Time to ignore the insects (hah, as if I can do that) and pick beans. I needed to do this before they were too big and tough. I do this every few days. Typically, I pick enough beans for three meals. But when I added the beans from today we probably had more than a weeks worth in the refrigerator. I will now probably take some of the beans and make pickled beans, which we will can for future use. Then I also picked tomatoes for salads and salsa, along with a few jalapeños and a sweet pepper. Yesterday we used the last of the tomatoes we had picked to make a fresh tomato sauce for the mostaccioli that I made yesterday. It was the first time I had ever tried making a pasta tube (as in penne). There’s a learning curve involved with these. Not all of the mostaccioli were perfectly shaped, but they had a very nice taste.
Back to beans – I might also can some jalapeños since we have both red and green. They’ll look nice in a jar and we use them in many meals. I also have a cayenne-like pepper that I pick when red, then dry them in the oven for a few days until they crumble with little effort. I’ll use these to make ground hot peppers. I like them on pasta and Mexican dishes.
Another aspect in the garden today was the number of squash vines that had grown into the paths between our raised beds. As I carefully repositioned the vines I noticed that we had many newly formed delicata squash. The butternut squash have won the battle for the path, leaving me just enough space to walk and pick tomatoes.
Well, when all was said and done I had tallied the number of squash fruits and I was impressed. There were two spaghetti squash, eight delicata squash, and 19 butternut (none of these included in the photo at the start of this post). So, it looks like we will have squash to share with friends, as well as plenty for the winter.
Regarding canning, Susan likes to can apple sauce. But we need a source of apples. Last year we bought a crate of apples at the farmer’s market because our neighbor with a tree had it trimmed back. This year that tree is again available for picking, especially since Susan has given them an apple pie each year in the past. Additionally, there is a more distant neighbor with apples to share. So, today Susan picked apples.
That’s “almost” it for the garden. But there’s still a lot of basil, cilantro and mint. Hmm, I think I see pesto and cilantro-mint sauce in the future.
More on the garden next time…
Michael's Place 