harvest moonfest, fall veggies and jack frost carnage

 the first frost hit thursday the 4th of this month. there was about a week of cool weather with temperatures right around freezing every night, and eventually all my non-hardy garden plants died, except for the ones i brought inside and the ones i covered with blankets. all my tomatoes, basils, and both naranjilla plants are still alive. now it's warmer again, but very fall-like.

 the last saturday of september, right before the weather turned chilly, i hosted a harvest moon celebration. homegrown veggie cookout, tomato tasting, vegan potluck, and so much beer. it was a fabulous time and the weather was perfect--low 80s/upper 70s to start, and stayed in the 60s late into the night.

 this is the tomato tasting table. i put out samples of all the varieties i had ripe at the time. the crowd favorite was chocolate stripe, a strikingly beautiful, salty, super-flavorful beefsteak (my favorite too):

 i made wild rice, homegrown veggie salsa, and grilled squash and potatoes. victoria and kim brought a very tasty and complex savory pineapple salad, jeanne and kyle brought some huge, fancy homegrown eggplants for the grill, andrea brought a fantastic vegan huckleberry crumble made with berries she picked herself. there was way too much delicious food.

 unfortunately i didn't get photos while guests were here. it was a challenging day, i'd had a cold for a few days in the week leading up--so instead of cleaning house/yard and prepping as planned, all week i was letting dishes pile up and being tired and unmotivated. i ended up having to do everything on saturday, starting at 7 in the morning and finishing minutes before people began arriving. it put me in such a surprisingly good mood though, since i'd already gone past the point of exhaustion, i was deliriously happy the whole evening.

 poor little potato was stung by a wasp during the party! i hadn't noticed there's a wasp nest at the base of the apple tree, and he stuck his head right in there and got stung on the ear. it was the saddest thing. he didn't yelp or cry, but he ran around like he was on fire, shaking his head and looking horrified. after a while he calmed down and was just deeply, deeply sad the rest of the night. he sulked around the yard throwing himself at peoples' feet for sympathy. he was fine the next morning, and the swelling went away after just a few days. but he's still afraid of the apple tree.

 recent harvests and garden photos:

 nepalese bell peppers have elegant flowers. the peppers themselves are crazy looking:

 my giant pot of basil is taking up more than its share of space in the mudroom. i was planning on keeping it into the winter, but now i think i'll harvest and preserve it or try to use it up fast.

 corno de toro gaillo and sweet bell peppers. they started turning ripe colors after i brought them inside. best bell peppers i've ever grown--heavy, thick walls, delicious.

 anatomically correct japanese black trifele tomato.

 udumalpet eggplant.

 tomatillos are so very pretty.

 my apple harvest this year was completely non-existent. the squirrels stole every single apple.

 i didn't even know squirrels liked apples that much. i'm at peace with the lack of apples, because the squirrels left all my other plants alone. didn't take a single tomato. i'd much rather have tomatoes than apples.

 i can't believe summer is over and it's almost halloween. has frost hit yet where you are?

late august harvests

 these days i'm mostly getting lots of tomatoes, squash, some peppers, eggplants, and ground cherries.

 the long red peppers are choriceros, a basque heirloom pepper brought here and grown for the last 50 years by a gentleman i met at a seed swap a couple years ago. the purple/green peppers are black hungarian, the eggplants are fairy tale and shoya long, and the squash are ronde de nice and yellow straightneck.

 the yellow-ish green tomatoes on the far right are lime green salad--when you cut them open they're brilliant emerald green inside. also pictured are ground cherries (in the dish), and an assortment of tomatoes: white currants, cream sausage, lemon drop, chocolate cherry, brown berry, gartenperle, tiny tim, and a mystery tomato i grew from OSU blue seed i saved last year. the mystery appears to be an accidental cross with a larger, striped tomato (in this picture they just look like generic medium-size red tomatoes, but the ones ripening now have some blue in them, and more pronounced stripes.) thankfully i planted one pure OSU blue plant from the original seed.

 casper eggplant, tomatoes and squash, including a couple "peter pan" squashes. i planted these extremely late so they're just now starting to pump out the fruit. when you let them age off the plant for a few days the coloring turns really cool, kinda green/yellow tie-dye.

 my first two japanese black trifele tomatoes (top right) and zapotec pleated tomatoes (bottom). i tried to grow both of these last year but they died as seedlings before transplant. the zapotec pleated at front/right weighs 3/4lb.

 snow white cherry tomato, with an outie belly button!

 mixed basil pot, with (clockwise from bottom right) opal, sweet, thai and dwarf greek basil. i discovered last year (or maybe the year before? i can't remember) that basil does really well planted in a container, planted late in the season, and grown in partial shade. some of that goes against traditional growing practices for basil, but that's what has worked by far the best for me here in boise.

 this is red and green holy basil, a.k.a. krishna tulsi, grown in a separate container. the stems turned a beautiful deep purple.

 the dozen-or-so volunteer tomatillo plants took over a huge portion of the garden bed. they're all loaded with fruit, but nothing ripe yet.

 nikki and i went blackberry picking yesterday. the berries were super sour, nothing like the ones i picked a couple weeks ago. luckily i picked just the right amount for a pie. it still turned out nice and tart, but not as unbearably mouth-puckering as the raw berries.

 the calendula in my front bed is in full bloom, and the bees are loving it.

harvests, volunteers and mini vacations

 yesterday i spent about 5 hours weeding the garden and filled an entire garbage can with leafy detritus. while weeding i uncovered dozens of volunteer mystery tomatillo and tomato seedlings! i'm letting them all grow even though i have no clue what varieties they could be. i was disappointed that i never got tomatillos started this spring so this makes me happy.

 they even planted themselves in good places. i updated my 2012 growing list, adding in all the volunteers and subtracting some failures (major earwig problems over here--i lost tons of seedlings.)

 these sunflowers are another welcome group of volunteers. i never got around to planting any sunflower seeds this year, lameness, but these seem like they're going to be awesome. there's eight of them scattered around and they all have many many buds.

 first squash of the summer!

 and first ripe *red* tomatoes came in last week, including this doubleton.

 i'm still getting lots of golden sweet peas, but most of them don't make it in front of the camera.

 albino alpine strawberries are trickling in at about one wee mouthful per week.

 i planted my kales too close together but they're doing well anyway. in front you can see the bush beans coming up.

 asparagus berries? the asparagus patch is going gangbusters. once the seeds mature i'll plant them to try to help it expand.

 here's something i don't think i've ever posted about before. it's a weird little tomato relative called "naranjilla" ("little orange" in spanish; a.k.a. "lulo"). it's my first year growing this. the seeds take over a month to germinate, the plant likes heat but not direct sunlight, doesn't like wind, takes an extremely long season, and the thorns are absolutely EVIL. why even grow it?

 because look how cool!! and it's a fun challenge. i've never tasted naranjilla fruit before. i can't wait. they look a bit like fuzzy persimmons. here's a picture from jungle garden:

 i harvested a 4+ foot tall volunteer lamb's quarters yesterday. jason's been juicing the leaves for green smoothies lately. so we pulled up the whole plant and put it in a tub of water, then he drove off with it in the back of his truck--it looked like a christmas tree!

 cam and i went cherry picking at an organic cherry/plum/apple orchard in emmett saturday morning. between the two of us we picked about 10lbs of bing cherries, and at only $1/lb we probably should've done more. but it was a little weird for me, being so used to foraging. dozens of short little trees loaded with gobs of perfectly ripe fruit within easy reach--i told her i felt like a hunter shooting animals at the zoo. still fun though, and we had a lovely picnic under a cherry tree.

 i have one day of work left this week. i decided to take thursday and friday off to have a nice five-day vacation during which i hope to do as much nothing as possible. i might go up to mccall to watch the fireworks on the lake. other than that i intend to laze around in the garden, read, take pictures, and watch the entirety of netflix.

happy july!