Time for last basil harvest!

Basil in the foreground

Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Basil is a native of Africa and other tropical areas of Asia where it has been cultivated for over 5,000 years.  It is a culinary herb that sends cooks into poetic rapture.  It is probably the favorite of the “sweet” herbs and well known from its use in Mediterranean cuisine.  It has a spicy bite when eaten fresh.  Because it hails from the tropics, it melts with the first frost so now is the time for your last harvest of the season.

Basil turns black when temps get close to freezing.  Be sure to harvest all leaves when it looks like you are getting a frost.  You can also take the the tips and place in water to grow roots and pot indoors for winter harvests.  You can dig up the plant and repot to bring indoors.  Be sure to put in a sunny window.  Basil won’t thrive indoors, but you will get enough to use as seasoning in your favorite dishes and return to the garden in the spring. 

Cardinal basil flowers

Harvesting Basil

You get multiple harvests from each plant in a season.  I can get three harvests in our Zone 7 garden.  I take my last harvest right before the first frost.  This year, the first frost is forecasted for tonight.  I wait until the last minute as the pollinators love basil flowers so I leave them growing for as long as possible.

Basil plant after harvested

Basil before harvesting

Preserving Basil

You can freeze, dry, make basil into pesto, basil butter, basil vinegar, or basil oil.  

For freezing, you can freeze chopped leaves into ice cubes to be able to pop into sauces. You can also blanch and freeze.  If you don’t blanch, the frozen herb does not keep its color or flavor.  Blanching is simply throwing the herb leaves in a pot of boiling water for about 30 seconds and then quickly plunge them into a bowl or sink of ice water.  Dry the leaves then put the leaves on a cookie sheet, place in the freezer and when frozen, remove and put in quart freezer bags.  Now you can have fresh basil flavor anytime you need it!

Harvested basil stems

For drying, I place the cut stems into a paper bag that I put in a dry, warm place.  You can also tie in bunches and hang upside down to dry.  Be sure to leave lots of open space between stems to discourage any mold.  When completely dry, I remove the leaves and place in canning jars.

I will take all of my dried herbs for the season and make it into my own blend of "Herbes de Provence" that I use on and in everything!  Make your own "Herbes de Provence"

My favorite way to preserve basil is to make pesto.  Pesto is a mixture of fresh basil, traditionally pine nuts (but I use any kind of nut I have on hand-walnuts, pecans, sunflower seeds, cashews), parmesan cheese, a few cloves of garlic, and olive oil.  You can add spinach or parsley.  Just throw them all together in a food processor and ta-da pesto!

I use about 8 cups of packed leaves (be sure to exclude any tough stems), 1/2 cup nuts, 1 cup of olive oil, 1 and 3/4 cup of Parmesan, 8 cloves of fresh garlic and a teas of salt.  After processing, I put half in a quart freezer bag, lay flat in the freezer until ready to use.  Just thaw and toss with your favorite pasta or add to pizza, bruschetta, sandwiches or sauce for a quick and tasty meal.  

Pesto ready to freeze

For basil butter, chop the basil and mix 1 Tbl, or to taste, into softened butter.

For basil vinegar, choose a white vinegar so that the taste of the basil shines through.  Place fresh basil leaves into an empty bottle and cover with vinegar.  Place in cool, dark area for a month.  Shake daily.  Strain out leaves and use!  You can accelerate the infusion process by covering the leaves with boiling vinegar.  Your creation will be ready in a week.

For basil flavored oil, chop 1 cup of leaves.  Heat 1 cup of oil on low, add herbs, stirring for 3-4 minutes.  Strain out leaves and keep oil refrigerated.  

Lots of options!

Edible garden checklist for frost

 

Monday, October 14, 2024

Our first frost is forecasted for tomorrow night.  With frost in the air, summer loving veggies are coming to the end of their season.  Veggies like tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, cucumber, basil, and peppers do not like cold weather.  It is time to harvest the last of the summer veggies and get the cold crops the protection they need to continue producing through fall and winter.

In our garden, tomatoes, peppers, beans, summer squash, eggplant, husk cherries, goji berries, onions, and shallots are still producing.   They can continue to produce until the first hard freeze.  Continue to pick daily.  You can cover your plants with a lightweight row cover if you are going to have just a short spell of frosty nights. 

Basil is still doing good, but turns black when bitten with the first frost.  Harvest all remaining basil when they call for low temperatures of 36 or below to be on the safe side.  I make lots of pesto and freeze.  Makes for a super quick and tasty meal any time.  Basil basics-harvesting, preserving, growing basil

Before the first freeze, I will take all the fruits off the eggplant, tomato, pepper, bean vines, husk cherry and squash plants.  I may take in a couple of the potted sweet pepper and eggplants if there are quite a few baby fruits on them to harvest those as well.  I do overwinter my hot peppers in the basement.  

I tried using a walk-in portable greenhouse for extending the harvest on my eggplant last fall, but was not successful.  I think the plants were too far above the ground in their pots to stay warm enough.  My husband is busy hauling in dirt to plant grass seed where I put my greenhouse, but next year I will use a couple layers of straw around the outside of the greenhouse to keep it warmer and try again with the extra protection.

I'll freeze the extra husk cherries, goji berries, tomatoes and sweet and hot peppers.  Poblano peppers I'll dry and make into chili powder.  Eggplant doesn't freeze well so I'll eat those fresh or make baba ghanoush dip to freeze.  Summer squash, I'll eat as many fresh as possible, the rest I'll make into zoodles and freeze to use in place of spaghetti.  How to use all your zucchini-really

I'll take all of last year's frozen tomatoes and make into sauce for the winter.  I like waiting until it is chilly before canning!  This year, I have a lots of sauce left from last year and quite a few leftover frozen quarts of sliced tomatoes.  I probably don't need to can any as we have plenty for us for the winter already.   Preserving the tomato harvest

The green tomatoes will ripen slowly if brought indoors.  The rico is to wrap in news paper and check over time.  Lately, I have just been putting in a bowl on the counter and that seems to work just fine.  Of course, you can try the yummy fried green tomatoes too!  A late fall tradition-fried green tomatoes!

Now is also a great time to divide any perennials you have, whether they be herbs, edibles or ornamentals.  This will give them all fall and winter to put down strong roots.  Perennial greens are always the first up in the spring.  Midwest Perennial Vegetable Garden

Now is the time to order your mini greenhouse to extend the season.  I'll put mine out over the greens in my Earthboxes to keep the lettuce and greens going all winter when they are calling for a freeze.  Most greens like mustards, cabbages, sprouting broccoli, lettuce, chard and spinach all love the chilly weather and are at their sweetest after the first frost.  Preparing for a hard freeze

Portable greenhouse for winter greens

You can also save seeds too from your flowers and veggies to sow again next year.  When I pick all of the beans, I'll let the ones with tough hulls dry on the counter, hull them and put in a ziplock to keep fresh for using next season.  I took all the seed heads off the garlic chives yesterday and have them drying in a paper bag.  I have been collecting dried zinnia flowers and pulling their seeds too for sowing next year.

I used last summer's Egyptian walking onion bulblets to plant a few rows of onions last week.  This year's I have in a paper bag in the cellar for planting in the spring.  The garlic cloves and shallots I dug in the summer I also planted.  It's not too late to plant onions and garlic through October and November, even after the first frost and freeze. 

What we're harvesting in the mid-October edible garden

Tomatoes and peppers with zinnias in the background

Saturday, October 12, 2024

The garden continues to produce well; more than we can eat fresh.  We are harvesting tomatoes, onions, sweet and hot peppers, lettuce, sprouting broccoli, Red Malabar spinach, New Zealand spinach, eggplant, chard, sorrel, mustard greens, tatsoi, yard long beans and many herbs.  I am freezing about a half pint of peppers, 6 eggplant, and up to 4 quarts of tomatoes a week as well as drying the herbs we need for the winter.

Our tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and yard long beans are still yielding well.  For tomatoes, be sure to take all the tomatoes off the vine before it frosts.  You can either wrap the green tomatoes in newspaper and store in a cool place to ripen, make them into relish, or eat them as fried.  For fried green tomatoes, we like a Cajun batter.  Gives them a nice, spicy flavor.  A late fall tradition-fried green tomatoes!

The year, my cucumbers produced until the end of September; the chickens scratched the garden bed where they were at, covering the vines up.  My Trombetta zucchini is only giving an occasional fruit now.  In years past, it would produce well until the first hard freeze.  The 6 week drought and late heat wave we had along with the chickens were hard on the vines this year.  Cucumber info and tips for growing

As you straighten up your garden beds as the summer crops wind down, be sure to compost!  Any plant that has a disease, do not add to your compost pile.  Throw away.  Composting may not kill all spores and you could be spreading the disease next season wherever you use the compost.  For more tips on composting (even indoors), Composting is possible in small spaces or even indoors.

Peppers love this time of year.  They are native to the mountains so October is perfect for them.  They will continue to produce even after frost.  My peppers did well this year.  I had a couple of California bell pepper volunteers come up in pots and they did very well.  The sweet chocolate pepper that I saved from seed was loaded this year.  The hot Jigsaw pepper plants just kept producing their pretty purple peppers all season long. I harvest my peppers when they start to get some color in them and let them finish ripening on the counter.  Removing the fruits encourages the plant to replace them, giving you more peppers.  Peppers get sweeter when they ripen, but are good to eat even when green.  

I will bring in the Jigsaw pepper plant, the Chipetlin pepper plant and maybe the Baklouti Tunisian pepper plant for the winter.  It seems like the hot peppers overwinter well inside.

Basil is doing pretty decent right now.  Basil are very tender annuals and will turn black with the first frost.  Make sure to harvest all the leaves prior to the first frost.  You can dry basil, make it into pesto or freeze it in water.  My favorite is to make pesto.  I will probably harvest all the leaves in the next week as they are calling for the 30's here.

Stevia in bloom, covered in butterflies

You can also dig them up and bring them in for the winter.  Place them in a full sun spot.  You can put them back outside again in the spring after all danger of frost has passed.

Bay, chives, thyme, marjoram, oregano and tarragon are all robust.  The tarragon maybe a little too robust!  Tarragon smells wonderful.  Even if you can't eat all that you can harvest fresh and dried, it makes a wonderful potpourri.  I just use dried, whole stems in a vase to freshen an entire room.  I bring the bay tree in for the winter every year.

The greens are doing very well that I seeded in mid-September.  They love this time of year, cool with plenty of rain.  Every type of lettuce I sowed have sprouted.  As soon as they are a bit bigger, I will put in the permanent spot for the winter.

Fall is a bountiful time for gardening.  I have planted many winter hardy varieties of lettuce, broccoli, mustards, and cabbage to keep the garden producing into December and hopefully beyond.  With the portable greenhouse, we should have greens all winter. 

Time to plant perennial onions, garlic and shallots

Overwintering onions

Sunday, October 6, 2024

There are many perennial alliums.  Alliums include garlic, chives, leeks, and onions.  Fall is the time to plant perennial alliums like potato onions, walking onions, shallots and garlic.  

Garlic, leeks, shallots and onions will continue coming back year after year unless you pull them.  If they are not big enough the first year, leave them and they will come back bigger the following year.  For the biggest onions and cloves, fall is the best time to plant.  You can plant in the spring but your garlic cloves will be much smaller and your shallots and onions will have many fewer and smaller bulbs.

There are also Egyptian walking onions, potato onions, and shallots which are considered “multiplier” onions.  They continue spreading out from the single bulb you plant.  As long as you leave a few bulbs behind, they will come back the following year.  Egyptian walking onions are usually pulled and used fresh, but they can be conditioned for a couple of weeks and stored for months like potato onions.  Egyptian walking onions  

If you grow garlic, you will likely find that the following year you have garlic sprouting again.  Many garlic bulbs will have little “bulbils” that become detached from the bigger bulb when you pull them.  These babies come back up the next spring.

Time to plant garlic! With growing tips......

In my Zone 7a, here is the recommendation on fall planting times for each:

September through October plant Egyptian walking onions

Mid-October until mid-December plant potato onions and shallots

Plant about 1" deep in soil rich with organic matter and well-drained, 6" apart for individual cloves or bulbs.  I already added the phosphorous and potassium my soil test said to add this spring so I will put a handful of blood meal for nitrogen under each bulb at planting.  If you haven't done a soil test, you can add a balanced fertilizer in each hole as you plant.  In the spring, continue to side dress with nitrogen every 2-3 weeks when growing resumes.  If using blood meal, use 1 cup per 10 feet of planting.  Alliums prefer a soil pH of 6.5-7.

I have issues with voles in my garden.  They are supposed to be repelled by blood so I am going to use blood meal as my nitrogen source when planting to see if that helps.

To protect against a severe winter freeze, apply a few inches of mulch over the bed.

I ordered potato onions from Southern Exposure this summer and just got them (they are shipped in the fall).  They substituted 4 oz of Dutch Red Shallots for half of the potato onions.  I received 8 bulbs of shallots and 7 smallish bulbs of potato onions.  If my shallots are happy in the bed, I should get 4-12 shallots from each bulb come spring.  Potato onions increase by 3-8 fold in weight from fall to spring.  Since mine are on the small size, I will likely get a larger bulb and a smaller bulb from each one planted if they are happy with the garden bed conditions.

There is a risk if there is a really hard winter that you can lose many or all of your fall planted potato onions and shallots.  Using mulch can help protect against the loss.  Southern Exposure recommends planting the biggest bulbs in the fall and saving the smallest bulbs to plant in the spring as an insurance policy.

In our Zone 7a, I have not had an issue with an extreme winter killing my bulbs, but I do use mulch in all my gardening beds.

I wanted potato onions since they multiple underground and have a long storage life.  I'm guessing that it will take a couple of years to get the potato onions really going so that between them and the Egyptian walking onions, I should not have to buy cooking onions any longer.  

Sweet onions do not store for long so I will still buy one of those every month or two for burgers.  I did also order sweet Egyptian walking onions that I have not gotten yet.  They'll be an experiment to see if I can substitute them for sweet bulb onions for burgers.  It's fun to try new things in the garden!

I have many, many bulblets from my existing Egyptian walking onions that I will also plant.  These walking onions have the taste of a white onion.  Each bulblet with produce a full size Egyptian walking onion bulb (about the size of a leek) if planted individually so they have room to grow.  You can plant them 2-4" apart.  Since I have so many top sets, I am going to plant each topset instead of breaking them apart.  I'll plant them around 12" apart since they will grow a cluster of onions.    

For more on growing onions,  

Onions-everything you need to know to grow 'em

Alliums are very nutritious, easy to grow, and tasty.  Try some in your garden this year!

What to plant in the October edible garden

Fall edible garden

 Saturday, October 5, 2024 

October is a great time to plant garlic to have big cloves by next summer.  Many cold hardy crops can be transplanted into the garden, too.  Cover can be used to extend the harvest all the way through to spring.  

What is a four season garden?
You can garden year round in small space
Planning for a four season garden

This month you can transplant more greens, any perennial veggies, fruits, and herbs as well as flowers, trees and shrubs.   Midwest Perennial Vegetable Garden   Greens can still be sown by seed if you have a cold frame or a portable greenhouse cover.  Sow the seeds, then after sprouting and developing a couple of sets of leaves, you can put a cover over them at night to keep them warm and growing faster.  You want your plants to be as close to full size by mid November as you can get.  That's when the daylight hours get less than 10 hours and growth outdoors pretty much slows to a crawl.

Here are the crops you can start in the October Midwest edible garden:

October seeds outdoors
Austrian winter peas

Fava beans

Garlic

Lettuce-winter hardy varieties

Snow peas

Spring bulbs

October transplants
Arugula

Broccoli
Brussel sprouts

Cabbage

Cauliflower

Celery
Corn salad

Endive
Escarole

Frisee
Italian dandelion

Kale

Kohlrabi
Lettuce
Mache
Mustard and Mustard Greens

Winter and Perennial Onions

Parsley

Scallions

Shallots

Sorrel
Spinach

Sprouting broccoli

Trees, bushes, and perennials

Transplants for winter and overwintering

Look for cold hardy edible varieties when planting for fall and winter harvests.  You may be surprised that you can harvest all through the winter months things like greens, onions, Austrian peas, carrots, and cabbage.  You can also extend the harvest by looking for the same crop with different days to harvest timing so that they mature at different times.  

Covering plants when there is a cold snap in the fall will keep them warmer and growing quicker.  You can use cover to possibly extend the harvest all the way to next spring.  I use a portable greenhouse for my lettuces that works great.  Extend the season with protection for plants  Homegrown, organic salads in a Midwest winter

When planting when temperatures can get hot, be sure to keep the soil moist until the plants are well established.  Lettuce won't sprout when the ground temperatures are above 75F.  If it is too hot in your garden, you can start them indoors.  My lettuce seedlings are starting to get their first set of true leaves.  I'll likely transplant them in another week or two to their winter pot.  

Summer and fall planted crops take longer to come to harvest than they do in the spring.  Rule of thumb is to add 2 weeks to what the "Days to Harvest" on the seed packet.  It's because the days are getting shorter rather than longer and cooler rather than warmer.  

Once there are less than 10 hours of daylight, most plants growth will slow to a crawl.  This occurs at our latitude on November 24 this year.  We get back to more than 10 hours of daylight on January 17.  Once we get back to 10 hours of daylight, plants come to life and start growing quickly again.

What you want to do is to start your seeds and transplants early enough in late summer and fall so that the plant is at full size before daylight gets short and the cold really sets in.  Then you harvest what you want through the winter.

A great and easy way to start your fall garden is to sow the seeds in a pot on a covered deck or patio.  This makes it easy to keep an eye on the seedlings and protects them from the hot sun and frosts.  After they have a couple of sets of their true leaves, you can transplant into the garden bed or pot.  Harden them off first by moving the pot to full sun before transplanting.  "Hardening off" seedlings  After transplanting into the garden, keep them watered regularly during dry weather until well established.

For more seed starting tips Outdoor seed starting tips  Indoor seed starting tips  Ideal soil temperatures for starting your seeds

You can also get fall transplants on-line and at local nurseries.  So if you haven't started seeds yet or don't have the time, this is another great option to have a fall and winter garden for fresh eating.