Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Mid Summer

It has been a while since I have posted.

Since I don't think anyone is reading, I don't feel so bad, but I promise to be more regular.

Summer came for a while and the garden really grew. We have been getting a good crop of Filet beans, which are like a string bean with no string. We have them in yellow and green. We have been picking every day, giving to neighbors, cooking and pickling them.

Also on the menu now are Shishito peppers. If you live in part of the San Francisco Bay Area where you cannot fully ripen bell peppers, these will make you feel good. They are compact and very prolific. You pick the peppers a few inches long, put some olive oil and salt on them and pop them in the toaster oven. Eat them, seeds and all, with beer in some other snack scenario. They are not hot, despite some seed catalog descriptions.


Our musk melons plants are making melons. I saved these seeds from melons I bought from Crescent Moon Farm at the Cotati Farmers Market a couple of years ago. I wish I could remember the names. I just labeled them Musk Melon 1, 2 and 3. Crescent Moon Farm always has really interesting vegetables like okra and unusual peppers. I remember one of the melons was a perfume melon with a strong fragrance but a mild flavor. It was meant to be carried in one's pocket I was told.

Another unusual thing I am growing a husk cherry. This variety is called Aunt Molly's Husk Cherry and I picked it up at a plan sale at the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center this spring, along with a bunch of tomato plants. The husk cherry is related to
a tomatillo but the fruit is much smaller and
much sweeter. You could have it for dessert or in your salad. I am still not totally convinced that I really like them, but they are different and they are ripe now, unlike the tomatillos or tomatoes. We did get our first cherry tomatoes the other day, though, and they were great.

Other food ripening now includes zucchini, eggplant and japanese cucumbers. I am pretty surprised that the whole garden is doing so well since we didn't really get the soil ready until May.

Coming soon...
The garden in the back yard!
The water bill!
The sewer bill!
The plans for rainwater catchment!
The compost and compost tea!
And much much more...

1 comment:

  1. Ooh, husk cherries, how exciting! I've seen them labeled as ground cherries also. We're going to try and grow them next year, along with a bunch of other cool and unusual stuff.

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