It's been a long growing season down here in Arkansas and the garden has been pumping out food for months. Since fall is here and winter is around the corner, exactly what is the current state of the garden?
I'm happy to announce that the produce is still piling up! You may have seen the giant pile of cucumbers that we had to deal with earlier this year and some of the other garden updates that I put out already. Thankfully, this one is not all that different. Here's a few of the recent harvests we've been reaping.
KIWANOS
The Kiwano was a new variety for us this year. You can read more about that here. Since these African vines can grow up to 100 feet each and produce as many as 100 melons per vine, I planted mine too close together. A lot of the leaves blocked out the sunshine from the leaves of other vines, and many ended up dying before they produced. However, we still got some nice free melons, and since we had the garden space and saved our own seeds anyway, overall it was a success. I like this strange fruit and learned some more about growing it from experience now, so it was time well spent.
BASIL
I like to plant various herbs, so I planted some Basil along with some of our Tomatoes. These two are considered to be companion plants because they grow well together. I had saved the seeds for these from last year too, so my investment was nothing but time and effort. My investment paid off big time, and these plants grew very well. We've got plenty to use fresh, dry, or make into pesto, and a lot to share as well.
CHINESE NOODLE BEANS
This was another new variety for us this year. Actually, we had three varieties of them: the Chinese Red Noodle Bean, the Chinese Green Noodle Bean, and the Chinese Mosaic Long Bean. The only one still producing right now is the Green Noodle Bean. My favorite was the Red Noodle Bean, because it produces well and is much easier to pick than the green variety because of its color. These Green Noodle Beans have been producing for about four months now. The kids help save the seeds from the dried beans, and we've been feeding bucket-fulls to our hogs of the over-sized beans that we missed. Free food for us, free feed for our animals, and free seeds for us too. If you'd like to know more about this amazing plant, you can check out my first Garden Plant Spotlight post from three months ago.
OPPORTUNISTIC PEPPERS
If you saw my recent post on Opportunistic Gardening you already know that I like getting free seeds and free food. That's one of the reasons that I forage and garden. One of my neighbors also grows some peppers, so when I noticed some uprooted plants by the side of his driveway, I asked if he was done with them. He had already harvested all that he needed and said that I was free to have them. Soon, my children and a few neighborhood girls were hard at work earning Quarters by picking all the tiny little peppers and filling some jars for me. They really made short order of the process and soon, I had a lot of picked peppers! I offered the neighbors a jar or two back, but they assured me that they had plenty. I'll be using a few different methods of preserving them so that I can enjoy them for years to come. Though I had no investment in the growing process, harvesting them cost me a few bucks because I paid my little workers in Quarters.
HOPS (Cascade & Chinook)
One of my brothers runs High Hoppage, so he creates a lot of Hops merchandise and grows some varieties too for his home-brew. Earlier this year he gave me some Cascade and Chinook. I got them growing this year and will get them in the soil next year. I've been cleaning up outside lately, so I took them down off of their trellis and cut them back for winter. I gave them all a healthy dose of rabbit manure, and am looking forward to hopefully harvesting some next year.
GREEN BEANS (Pole Variety)
Our Green Beans finally fizzled out on us so we let the rest dry on the vine to save the seeds. It's so easy, even a baby can do it, so we let her. She has fun with it too, and knows that she is helping the family. Basically, we let her help so that she can become a better help, and she likes doing what the rest of us are doing, or just having her own job to focus on while the rest of us are working on something. If the children are taught properly, you can get a lot more done with them than without them, even with small children. I know that often people treat them like inconveniences these days, but I think that becomes a self-fulling prophecy, and they turn out just like you treat them! (That's why I treat mine like they are a blessing to me.) Anyway, the Green Beans got hit hard by the Japanese Beetles this year, but they still produced a good deal of food for us and even gave us more than enough seeds for next year, so we can do it all over again.
TOMATILLOS
Tomatillos are one of my favorite garden plants. I love Salsa Verde and they are one of the main ingredients. Also, if you like plants that volunteer to come back next year, these guys do a pretty good job from my experience. Basically, overlooked or spoiled fruits fall to the grown and the plant reseeds itself if you are not careful. Some find this to be an inconvenience, but I like the fact that plants producing food will show up unexpected to bless me out of nowhere. Some years I have probably gotten about 40# of Tomatillos out of a garden. Since they can sell for around $3.00 USD per pound, that's the equivalent of $120.00 USD worth of food. @papa-pepper makes a lot of salsa, and Tomatillos are one of my main ingredients for my (almost) famous GREEN GHOST SALSA. It's a recipe that I've kept secret for years, despite requests from many, but I think I'll make some tonight and publish it soon on the blockchain as a blessing to this generation and all those to come after it.
PROPAGATED PLANTS
If you have seen any of my Papa-Pepper's Guide to Plant Propagation posts, you know that I like making my own free plants. I've been busy this year learning, practicing, and sharing this skill and the end result of my effort is a lot of little plants ready for me to find them permanent homes. It looks like I'll be purchasing an 8 acre plot in the near future, so I'll have a great home for them soon. Until then, I've got to keep them weeded, fertilized, and alive.
Some of the varieties that I have growing are:
Gooseberry
Fig
Grapes
Passionfruit
Prickly Pear
Black Currants
Elderberry
THE PEPPERS OF @papa-pepper
Much like the Tomatillos, these guys still have a lot of produce to give. They are coming in hard and heavy and show no signs of stopping. They will probably run hard until the frost, so I'll get what they'll give me until then. I'll even be talking to a local natural food store next week about selling some of my peppers. Moving forward, it'll nice to produce things at home that can bless us financially, so that should be a nice step in the right direction. Since I have no outlet yet other than mailing some to a few of you guys for my Super-Hot Pepper Challenge, I've been drying a lot of them lately. I've got a few more great ways to use and store peppers that I plan on sharing soon, so stay tuned and I'll keep them coming.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the state of the garden is excellent. For more on gardening and seeds, you may want to check out some of the posts that I linked above, or take a look at one of these three.
As always, I'm @papa-pepper and here's the proof:
proof-of-garden-harvest
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