Tomato Tastings, Fall Garden Starts, and Getting Ready for Garlic

attending local Tomato Tasting with samples from the many varieties in our
trial gardens.  Last week we were at
Monticello for their Annual Saturdays in the Garden Tomato Tasting.

When
we aren’t busy picking, eating and preserving tomatoes, pepper, beans,
eggplants, and more we are trying to keep the weeds under control and
everything watered. I felt like it was all worth it when I went out to the
partially shaded area where I maintain my seedling beds and start especially
tricky fall
crops like snap peas. How sweet it is! The snap peas have
blossoms and are setting little peas. Our broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and other
brassicas that were just little sprouts last month are sturdy little plants
growing well and just waiting for cooler weather to really take off.  If you haven’t started your cabbage family
seedlings yet some should begin to appear in local garden centers and farmers
markets soon.

The
long string of 90-100 degrees F days has cut down on how often we can have salad, but
we do still have lettuce. As soon as the new planting are big enough for cut
and come again we should be back to daily harvest.

We
just prepared the area for our garlic planting and sowed it with a quick cover crop of
buckwheat. In October, we’ll till under the buckwheat, add more compost, and
wait a few weeks for everything to break down before planting the perennial
alliums.

I
love alliums. We plant garlic, elephant garlic, yellow potato onions, white
multiplier onions, several varieties of shallots, and perennial leeks. They are
all easy to grow if you prepare a rich well drained bed, mulch them, keep them
well weeded and watered. So order your planting stock and start preparing your perennial
onion and garlic beds now.
 

We’re
trying to use up the last of the produce we have in storage, as we’ll soon be
replacing it with our fall plantings of carrots, beets, radishes and other winter roots. One of the
things we enjoy is pickled carrots. It is a good recipe for using now or in
winter.

Refrigerator Dill Carrots 

Ingredients

• 1 pound carrots, peeled
• 1-1/4 cups water
• 1 cup cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 garlic cloves, lightly-crushed
• 1-1/2 teaspoons dill or 2 tablespoons fresh dill weed
• 1-1/2 tablespoons coarse salt
• 2 bay leaves

Directions

1. Cut the carrots into sticks approximately
   the size of your fourth finger. Bring a medium-sized pot of lightly-salted
   water to a boil. (Use a non-reactive pot.)
2. When the water boils, drop the carrots in
   and simmer for one minute. Pour into a colander and rinse under cold water.
   Drain thoroughly.
3. Using the same pot, bring all the remaining
   ingredients to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for two minutes.
4. Remove from heat and add the carrot
   sticks. Cool until room temperature, then put into jars and chill.

Carrot sticks should be made at least one day
in advance, and will keep for up to four weeks in the refrigerator.

Thanks
for stopping by and we hope you’ll come back often to see what we’re growing
and cooking

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Ira Wallace lives
and gardens at Acorn Community Farm, home of Southern Exposure Seed Exchange,
where she coordinates variety selection and seed growers. Southern Exposure
offers 700+ varieties of non-GMO, open pollinated, and organic seeds. Ira is a co-organizer
of the Heritage
Harvest Festival at Monticello. She serves on the
board of the Organic Seed Alliance and is a frequent presenter at the Mother
Earth News Fairs and many other events
throughout the Southeast. Her first book the “The Timber Press Guide to
Vegetable Gardening in the Southeast” will be available in 2013.