Just cooked up what will be the last harvest of the year. Swiss chard is the best it’s been all season, and the last of the cherry tomatoes are super sweet. Cut up and sautéed in the swiss chard greens with some white wine, balsamic, olive oil, garlic, shallots, cherry tomatoes, fresh basil, and the swiss chard stalks (that I cut up and use like celery). Super tasty.
I had no idea swiss chard was so versatile. You have used it in a lot of neat ways. Is that a garden favorite tha will make a comeback next season? What was everyone's garden favorites or must trys from this year?
Yep, swiss chard is a must-have for me. Fast growing, low maintenance, and easily selectively harvested all season. The white and red stalks also provide some nice colour to the meal as well.
Were those a direct sow or an inside start? I'm going to try swiss chard next spring. I need more early and regular goodies to balance the gluts of tomatoes and peppers that had a slower buildup. I like having green beans and snap peas too.... will grow a lot more of those. Cucumbers as usual did great but I am over pickling them. I might just grow a single slicer plant.
This year I did all my lettuce, spinach, and chard as a direct sow. Turned out really well, overall, and a hell of a lot less work. Might have taken an extra couple of weeks to get something to harvest, but I was OK with the trade-off.
Yeah I think I would be too. We have a little longer season than you so it should be fine. I used lights and started a TON of things inside last season, sold lots of plant starts. I'll have to crunch the numbers to see if it is worth it. I started some thing so early they were passed due a bit by the time i got around to transplanting. And some things grow so fast, like zuchinni, that I really just need to germinate them and then throw them in their spot. The peppers were slow but I think I'm going to try to overwinter a few mature plants.
Yeah... we had a 2-3 week delay due to frost/ice/snow here this year, so things were naturally late. I'm no rethinking how I do my seedlings this year, to the point that I'm growing the major stuff in big pots with the expectation that I can grow them to maturity indoors and they'll thrive, regardless of the outdoor weather or how late the season in.
It makes sense with your climate. I'd be more willing to keep up with the lights if I had a more temperature controlled area for them. I had them set up in a thin walled potting shed and was having to supplement heat. I used the lights at night to counteract nighttime temp swings but it was still a pain in the ass.
Yeah, I’m lucky in that I have space in my laundry/furnace room so it’s naturally warm, and then I just use a small chicken coop heater to supplement as needed. I’ve started in on a custom insulated aluminum enclosure for this winter, to replace the wooden one I’ve been hacking on for the last few years. I finally think I have the design close enough to cut and weld metal for it, hopefully done end of January or so.
It's just a small countertop thing with lights and fans and watering all automated... with multiple adjustable layers for different plant heights, and swinging front glass doors for access. It'll replace the wood scrap and plastic sheet thing I've been using for the past few years, but it will be water proof, etc. Instead of fucking around with the current rough draft like I have been, figured it's time enough to put the dusty welder to use and step it up to the next level a bit.
I got 102 lbs of Brandywine tomatoes out of 12 plants. Not optimal but still a good haul. 30 is pounds from 6 of my Opalka past tomatoes which is about half of what it should be. Surprised because these usually do really well. Yellow Brandywine were maybe 20 lbs out of 6.
I don’t know lbs or varietal breakdown, but I know I have 40 big green tomatoes ripening up on various windowsills and countertops seeing as everything is cold and dead outside. Harvest was way down this year as the tomatoes were inside too long and the summer was late to start and shorter than normal. Still have about 20 4-cup vacuum bags of peeled tomatoes in the freezer all said and done. Should be good for sauces over the winter.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/vyS1Ks2tE8KVXyaf6 I picked everything that was left before the frost hit this weekend. The super hot pepper harvest was... disappointing to say the least. The dark ones are a variety called Jamaican Hot Chocolate. The smallest green ones are habs. I had 2 or 3 earlier in the season but that's it, and the habs never did get big. The Sugar Rush Peach are the greenish yellow ones in the tupperware - I've probably got about 20 that ripened in the freezer as well. Probably about 75 of that kind all told.
Wow... the only thing smaller than your harvest is that pic you attached. Hope it works out better for you next year.
Great thread, Idiots. Have learned an incredible amount of information here. Thank you. Just harvested the last of my Tabascos. I was freezing them as I picked them all throughout the season. We had our first hard-freeze the other night. So, the plants are done. Ended up with just a quart size jar of blended up Tabasco peppers. Not great, but, I'll take it. So, they've been processed and are in the jar with salt to ferment for a week, or so. Might add some oak wood to the ferment. Then, filtered, with additional vinegar, to the hot sauce bottles (thanks, Amazon!) for storing. My question; am I doing this properly?!
@binx bolling that sounds right to me. Report back when you get to try it out. I've never heard of using oak wood during the ferment. Already getting excited about spring, which is so, so far away. Bought some seeds from Park Seeds. This jalapeno is supposed to be super hot and a good size for stuffing. I'll be reorienting the duck bathtub so I can actually drain it into the garden directly. I fuckered up on the design when I put it in and never fixed it. I never really grew greens like spinach or lettuce back home because the sun would scorch the hell out of them, I just couldn't make it work. The climate is way different here and I'm revamping my approach on my varieties. I'll do my big zucchini and squash in giant cloth pots along the exterior fence but I'll be pulling back on my number of pepper plants, do a cherry tomato with my paste toms, and grow a lot of fast producers like beans and greens. Here's to hoping for season long production!
I ended up canning last week. I boiled the brandywine juice down to a thick sauce and got 3 quarts and 8 pints plus some more paste. Last time I canned I had a thin tomato juice so I had much more volume. Trying things different.