I went out the other day, on the first official day of Fall, and still managed to fill a plastic bag full of goodness from my garden. I'll be honest, I've been less than attentive to the patch o' cultivated land out back, but it's still doing pretty well. My cucumber plants went, and went fast. They yielded quite a few cukes, but when their time was up, they went from healthy to dead in less than a week. My cayenne peppers are waning, and there's maybe a handful left to harvest. I was less than impressed with my New Mexico Big Jim peppers, and maybe got a total of twelve peppers when it was all said and done. These were delicious, I liked them quite a bit, but they just weren't plentiful enough. My sweet basil is incredibly off the hook, and we plan on making quite a few batches of pesto sauce with it. I had some okra growing, which I gave all away, I just didn't want to mess with cooking it. In bloom and while growing though, the okra looked incredibly alien, and very beautiful.
That leaves just the jalapeños, tomatoes, and habañeros. The tomatoes have been the garden MVP, and since I planted way too many of them, we've had them coming non-stop. It's been great, especially for slicing on burgers and sandwiches, making salsa out of, and chopping up for tacos and what-not. The habañeros have been great, not very plentiful, but incredibly hot and tasty. Next year I may plant two or three plants, not just the one. A lot of people go for the crazy hot peppers, such as the bhut jolokia, but frankly I find the notion of growing something so ridiculously hot it becomes inedible just silly. Who cares if you can grow it, are you going to put it on nachos? I didn't think so!
In the end, it was the jalapeños that were my favorite, and judging from the above pic, they're still producing quite a bit! The "hallies" have gone in everything; salsa, dips, recipes, burgers, and the like. I planted four plants, and next year I think I may actually plant more. I guess that will be it for the gardening updates on the blog as we all prepare for the onslaught of winter's chill. Around the first of the year I'd like to some major renovating out back, now that I kind of know what I'm doing, and build some more boxes for spring.
My garden is also nearing the end. The cilantro has turned into coriander and I am still getting a few peppers but the crazy zucchini plants are done. I think we liked the zucchini the best and plan on planting more next year, though it will be spread further apart!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I also learned *so much* this year from the first garden, I will definitely be making some changes for next year!
ReplyDeleteRecent reader of your blog here - these gardening posts are some of my favourite! I'm also a gardening wargamer - in the UK though, so my chillies and tomatoes are in the greenhouse :) Have to agree about the jalapenos - they're what I've had the best crops from and what I use the most (other than the tomatoes). Saw a brilliant recipe for fresh ones (which aren't common in the shops over here). You slice the chilli in half, cleaning out the insides, fill it with some tasty cheese and wrap some bacon around it before cooking - looking forward to making these again :)
ReplyDeleteWelcome aboard Chris, glad to have you! I think this whole 'gardening wargamer' thing is about to catch on, and we'll all be the ambassadors!
ReplyDeleteI'm jealous of your greenhouse, I'd love to have a setup like that. I'm going to try your recipe, and maybe feature it here (giving you credit of course!), bacon makes everything taste better, thanks for the tip, and for stopping by...