Late Summer/Early Fall 2015

I admit that I'm a basic b*tch and totally love Fall...no it's not the pumpkin spiced world that we enter, it's the way the season changes...in the garden there are all kinds of exciting bounty and at the same time we get to start downsizing and chilling out. NO WATERING!! This weekend I started to "disassemble" the summer garden. I pulled all of the zucchini and summer squash as well as the peppers (of which there still tons). I am leaving tomatoes for now but with the rains starting to come back it's only a matter of time until they go too. And that is fine because we got more than we can handle, y'all. Thankfully though, because my tomatoes this year were pretty small and unassuming, they aren't splitting too much. Yay for boring tomatoes! I have a freezer full of sauces, crushed and sliced ones and am pretty much over seeing, touching tasting tomatoes at this point. I know I'll be really excited about them in a couple of months, though. The big question was what to do with all of these excess peppers???!!! I made homemade pickled pepperoncinis which were very yummy and worked well in a greek quinoa salad but I feel would have been more popular with the dudes in my house if I dyed them bright yellow like the ones from the store. Well not this year...but see below for my adventures in fresh peppers and food dye!

We had some really delicious early apples from our espalier tree that has never given fruit before...hope it keeps on going next year? NOTE TO SELF: I need to pay more attention to this tree. We also have many squash that look exactly like this one...they are good for grilling but how many squash can a person grill? I don't need to plant this squash next year.

This is where the peppers and squash lived at one time. Making way for favas, leeks and onions.

Romaine lettuce and leaks are intermixing with the soon to be phased out tomatoes.

 

 

 

 

 

Pink beans!

Colin's commitment to buying lots of unneeded used things at garage sales has finally paid off with this Scoot n' Do rolling gardening seat. I am doing a lot of scooting and doing in the weeding department thanks to this contraption and my lower back thanks me for using it.

Anton and I had fun picking all of these unpickled peppers off of the pepper bushes. At least 6 cups worth. And what do make with them?

How about some PEPPER JELLY courtesy of *gasp* Paula Deen! Seriously folks, she's the only one who has a recipe for pepper jelly online that I could find, and I also kind of trust her on recipes likes this. 6 cups of sugar? Yes please! No, I'm not trying to use the low sugar pectin, we are doing this old school. Spread it on your holiday pork roast! You may get one of these for the holidays if you live nearby, get excited!! They are actually quite tasty.