I just LOVE August!

It's hot, it's humid, and we're in the best season of eating in Minnesota! I seriously LOVE August in Minnesota. It's summer's last hurrah. It's fairtime. It's corn season. The tomatoes are ripe. Ahhhhh!

I think besides eating myself silly with sweet corn, my next favorite summer food is gazpacho. It's a cold tomatoey vegetable soup chock full of cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, garlic, onions, and cilantro. Here is how I make it (I know using V-8 is cheating, but oh so yummy!):

April's Gazpacho

I cut up a bunch of cucumbers:

 Then I cup up a bunch of tomatoes. The varieties I show here are (from top big one, then clockwise) Brandywine, a couple Rutgers, Oregon Spring, Amish Paste, and Green Zebra (center). I like to use a mix of paste and juicy slicing tomatoes in the gazpacho. This batch I only used the Brandywine, Rutgers, and Amish Paste. We had the Green Zebra cut up for supper.

Next on the chopping board: onions!

And then a nice big green pepper!

After mixing together all these wonderful fresh vegetables that came straight from the garden, I add a few cloves of garlic-chopped, ground black pepper, and salt. (Oh, the more garlic, the better!!!) Pour a bit of regular V-8 over all of it and refrigerate for a couple hours to allow the flavors to blend. I've skipped the V-8, especially when I have lots of juicier tomatoes, and then you just have to make sure not to skimp on the salt. Other good additions are lime juice and cilantro. 

 Certain members of my family enjoy this for breakfast... be warned that if you do this, you will have definite garlic breath! Oh, but so worth it!




So, as I was saying... I just love August. And here is why: this week my CSA customers can expect a couple dozen ears of Bodacious sweet corn, tomatoes--both cherry and slicers, cucumbers, onions, purple scallions, peppers--sweet and jalapeno, green beans, and possibly zucchini (I got my zucchini in late so it's just starting). Next week should include more sweet corn (possibly 2 varieties), more tomatoes, more cucumbers, more onions, zucchini, and hopefully broccoli. And it just keeps getting better... squash will be on the list soon, along with turnips, salad greens, watermelon (!), kale, cantaloupe... Oh yeah... I LOVE AUGUST!

The tomatoes are coming! The tomatoes are coming!

 

Yesterday was the weekly CSA pickup day. The baskets contained beans, peppers, jalapenos, a purple kohlrabi, cherry tomatoes, and even a REAL standard tomato--the first ones to ripen! The picture above is the FIRST tomato I found in the garden. There was just the one, mostly ripe, and our family sliced it up to eat for supper. Yesterday I found about 6 more smaller ones. The heat will really get these guys coming! There are tons of green tomatoes up there, so I'm looking forward to a good harvest.

The rain has me a little concerned, though. It has been very wet and humid here in SE MN. Various fungi are sprouting up in the middle of lawns, in the mulch, and elsewhere. There has been a bit of blight showing up on the tomatoes and the peppers are even showing some leaf drop. The melons and cucumbers are loving it, though. I might have to do a bit of judicious pruning to keep the tomato plants in check and allow them more airflow to try to remove and head off some of the blight. Thankfully, it is not the late blight that is hitting parts of the country. This is the early blight which shows up as spots on the leaves, very common but usually preventable with mulching. The blight spores are in the soil and splash up on the plants during rain. My entire tomato patch is well-mulched, but with the immense rains, it seems that there must have still been some soil splash.

The peppers are not doing as well as they usually do, either. Many of the fruits are getting sun-scald from the lack of leaf cover. This is very frustrating since it means harvesting the peppers before they have a chance to ripen to that beautiful red, orange, or yellow that I love. A couple of the new varieties I planted this year are faring better than the others--Revolution and Flavorburst. Revolution is putting out some huge blocky peppers! Flavorburst are a paler green, almost yellow. As you can see from the photo, some of the peppers are just odd-shaped. These tend to be the New Ace. New Ace are not my favorites, but they usually can be depended upon for plentiful and early yields. They seem to be the worst hit by the sun-scald this year, plus the odd shapes. The kids get a kick out of them, though. 

The planting continues... yesterday I planted a bunch of fall crops--chinese cabbage, pac choi, rutabaga, turnips, and kale. There will be more planting occurring through the next few weeks, too! We had a lot of rain this morning, so that puts a hold on re-working some areas, but second crops of  beans, peas, and lettuce will be going in right away, along with more kohlrabi (hopefully the rabbits don't find them again!), beets, chard, radishes and carrots. The first plantings of most of those are just being getting ready for harvest now, except for the lettuce, which all bolted a few weeks ago. The lettuce can be a finicky germinator in the warm summer, but we'll see what happens. That might have to wait until later in August.

You might have noticed a new addition to the blog--you can now subscribe to receive updates via email! How handy, eh?! Just type in your email addy in the block to the upper right. The FeedBurner service will send you a confirmation email which you need to respond to in order to be signed up. I'm not collecting email addresses, so no worries there! 

Enjoy the heat! Summer is quickly slipping by!

Dream gardening!

I have seen my dream garden--and it is BEAUTIFUL! This week I had the opportunity to travel to Heritage Farm, home of Seed Savers Exchange, in Decorah, IA, with my best friend. Our morning trip was undertaken for the purpose of purchasing pepper and tomato plants to round out our gardens. What we discovered was our "perfect farm." Heritage Farm is nestled in the idyllic setting among the rolling hills of northern Iowa. In mid-May the hills are bright green with freshness and life. We saw some of the Farm's herd of White Park cattle, including some of the most precious calves I have ever seen. The photo above was taken from the barn, looking over this beautiful garden and the Visitors Center/Store.

 Hannah and Emily at Heritage Farm

If we had had the time, we could've spent the entire day wandering around. As it was, we were on a time crunch--both of us being busy moms with duties to tend to at home. We brought our younger daughters and Kris' baby with us. The girls had fun exploring the chicken coop. Both of them are familiar with chickens and recognized some of the breeds, since we both have flocks that they help tend. After choosing our plants and a few packets of seeds that we couldn't pass up, we had a quick picnic lunch near the stream before heading back north. It was a wonderful day--enjoying time to chat on the drive, passing a few horses and buggies as we traveled through Amish country, and getting a glimpse of the "perfect farm" that we wish our small holdings could someday emulate.

So, what did I purchase??? Well, I was looking for more Carmen sweet peppers since I didn't end up with as many plants as I'd like from my planting. They didn't have any Carmen, but I decided to try Tolli's Sweet Italian--"This sweet red Italian heirloom is one of our all-around favorites for fresh eating and canning recipes. Great added to tomato sauces. Large, dependable yields of 4–5" long tapered fruits." I also picked up some King of the North bell peppers, a dependable large bell pepper that I wasn't able to order seed for this year. Then for fun, I picked out Sweet Chocolate and Purple Beauty peppers, and Purple Tomatillos (just imagine the colorful salsa or pico de gallo!). Emily picked out some sunflower and nasturtium seeds plus a pack of petunias to plant in her garden.


What a fun day!

It's planting time!

This week I started getting some of the seeds planted. I was a little late getting those onions in the dirt, but the peppers and tomatoes are right on schedule. Planted so far are:

• Red Zeppelin Onions (gotta love the name! haha!)
• Candy Onions (in place of my favorite Expression which were "out of stock")
• Red Marble Onions
• Hardy Scallions (the first planting... these will continue every few weeks)
• Peppers: Peacework, Revolution, New Ace, Carmen, Jalapeno, Valencia, and Flavorburst
• Tomatoes: Brandywine, Green Zebra, Oregon Spring, Pruden's Purple, Amish Paste, Juliet, and Sun Gold Cherry

I'm very excited about the new peppers and tomatoes I'm trying this year. Those would be Peacework, Revolution, and Flavorburst peppers; Green Zebra, Oregon Spring, and Pruden's Purple tomatoes. I've discovered that tomatoes and peppers are my favorite vegetables to grow. I enjoy starting them in the house and watching them come up, transplanting them, turning the house into a jungle, moving the plants out to the cold frames and greenhouse, and then planting them in the garden. Then comes the REALLY great part--watching the plants really take off in the garden soil and produce their fruit. I really enjoy the challenge of coaxing early tomatoes and peppers in short Minnesota growing season.

I am hoping to put up a hoophouse for my tomatoes and peppers this year. I would love to extend our harvest season another month or two. I've been doing some research on these things, and currently am trying to decide if we have the know-how to build one from scratch or if we'd be better off with a kit. Cost will most likely be the deciding factor. So, most likely we will be building one without the assistance of a kit. Thankfully I have been able to find a few different websites and books with very good instructions. Of course, that won't happen for a few more months--we have to wait for the snow to melt first!!!

In the meantime I can create my little jungle inside the house. I'll be posting photos as everything starts getting green. Spring is just around the corner!

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers...

I LOVE peppers! I'm not referring to hot peppers, though I do appreciate the wonderful flavor of a hot little jalapeno in my salsa. I'm talking about sweet peppers--bells, pimientos, green, red, orange, yellow! YUM! I love them raw and naked or in a creamy dip. I especially love to pick a bright red sweet pimento or pointed Lipstick and munch it right there in the garden.

I indulge myself in these wonderful little delights by planting a large pepper patch. (By large I am talking about 60 plants total. This includes about 6 different varieties including about 6 jalapeno plants which make more peppers than I can make into salsa!) My goal each year is to push the boundaries of short Minnesota summers so that I can munch on fresh peppers for the longest amount of days. I've learned a few season extension techniques that have helped me in this quest.

First of all--starting seeds. I start all of my own pepper plants from seed, and I start them early. I like to get the seeds planted in either late February or early March. They are kind of finicky little buggers when it comes to heat--they like a nice warm bed! The answer is a seed heating mat. I have had almost 100% germination rates when using a seed heat mat under my seed starting trays. I use mini soil blocks and pot on to 2 inch soil blocks a few days after germination--once the first leaves have opened up but before the first true leaves have made an appearance. They are placed under growlights immediately upon sprouting. I like to leave them on the heat mats for a good week or so before weaning them off to normal room temperature. Clear "greenhouse covers" are a must! They keep the blocks moist and create a perfect humid climate for the seedlings.

Depending on how late spring arrives (usually later than earlier!) I will usually have to pot on the pepper plants to 4 inch pots well before it is time to transplant to the garden. I usually run out of room under the growlights what with all the tomatoes, peppers, onions, eggplants, etc., that are clamoring for space. As soon as it is reasonable and safe from horribly cold temps, I move my peppers out to the cold frame on the south side of the garage. Last year this occurred in early April. A bit of watchfulness is in order--the cold frame needs to be monitored to make sure it doesn't swoop down into freezing temps at night and doesn't bake the plants on a sunny day. I've found a little remote thermometer to be just the trick for keeping a close eye on those fluctuating temps. Since it does get rather nippy in April (it's nowhere the last frostdate!) I've used a small ceramic heater in my coldframe. I set it to kick in so that the temp never goes below 55 degrees F and use a sheet of insulation foam on top of the cold frame to keep the heat in.


Once it's getting close to May 1, I start getting antsy to plant those plants in the garden! Our FFD isn't until about May 15-22, so I need to be careful. If there's room in my 10'X10' greenhouse, they may move in there for a bit, but that is usually overflowing with tomatoes--my other veggie weakness. By now I'm removing the cover on the coldframe during the day so the plants are pretty well hardened off. For the last couple years I've set out my peppers between May 10-20, protecting them from late frosts with Agribon cloth tented over the rows. It has worked extremely well! The plants are quite large by now and with this extra TLC they are often blossoming within a week or two of setting out, with the first green peppers being ready the first week of July. They are ripening to red, orange, and yellow a few weeks later. I've had little if any transplant setbacks by making sure the plants never get rootbound or too big for their pots, setting out in deep enough holesinto which we dump a quart or so of water and 1/4 cup Fertrell Feed and Grow before popping the plants in. I mulch heavily using paper under old hay. We get the paper from cutting apart empty chicken feed bags--it is similar to craft paper.

The pepper harvest continues right up to, and possibly after(if I was quick with the blankets to cover the best plants), the first killing frost. I've found that the jalapenos are a bit more hardy than the sweet peppers when the nights get cold and go into super-production when you can start to see your breath in the air. I've been out picking jalapenos by feel on a clear cold October night after they've survived a couple light frosts under the blanket, and I know nothing will save them this time. By then the tomatoes have had it, and I have boxes waiting in the garage for me to do something with them. Then it's time for salsa! I like to use as many jalapenos in my salsa as possible without needing to call a fire department, so I prefer a milder jalapeno with more flavor and less heat. My prior fave jalapeno was called Delicias, and though my brother would laugh at me (he who goes for the extra hot everything), it was mild enough for even this tender-mouth to eat raw by itself. Pack a lot of them into the salsa, though, and it has a bit of a kick.

This year the stars in the pepper patch will be New Ace, an early thinner-walled pepper which turns red very early; King of the North, a thick blocky green-to-red; Valencia, a large thick-walled green to orange; Sunray, another blocky pepper that ripens to yellow; and Lipstick, a supersweet early red pointy pimiento-style pepper. The newcomers will be Carmen, similar to Lipstick, and Dulce Jalapeno, hopefully the perfect replacement for my standby Delicias Jalapeno which I wasn't able to get this year.

Now as for pickled peppers... I've never tried them. Peter can have them. I prefer my peppers raw and crunchy, and preferably eaten right in the patch!