Getting the Garden Ready for Fall

We have officially made it through our first growing season at Zenith Avenue.  We have learned a ton on what and what didn't work.  We also accomplished some huge projects and started some things we wanted to finished.  In our opinion, fall really is the best time to start your garden.  We start a new batch of compost, plant cover crops, garlic, and spring bulbs.  It is also our favorite time to start dreaming up what we are going to do the next year.  We can't wait for many more years in the house. 

Spring beds are clean.  We planted about 800 bulbs in our front beds.  Also, vote for Ben!

We decided to plant our garlic in one bed this year.  About 80 plants in this 80 foot section.  Just in time for Halloween!  Vampires beware!

Two buckets of green tomatoes.  Most of them will most likely go to the chickens.  Any ideas on how to use them?  Clean beds have cover crops, peas, lettuce, spinach, and carrots.

We need more next year.

This will be the home of the new cutting garden.  We removed some shrubs on the side of the house this weekend.  Imagine peonies, lilies, tulips, dahlias, irises, and other flowers.

We decided a boxwood border around the air conditioner unit would be a pretty landscape idea.

Canning Nightmares

We are bringing in about two to five of our biggest bowls of food from the garden.  Because of that, it is time to start our canning weekends.  So bring on the jars, steamers, copper pot, pectin, and general madness.  With enough friends and wine we can do anything.  We also bought a new freezer to store marinara and pesto, time to get serious!   

Alex deciding how he can wreck, I mean fill our Saturday!

We have made roasted tomatoes, salsa, and marinara with all of our tomatoes.

Smelly goodness!

Each bag is 2 cups of marinara which will go in the freezer.

Next, tomatillo salsa.

Right now it is chopped, but it will reduce drastically.

Alex working...

Joe sleeping...

Filled jars which are ready to process.  It is such a pretty color of green and even more tasty.

Send in the Tomatoes

Every year the great tomato harvest starts!  Right now, we are bringing in about three to four of our biggest bowls full of heirloom tomatoes per week.  Both Alex and I have said that we need more for next year.  We're pretty sure we have a case of tomato hoarder syndrome, among other things.  Because of this we have to stay super organized.  We write notes, take pictures, and start saving seeds from only the best looking tomatoes.  Here are the pictures of all of the tomatoes harvested so far.  We cannot believe how amazing the colors and flavor are this year.  If you see one tomato you want, let us know and we will make sure we get some seeds or a plant to you for next year. 

Garden in Mid-August & Harvest Day

The yard is a bit overwhelming.  Our tomatoes are reaching past our property line, the pumpkins are taking up all of our free space, the heat has killed four new peonies, and it's just plain hot!  But with enough water and a prayer we had a fun harvest morning.  Perhaps we will have  a harvest party in September when the weather feels better.  We are loving some of our great new plants we have played with this year.  Definitely some that will be making a come back for many years to come. We are going to have a good list by the end of the year. 

Alex in his picking outfit.

Tomatoes, peppers, green hubbard squash, tomatillos, cucumbers, zucchinis, and an egg!

The cages are tipping

Do you see a Casper pumpkin?

The green bean tent - we are so excited for pickled beans.  Anyone have a good recipe?

Our cleaning lady took all of the flowers for her dinner tonight.  We should start doing that - again, anyone have a good recipe?

Tomatoes which have already gone in the over for heirloom roasted tomatoes.

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