parsnips are 100 days.  It hope it isn't too hot for seedlings. We'll try to keep them moist and see what we shall see.

July 9, 2012, Isle of Man's Senior Race Day

Home from Tahoe today. And out to the garden.  There were nectarines, zucchini, tomatoes and green beans to pick.  The nectarine is a dwarf tree and is just three years old.  Last year  there were four nectarines and this year, with a good spring I picked these:

 I gave the tomatoes a good deep watering and as the tomatoes have grown so tall I  had to tie them again. While working on them I found this bugger:

 Yep. A very hungry tomato hornworm. I luckily spotted it after seeing a couple of stripped leaves. Got 'em!

I also discovered the first of my winter squashes, Galeux d'Eysines. Hard to believe it will be ten to fifteen pounds and warty come autumn.

This is a copied image of the full grown Galeux d'Eysines from http://eatingtheworld.wordpress.com/2008/11/12/ftc-galeux-d-eysines/



The warts come from all the sugar that migrate to under the skin as the squash ripens.

The Hike to Lake Shirley

Whew! A nice five mile round trip hike to Lake Shirley.  It said moderate. Yeah right. Took us about four hours to get about 3 miles, maybe longer. Yep, I am out of shape but that is no moderate hike either.  The entire hike was absolutely beautiful but lots of rock face to hike up. We had our lunch beside Shirley Creek. 

And then there was Shirley Lake...

Like I said, a beautiful day, a wonderful, tiring long day! Once we got up to Shirley Lake I took a fabulous, wonderful swim. It was about 40 mins to High Camp and the tram back to Squaw Valley.  We were some 6 hours. Still and all, a wonderful, beautiful day to remember.