August is prime time for planting for fall and winter gardening

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Cool season greens

August is prime time for getting the seeds and plants in for fall and winter gardening.  You can grow everything in fall as you did for spring.  Think fresh, crisp lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, peas, carrots, spinach, leeks, cauliflower, turnips, onions, cilantro, radish, tat-soi, fava beans, escarole, frisee, fennel, parsley, mustard, kale.  

For the courageous, you can also try bush beans or cucumbers.  There are varieties that mature in 50 days.  Those you better get in quick though to be able to harvest much before frost moves in.

One thing to keep in mind is how long you want to be able to harvest from your garden.  The change I make from spring to fall plantings is in the spring, I plant those varieties that are heat tolerant.  In the fall, I plant those varieties that are cold tolerant to extend the harvest as long as possible into winter.  Depending on the severity of the winter, many cold tolerant varieties revive in the spring and provide a really early, nice harvest surprise.

In order to know when to plant, take the harvest time on the package, add 2 weeks to it, and back up from your first frost date.  You add a couple of weeks because in the cool weather and shortening days, plants don’t grow as fast.  You also want a little buffer in case frost comes early.

You can wait a little longer before planting if you buy bedding plants.  These are hard to come by in most areas, but as more people are gardening, it is worth a phone call to see.  In snooping around on internet seed companies, Burpee’s did have some fall bedding plants for sale (cabbage, kale, cauliflower and broccoli).  

I like to do seeds in my Earthboxes as a pot is easy for me to keep moist for the seeds to sprout.  They have a built in water reservoir.  After the seedlings come up and have some good growth, I will transplant elsewhere.  

Just like in spring, seeds have to be kept moist to sprout.  You can also plant the seeds in peat pots or you can reuse the plastic annual trays you got in the spring.  You can put the plastic trays in a water catch pan, find a shady spot convenient to watering, fill with seed starting mix, sow your seeds and keep moist.  When the seedlings get their true leaves on them (second set), they are ready to transplant into the garden or a larger pot.

Lettuce varieties that have performed well into winter for us here in Zone 6: North Pole butterhead, Rouge d’Hiver romaine (pretty red and green), Winter Density romaine, Winterwunder loose leaf (pale green), Marvel of the Four Seasons butterhead (green with cranberry tips).  I will also plant Prizeleaf, green and red Royal Oak leaf, Red Salad Bowl, and Ashley mix loose leaf varieties as all of these came back as volunteers in the spring.

We have used a portable plastic green house that is about 3’ wide, high and deep for the last couple of years.  I have tried them over a garden bed and over our Earthbox pots.  Both worked well and have had celery, lettuce, chard and mustard all through winter.

Fall is also a great time to plant perennial greens and vegetables.  They are typically the first up in the spring.  Things like salad burnet, French sorrel, arugula, radicchio, chives, chard, fennel, rhubarb, asparagus, French dandelion.  

Late fall is also garlic planting season.  Make sure you get the garlic ordered you want as many are sold out early.  I ordered Turkish Giant garlic this year.  I am all about maximizing the amount of food I get per square foot.  I will add this one to my Elephant garlic plantings.

Harvesting basil for seasoning & pesto

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Basil before harvesting

For basil harvest, the key is to harvest before the basil gets too woody.  Mid-summer is typically a good time.  Cut each stem back to the last 4 leaves.   Don't worry that the leaves you expose are not as green as the top growth.  This is natural since they have not gotten as much sun as the leaves on the outside.  Give each plant a good dose and fish emulsion to support quick leaf regrowth.

You can freeze, dry or make basil into pesto.  For freezing, you can freeze into ice cubes to be able to pop into sauces.  If you want to be able to use individual leaves, remove the leaves from the stem, lay on a cookie sheet, put in the freezer, when completely frozen, place the frozen leaves into freezer bags.  

Basil after harvesting

For drying, I place the cut stems into a paper bag that I put in a dry, warm place.  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.

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 not include any tough stems), 1/2 cup nuts, 1 and 1/2 cups of olive oil, 1 and 1/2 cups of Parmesan, 8 cloves of fresh garlic.  After processing, I put half each 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, sauce for a quick and tasty meal.  Lots of options!

What’s growing in the August garden?

Zucchini, cucumber, sweet peppers, pimento pepper, jalapeno peppers, and pear tomatoes

Saturday, August 11, 2012

August sees the full swing of the summer, warm season garden harvests.  Late sweet corn (plant corn in succession and different varieties to lengthen the harvest), summer squashes (like zucchini), peppers of all types (sweet to hot, hot), tomatoes, Mediterranean herbs, cucumbers, okra, apples, peaches, pears, grapes, beans, melons, figs, eggplant, honey, artichokes, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, onion, and fennel are all in season in the Midwest.  

If you are not growing these in your own garden, your local farmers market is a great place to pick up these seasonal veggies to either eat or preserve.  The best buy on any fruit or vegetable is when it is in season.  You can get even better deals on any produce that has a few blemishes which have no effect on the flavor.  If you are going to can, freeze or dry them, just be sure to remove any blemishes first.

I pick what to have in our garden based on the harvest per foot of garden space needed.  Our garden is incorporated into the flower garden mulch bed and in pots so we have to be choiceful on what to grow.

In pots, we have had great luck with  Egyptian walking onions (which can be harvested year round), peppers, eggplant, zucchini, cucumber, greens, fig, columnar apple, passion flower, sweet bay, and celery.

I put the sweet peppers in the ground this year to see if we got a better crop that way.  It has been mixed, 2 of the 6 plants in the ground are producing very well and the other 4 have hardly any fruits.  

I also put a jalapeño pepper plant in the ground this year.  It did much better in the pot.  The plant and fruits are significantly smaller than in the pot.

The zucchini is doing well in the ground this year.  It did well in the pot last year.  You just have to be sure you get a variety intended to be grown in a pot for it to fare well.

I have tried tomatoes in pots in previous years and just did not have good luck.  If you get a variety such as Tiny Tim, put it in a roomy pot, and water with a liquid fertilizer daily, you will get good results.  I am just not willing to invest the time to keep it in a pot.  Weekly care for plants in the ground is sufficient.  A pot with a water reservoir in the bottom is the best solution for lengthening the time between waterings when growing in pots.

I grow all of our herbs in the ground except sweet bay.  Sweet bay is a tender perennial and will not survive winters outside so I keep it in a pot to bring in each fall.  

Rosemary is also tender.  I have tried the two varieties that are supposed to be able to survive a Midwest winter, but have not had any luck yet.  I have tried to also keep in a pot and bring in each winter, but have not had good luck with this approach either.  So, this is an herb I buy each spring, plant in the garden, then preserve for the winter by harvesting late in the season and drying.

A quick reminder, save the seeds from your best performers to plant next year.  You can replant seeds from any heirlooms or open pollinated plants.  Not only does it save you money, but it also gives you the plants that do the best under your garden and zone conditions.

What to do with all those tomatoes??

Friday, July 27, 2012

It is peak tomato season!  There are so many recipes that fresh tomatoes can be used in-salsa, salads, bruschetta, cucumber/tomato/onion salad, on burgers, on sandwiches, on pasta, the list goes on.

Whole, small tomatoes, ready for freezer

Dried tomatoes

So, what to do when you are eating tomatoes at every meal and still have them coming?  It is time to preserve them.

I freeze, dry and can my excess tomatoes.  

Be sure to put the date and description on each freezer bag and quart jar.  Use the oldest first and all within a year.

During peak season for any produce, you can get the lowest prices at your neighborhood farm or farmers market.  In many cases you can get a huge discount for any bruised or blemished tomatoes.  These are great to use for preserving, just be sure to remove any soft spots.

Right now, I prefer to freeze them because it is so hot that I don’t want to turn on any heat generators inside the house.  For cherry type tomatoes, I just throw them in a quart freezer bag and put in the freezer.  For larger tomatoes, I slice then put them in freezer bags.  They thaw much quicker this way.  They will have a fresh taste when thawed and used for salsa, sauces, or chili.  

Freshly canned tomato sauce

When it cools, I start drying and canning.  I just love “sun dried” tomatoes right out of my own dehydrator.  You store your dried tomatoes in a quart jar to use until next year.  Only a water bath is needed for canning tomatoes because they are acidic.  Make sure you follow a sauce recipe exactly as it is critical for keeping to the right acid level.

Time to plant for fall & winter harvests

Friday, July 27, 2012

August is the month to sow arugula, beans, beets, carrots, cauliflower, chinese cabbage, collards, cucumber, edamame, endive, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, lettuce, mustard, okra, onions, parsley, old fashioned parsnips, peas, radish, rutabaga, scallions, sorrel, squash, spinach, swiss chard, and turnips.

Transplants of broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, Chinese cabbage, kale, kohlrabi, lettuce, and scallions can be planted this month also.

To know when to plant, back up the maturity date from your first frost and add 2-3 weeks as growth will not be as quick in cool fall weather as it is in spring.

Some lettuce seeds have a hard time sprouting if night time temperatures rise stay above 70 degrees.

You will need to keep the freshly sown seeds damp.  This can cause the dirt to crust over, creating a hard surface that the sprouts cannot break through.  A couple of options to prevent this.  Just depress the soil and put the seed in it without covering; watering will bring enough soil over to provide the cover needed or you can just use organic potting soil to cover the seeds.   

Another option is to plant in plastic flats you have around the garage.  You can more easily put these where they get some shade and are the most convenient to water.

I like putting some mycorrhizal fungi and worm compost in with the soil when I plant.

Don’t forget that garlic is planted in October.  If you wait too long, the variety you want can be gone.  Now is the time to browse the catalogs and order what you want to plant.  They will mail them when it is time for planting in your area.

Growing “exotic” figs

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Potted fig with fruits

Figs seemed like an exotic species that was not something that I could grow in the Midwest.  There are some fabulous ways to prepare and use figs in food.  How does fig preserves on a warm buttered croissant or chewy fig and almond cookies or blue cheese stuffed baked figs, or picked fresh, sliced and used in fresh salad drizzled with balsamic vinegar sound?  My figs usually don’t survive long enough to cook with them; as soon as they are picked I am eating them like candy.  Yum!

I was paging through Logee’s magazine that specializes in fruiting, rare and tropical plants and saw fig trees.  What surprised me was that there are hardy varieties of figs that survive down to Zone 5 if planted in the ground.  The tree will need to be mulched in the fall and in colder climes will die back to the ground.  For pot cultivation, you need to go up a Zone or place the potted plant in the basement or garage.

I bought the Chicago Hardy Fig 3 years ago.  I have kept it in a pot that I bring indoors in late fall.  It drops its leaves for about a month in winter.  It is now taller than I am.  If I put it in a larger pot or planted it in the ground, it would produce much more fruit.  

Fresh figs in salad

Figs do not require any special care.  They will produce even if you only have one (like mine).  I have not had any pests problem at all with them even when the plant next to it in winter suffers from aphids or scale.  The fig seems impervious to them.

I enjoy the fruits I get from it.  When I get more ambitious, I will put it in the ground so I have lots of figs to eat fresh and preserve.  For preserving, they can be canned, dried or frozen for up to 3 months.

Figs are also nutritious and low cal.  For every 8 oz serving, they have the following: 30% of your daily fiber, 15% of your daily potassium and manganese, 79mg of calcium, all for only 167 calories.  A medium fig contains about 10g of carbs with a glycemic index of around 3.

Figs hail from the Mediterranean region and southwest Asia.  They have a long and rich history.  Fig leaves were used by Adam and Even in Genesis to hide their nakedness.  Figs have been cultivated since ancient times for fruit and may have been the very first plant that was raised for food, starting more than 11,000 years ago in Jordan Valley.  This is thousands of years before grain.   

It is pepper harvest time!

Saturday, July 21, 2012

For preserving the pepper harvest, you have some options-drying, freezing, pickling. I have also seen creative pepper jelly and preserve recipes for canning.  They sound really fun.  I may have to try a couple of them this fall.  Canning is much nicer to do when it has cooled off.  Peppers keep producing until a hard frost so there is lots of time left to experiment with preservation options!

Beautiful red Pimento pepper, ready to harvest

Peppers love summer warmth.  Surprisingly, when it gets too hot (in the 90’s) they can start to drop flowers and get sunburned.  So, don’t be surprised when they are not as perky as earlier in the season.  They will come back when the temperatures get out of the stratosphere.  During extreme heat waves, they appreciate some shade.

If you have your peppers in pots, you can just roll them into a spot that gives some relief.  If they are in the ground, you can use a shade cloth, or a piece of picket fence or screen on the south or west side of the plant.  Or just wait for nature to take its course.

Last year, all my peppers were in pots.  My sweet peppers did not produce as well as my hot peppers.  I decided to try my sweet peppers in the ground this year and plant more of them to have more fruits.  Well, I have not gotten more sweet peppers.

My spicier peppers like Ancho and Pimento are doing great in their pots.  I have been getting fruits off them for the last month.  The potted Pasilla bajio pepper for mole sauces and the Jalapeño planted in the bed have not been very prolific either.  I am hoping now that is not in the 100’s they will perk up.

As the temps start getting back into the low 90’s this next week, I will give them a boost of liquid bat guano and kelp when I water.

Ancho/poblano pepper

I am planning on drying the Ancho peppers for chile powder.   I’ll also dry and freeze the Pasilla baijo pepper to experiment with mole sauces this fall.  We love warm foods on fall football game day!

Peppers dry easily.  The quickest way is to put in a dehydrator.  Just slice in half and pop in.  If you don’t have a dehydrator, you can use your oven on its lowest setting.  This year, I have just been leaving them on the window sill and they appear to be drying just fine.  You can also put on a screen in the sun or hang in a dry place.  The watchout for drying outside is the level of humidity.  In high moisture, they may spoil versus dry.

The Jalapeños and cayennes I freeze whole to use in salsa throughout the winter and spring.  I chop and freeze the Pimentos to use in salad.  It is a key ingredient in the salad we love from the Pasta House restaurant.  Typically, any food gets soft when thawed.  The Pimentos I have chopped and frozen retain their firmness after thawing.