Early Fall Garden 2011

New this year -- mini Napa Cabbage (Wawa Cai 娃娃菜)

Napa cabbage, Shanghai bok choy, and turnip.

Purple snap beans and Napa cabbage.

Beets

Broccoli and Lettuce

Celtuce and Napa

New this year -- Japanese hot daikon "Karaine" and long scarlet radish.

Winter radish (daikon).

White winter radish.

Chinese Beauty Heart winter radish.

Sugar Snap Peas

Above are some photos of fall planting, this is the first time I grow beans and peas in autumn, the growth is slower than spring and summer crops, but I'm happy to get any harvest at all.  There are three different varieties of  Napa cabbage I'm growing this year, I've tried to grow them in spring but the leaves never wrapped up to form a head, looks like heading cabbage will not be on the menu next spring.
      

Harvest Monday - September 26, 2011

Eggplants, cherry tomatoes, watermelon, and butternut squashes (second crop).

First ripe watermelon  29.4 lbs

I didn't have time to take photos of all the harvests, not in the picture are: purple snap beans, long beans, more eggplants, water spinach, lettuce, radish, miscellaneous herbs and more cherry tomatoes.

Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne's Dandelions head over there to see more harvests from other gardeners.

Mioga Ginger 茗荷

Mioga or Myoga Ginger Flower Buds

Young tender flower buds grow just below soil level.

Briefly blanch mioga in boiling water, drop the buds into a light pickling sauce:

water, cider vinegar, salt, sugar, and mirin (optional).

Pickled Mioga

Mioga ginger is grown for its crunchy flower buds and shoots use in Japanese cooking,  the flower buds can be shredded and used raw as garnish in sushi, soup, and salad, they can be pickled sweet and sour to serve with grilled seafood,  sometimes you'll find it in tempura or skewered grilled meat.

Mioga is happiest if grown in ground but it can be very invasive, I'm growing this ginger in container for ornamental purpose and to control the roots.  The plant gets about 3 hours of morning sun and the rest of the day in shade, the soil is kept moist but not soggy, it doesn't need a lot of fertilizer, I think it was fertilized once with diluted fish and seaweed emulsion during the growing season.  I check for flower buds every couple days during late summer and early fall, if the soil surface cracks a bit chances are there's a bud pushing up from below.

I'm hoping the ginger can survived our winter here, I'll find out next spring, wish me luck.

     

Mid August Garden 中秋菜園

Variegated (Pink) Lemon

Kumquat

Ginger

Mioga Japanese Ginger Flower

Hungarian paprika is super productive.

  Alma Paprika,  one of my new faves.

Celtuce, red leaf lettuce, and yellow beets.

Carrots and Radish

I thought I was growing all male asparagus but some are setting seeds, too late to do anything now.

Piracicaba Broccoli, Beauty Heart Daikon, and some lettuces.

Red beets and more Napa cabbages.

The jungle corner - Ichiban eggplant, long beans, butternut squash.

Sugar Snap Peas

Royal Burgundy Snap Bean is filling up the bed nicely and setting flower pods,

wonder it would give me some beans in the next 4-5 weeks before frost.

Butternut squash, I harvested all the squashes last month but didn't get around to pull the plants,
the vines came back with new shoots and set more fruits, a pleasant surprise for the fall garden.

Blogger is not cooperating today, it took forever to post these photos, I'll have more when I return from vacation.

Hummingbird - Buzz 2011

Harvest Monday - September 5, 2011

Peppers, cherry tomatoes, red onions, and radish thinning.

Ground cherries and hami melon (哈密瓜)

I was thinning out the Amish Paste Tomato vines and found this cracked melon,

I decided to harvest four more just in case they decided to crack.

Hami is a good storage melon, I've heard people kept it over two to three months without spoilage.

The long beans and Ichiban eggplants are still going strong, I don't bother to take pictures of them anymore.  I pulled the Fairy Tale and Little Finger eggplants and decided not to grow them again next year, they are pretty and cute but the Asian variety is more to our taste.


There are three full baskets of ground cherries waiting to be made into preserve, I don't have time to deal with them right now.  Peppers are ripening everyday, Spanish Padron (thanks for the seeds Michelle) is done for the season, Peruvian Rocoto is blooming and setting pods, this is THE PEPPER I'm anxious to harvest, I was attracted to it by the pretty purple flowers, bright red pods, and black seeds, after two years and three packets of seeds later I'm getting close to harvest the red fruits.  Please please please turn red before frost, I want to see those black seeds!


Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne's Dandelions head over there to see more harvest by other gardeners.