We just make salads from the chard - with a bit of basil, cherry tomatos and whatever salad dressing we have around.
I'm sick of canning tomatos and making pickles, but at least it's done. I'll be freezing the squash and huckleberries.
And hopefully the hard shelled gourds are far enough along to dry out properly once we get a hard freeze. We were touched by patchy frost last night and the butternuts look like they got the brunt of it.
Hmmmm, we're having home made pesto on whole wheat pasta tonight.

I've been par boiling, vacuum-sealing and freezing like crazy. Yeah, chopping up zukes for bread and zuke patties. Hopefully, one of the hunter cousins will actually bag an elk this year and we can have a luscious roast with the fresh-frozen veggies for Thanksgiving. Veggies we're just sick and tired of, I usually donate to the local senior center for their weekly potluck dinners.

We really like to eat most of our veggies fresh from the garden. Our surplus (or is it that we eat the surplus) is sold at the local farmers' market - it has been a good year for sales but also a good year for production.

Despite our efforts at the table - our freezer is completely full; lots of green beans. Cherry tomatoes have been going over to my father's freezer for a couple of weeks. Thru the Winter, we will bring these back and make sauces. Mostly, we make salsa with the frozen tomatoes and, yes, we will buy (BUY!) green onions and cilantro.

We grew a ton of green onions this year but our yellow onions don't get the call for salsa. Cilantro seems impossible for us to grow other than in the tiny window of late Spring - bolts to seed. And, it doesn't freeze well (unlike dill, by the way).

The ripening peppers of all sorts are already making their appearance hanging in our kitchen. These ristras will dominate the decor for the next few months. If they aren't used soon, the dry peppers are placed in plastic bags and tucked away in cupboards. (I see that we are going to try drying Italian Sweets this year . . . well, they have a wonderful taste . . . maybe . . .) Tiny peppers (like Thai Hot and Super Chilies) go into the freezer in sandwich bags.

Tomatoes can already be found ripening in a box on our kitchen floor. We may harvest the rest of them today - altho' the temps are supposed to be warming soon. It will be difficult to walk thru our kitchen for a couple of weeks.

Most of the Winter squash are in our carport right now but will be migrating to the basement shelves. Our cool room down there is mostly used for dahlias but a few yellow onions will take up residence, as well. The squash are a little tricky - the other parts of the basement are a little too warm and that room is a little too damp. Christmas will be about as late as we can expect baked buttercups and "pumpkin" pie. They can also reside on our kitchen floor but . . . you know . . .

Oh, and the pumpkins need to go in the with the neighbor's hay for a few weeks before hard frost hits them. I think we may get the ornamental corn today but I'm lobbying for leaving them until they dry out from this morning's rain. Birds are an issue with them. Maybe one of these years, we'll grow our own corn meal - heck, we have both ornamental corn in the garden and ornamental wheat hanging in the garage.

Bountiful, bountiful!

Steve

You weren't talking about ornamentals, Charlene, but since I got started . . .

That ornamental wheat will go in wreaths. We twist a vine base and keep twisting florist wire around it as various dry flowers and such are held in place.

We've grown statice, strawflowers, moonflowers, celosia, nigella, millet, and the wheat for wreaths. These products have been hanging upside down in the carport for a few weeks, as they were harvested. It takes some time and coordination but wreath-making doesn't seem to be too difficult for dear wife - about 30 minutes is all she needs to make one.

They are very much in demand but darn hard to handle. I mean, they can't be stacked and if I carry 'em to the market twice, that's enuf. Any more transporting in the back of the pickup and theyÂre nothing but sticks. (See, I get to complain about all my efforts in transport but she's really the one doin' all the work. ;o)

Steve

Where does one get seeds for ornamental wheat?

This reminds me that I should pick the sea lavender - it makes a lovely airy dried flower.

Love to hear what you all are doing.

Steve- sounds like fun and impressive! I'd love to see one of the wreaths. I don't have hay to store my pumpkins. They are still on the vine, will the frost bother them? Where should I store until halloween?

cnetter- my neighbor said not to eat the mature chard without cooking as it's bitter, but I may try your way this weekend. Did you do pesto, how was it? I ate the last of it today.

jalirancher- I'm a little tired of peppers I have to say. That's great that you donate your extras. I think my mom hinted today that a vacuum sealer or a dehydrator may be on my gift list this year :)

Tonight I'm sweating and dry roasting eggplant for tomorrow as my cousin in Denver, who's a fabulous cook, is coming to make Babaghanoush with me. If you've never heard of it, it's a Middle Eastern dish. If you like hummus you'll love this! She serves it as a creamy not chunky dip (with a little pomegranate juice mixed in) with pita bread. There are many variations in babaghanoush recipes. I'll serve it with a salad of lemon cucumbers, tomatoes, parsley, onion (from my neighbor's garden) & mint with a little sesame oil & vinegar. I'm salivating now!

Here is a link that might be useful: Babaghanoush info

My eggplant was going soft, so I made a huge batch of babaghanoush and froze most of it. That stuff is almost too good.

Cnetter, great to see another fan of sea lavender. I successfully divided my two, several year old plants this spring into a dozen or so, and have them planted amongst some coral colored roses. For me, they take a few years to get large enough, and then bloom for months.

I have my greenhouse full of winter squash and tomatoes, as well as Asian melons. Lot of work to do, its been raining very heavily and snow is in the forecast for tonight. I don't know when I'll be able to clean stuff up.

I see on the news that CO is getting some very wet and cold weather. Up here in the north, we are trying to get into next week where high temperatures are supposed to make it back into the mid-70's!! However . . . I've just run the sprinklers again to dispel the morning frost. We've had at least 4 light frosts and yet everything is still green (I'd like to say growing but that would be going to far).

David, your Apple Green Eggplant was a hit! My favorite of the 3 varieties that we grew. Baba ba bush nush, huh? Gosh, I always feel like such a provincial.

Cnetter, check out the "grasses, ornamental" page in Johnny's. We've been growing and saving seed from the highlander millet and black tip wheat for 6 or 8 years. You should know that the wheat has "deteriorated" in quality in that the black has steadily decreased. I don't know how that has happened but I think I'd better order at least a packet of seed to start some stock anew in 2007.

Charlene, your pumpkins cannot take a really hard frost. It will damage the skin and since we are still 5 weeks or so from All Hallows Eve, they may not make it to jack o'lantern times. If I had more room in the carport (no I haven't parked a car in there nor in the garage for years) I'd just set them in there on the floor. The hay is great but there's a serious risk of mouse damage. But, heck, they're just punkins.

I'll post a link to a wreath photo soon as they start to show up.

Steve

The highly localized 'cowboy' version of Bada Boom Ga Noche is: oil cookie sheet, slice egg plant in half and put face down on the aforementioned oiled cookie sheet, insert into 350º oven for an hour, cool, and scoop out inner stuff leaving most of the skin. Leave some skin, because the best flavor is there.

Dig out food processor and grater. Dump scooped egg plant into food processor, grate couple-three cloves garlic, healthy dollop tahini, juice of 2 limes, healthy slosh olive oil. Purée. Eat with crusty bread.

Gotta agree, the Apple Green is way the bestest at this.

If you do a google search on Babaghanoush there are many varieties of it.

There's a middle Eastern restaurant we go to in Denver and their Babaghanoush is the best! The cook shared (somewhat reluctantly) that her secret is a little pomegranate juice for sweet tartness and to make it really creamy which she does by processing in an electric mixer or blender for quite a while. Before serving drizzle the top with olive oil and garnish with parsley or mint. Oh, and homemade straight from the oven to the table pita bread but I have to draw the line somewhere, my pita was store bought!

I've got a wish list started for next year and Apple Green is added.

We made pickles for the first time ever today. The refrigerated type that you can eat in 24 hours stays good for two months in the fridge.

I picked the rest of everything from the garden including flowers.

I also picked grapes off the arbor for hours today on a ladder in the rain before the snow comes tonight. Both sides of my deep sinks are overflowing with grapes. My hands are chapped from picking and my son has a little stomach ache from popping so many in his mouth.

Life is good. Have a great weekend!

Charlene