Carrot tops
(Just for the sake of posting something).
Thursday, August 13, 2026
Recent VEGarden Posts
Purira Peppers
Of all the things we grew this year, the chile peppers were definitely the best producing, and the most exciting. Especially the purira peppers – we will be saving seeds from these for next year. The peppers start green, and then turn yellow, then purple, then orange, and then red. I think they get hotter as they mature. This time of year, it’s a real Christmas-light show. Hopefully the manure will add a lot to the garden for next year! I’m not sure yet where our winter gardening plans sit…
Carrots
We haven’t been very good about updating this weblog recently. Something to do with the end-of-the-season-nearing lack of motivation, I guess. Anyway, here are a bunch of carrots that Chris picked from the garden today!
Pumpkins
No, these aren’t our pumpkins. But these are: I went to visit my uncle’s farm last weekend. They are having a big fall event with tons of pumpkins, gourds, indian corn, hay rides, and more. We helped out some in preparation for the big kick-off. Relating back to our garden, I brought back a truck full of manure from the farm. It’s still sitting in the back of the truck, and I don’t know how happy the neighbors are going to be when we spread it on! A truck load isn’t really that much, and ideally I’d like to get two or three more before next spring. A neighbor of ours knows someone who has sheep, and so this spring... Read More
Possible Frost?
There’s a chance of the red dropping below zero tonight (I mean – 32ºF), so we raided the garden. Lots and lots and lots of cayennes! There were a bunch of eggplants that aren’t very big, but together they amount to something. We picked up a bunch of apples from various Farmers Markets, and I’m in the process of making a green tomato/apple chutney right now. I’m going to can it, and Chris and I will enjoy it all winter. I doubt that any of my family members will be interested in chutney – they’re the “milder” type. I’m heading out of town this weekend to visit my family, and I hope to bring back a truck full of manure... Read More
Peppers
Cayenne Peppers We have a lot of cayenne peppers! We will probably dry most of them, and maybe pickle a few. Our Purira chiles are starting to turn rainbow colors (I would have posted a picture, but we picked all of the orange/red ones before I took pictures, and I’ve already put them in a spaghetti sauce!). Also, we learned that if the Czechoslovokian Black peppers just stay on the plant, they get red and spicier! I added a few of those to the sauce as well. The chiles seem to have done fairly well this year, even planted so closely together. With our tendancy to eat spicy things (especially Chris), I think that next year we may need to... Read More
No Squash Flowers or Green Onions. Some Kale Sprouted.
These are flowers from squash and/or pumpkin. This morning while watering the garden one fell off and it made me think I should try picking a bunch and frying them. I picked about 6 and put them in a paper towel and jessi thought they were garbage and threw them in with the dog business (can i say crap? i don’t think thats offensive. i apologize if my grandma or someone ever comes across this)! maybe next time. it is a law that i take pictures of the garden to post about. whats frustrating is how bad i am at taking pictures. this kale sprout is case in point, but we all get the idea – the kale i planted... Read More
Fall’s Coming
Our pumpkins, though very small, are starting to turn orange! Just a few more weeks until pumpkin pie (or something). Unfortunately, there are only four very small pumpkins on the vine now. Maybe next year. This Sunday, I’m going to pick up a load of sheep manure to spread on the garden. That should really help improve the soil for next year. I’m also planning to see if I can get some manure from my uncle who has horses and cows in Andover. Maybe next time I go down there, I’ll come back with a truck full of fertilizer!
Coming Fall
It’s been cool and cloudy in the morning giving way to sun and warmth come afternoon. The summer squash is winding down even if it doesn’t know it. It along with the other squashes, pumpkins and cucumbers continue to make more flowers even as their leaves turn yellow and then brown. Here is our last and sadly only third summer squash (a story told on another post) still on the vine. Yesterday I planted kale, corn salad, raddichio and parsley. Hopefully its not too late. I haven’t gotten around to building or even thinking about cold frames yet and more distractions continue to present themselves. Also pictured are the mysterious onion sprouts I discovered when preparing a seed bed for... Read More
Finally: preserving for winter!
I spent the better half of the evening grilling eggplants. Mostly ours, but we got a couple from Easy Bean this week, and then there were a few food shares left at the food co-op that didn’t get picked up by Thursday evening (they deliver Tuesdays), so after doling out vegetables to volunteers before they went bad, it seemed I had enough eggplants to preserve! (I guess people just don’t like eggplants. Actually, two volunteers told me that they had never even eaten them before and didn’t know what to do with them!!). My new vacuum sealer is finally coming in handy. Just days after we pulled three-quarters of our green beans, we had over 2” of rain, and the... Read More
Picked Eggplant
I picked one of the white eggplants that has been around for a month or so now for dinner last night. I was a bit weary because it was still green, and supposed to be a “white” eggplant, but I’ve heard that over-ripe eggplants are no good. The seeds were QUITE dark, which makes me think that we left it on the plant too long! Plus, it wasn’t very good cooked – very bitter. We ended up getting rid of it. In a frenzy, I ran outside and picked all of our larger eggplants, just to make sure they weren’t over-ripe. We had one more pink bi-colored eggplant (that’s the purple one…?), and a few black and white eggplants. Chris... Read More
What I’ve learned about spider plants
Keeping plants inside is still a kind of “gardening,” right? Well, I don’t have anything else to post about the outside garden today, so I’m straying off on a slight tangent. There’s one of the places that I will be overwintering some of the plants that won’t survive outside from October through April. The “plan” was to set up multiple areas like this, complete with fluorescent lights, in three or four rooms in the house. To my disappointment, the studs in my walls are 24” inches apart (not 16” as I had hoped), and so I need to buy the 4-foot shelves instead of the two-foot shelves. A simple job likes this costs nearly $40, so maybe the three-to-four-room plan... Read More
The garden still grows
Pumpkins After all of the planting, removing vine borers, watering, and waiting… it looks like if we’re lucky, we’ll have three small sugar pumpkins this fall. We need to get in touch with someone in town who has sheep. Apparently, she gives the manure to a few different people in town, who spread it on their gardens. I’m hoping to do this before the frost, and maybe again in the summer. We definitely need to work up the soil; hopefully next year will see better yields.
My tropical garden
I repotted 13 papaya plants today, along with two medjool date palms and four grapefruit trees. We’ll see what happens! I know that papayas don’t like to be transplanted, and I really should have done this a month ago, so that they would grow into their pots slightly before being moved inside for the winter. Now my task is finding a safe place for the tropical plants where they will get enough light indoors.
More and more rain!
(Sorry, no picture this time. I know, I’ve been avoiding this website a bit – a lot of different things have been keeping me very busy, such as my website business, the food co-op, and my dad visiting every weekend to install new windows in my house). We got 2 1/4” of rain over the weekend. It’s nice not to worry about watering the garden. It’s been pretty cool, but I’ve noticed quite a few more things popping up – even some more summer squash! The weather should warm back up for a few days, which will give the garden a final kick before the fall. My papyas definitely do not like this cold weather, and I’ve been moving them... Read More
Great day for pickin’ tomatoes
Lots and lots of stuff out of the garden today! Many Roma tomatoes, a few Amana Orange tomatoes, a large Marvel Striped tomato… more tomatoes… cucumbers, beets, and carrots (I didn’t take a picture of them). We ate two of our black eggplants for dinner last night. The one here is a pink bi-colored eggplant. The random yellow/green squash was weighing down the vine, and when I picked the vine up this morning, it just fell right off. So, I guess it’s time to be eaten! It’s not very big and the vine only made one, which is slightly upsetting. We ripped a big chunk of the beans out of the garden this afternoon, and Chris has been busy planting... Read More
Pumpkins!
Two! Finally, finally, finally! We turned our backs on the garden for a couple of days, and this morning found at least three Small Sugar Pumpkins, finally starting to grow! I think the hot weather and lack of rain really halted the production of female flowers. We got another half-inch of rain this week, so things are looking up. The nights are getting much cooler – I’m going to start bringing my papayas inside for the evenings very soon. We may also need to think of a system for our potted eggplants to extend their growing season a bit. The first frost is still (hopefully) at least a month away, but given the late appearance of everything this year, I... Read More
Heirloom Tomatoes
Here’s a mini photo-tribute to our many kinds of heirloom tomatoes, which are finally starting to ripen. Marvel Striped Tomato These are pretty delicious, but there are very few of them and their shape renders them useless as a slicing tomato. The few that we’ve picked also had some black infected areas around the top. They take a long time to ripen – from green to yellow to red. Oaxacan Pink Tomato Definitely a keeper for next year. Heirloom tomatoes produce an incredible variety of different sized and shaped tomatoes on the same vine. Here you can see a crazy lumpy tomato (I read that this is caused by a defect in the flower) growing right next to a nice... Read More
Beet Sprouts/Easy Bean
Those are the new bulls blood beet sprouts. Not much else I planted recently has sprouted yet…the beets we planted in the spring are still a little on the small side, but they taste fine. We have some in the fridge I have been meaning to turn into juice along with a carrot or two. This is our weekly food share from easy bean farm. Theres leeks, peppers, tomatos, cabbage, etc. The plan is to someday soon grow this much for ourselves every week (sorry easy bean!).
Weekend
Nigel smelling the tomatoes Aahh… the weekend is… over? Ugh. Well, we ate a lot of tomatoes from our garden this weekend, and I was able to fill up a basket of tomatoes, carrots, cucumber, and peppers to send home with my dad who visited this weekend (he came to install new windows in my house!). So, here’s the picture of the last animal to hang out in our garden. We’re getting a kitten next week, so maybe we’ll have to bring her out to get one final photo. We’ll see…