The Backyard

The Backyard

Monday, July 30, 2012

Harvest Monday - July 30, 2012 - A Record Week

Daphne's Dandelions is the host of Harvest Monday.  Visit her website to see 50-60 other harvests around the world.  Fun to read.    I knew this day was coming... a week when I start weighing the heavy-weights; thus, boosting the harvest tally. The onions starting heading to storage and they are getting weighed just before they are stored. Weight-wise, the harvest of the week has to be the onions coming in at 63 pounds. But yummy-wise, the harvest of the week has to be the heirloom tomatoes. The most perfect Black Krim tomato was the most perfect-tasting too. There's nothing quite like an heirloom tomato.   This is only my 3rd year growing them and I'm starting to understand the varied ripening process of the different varieties.   Other highlights this week included more celery (starting to freeze some of it), peppers galore, cucumbers galore, green beans galore, sweet corn and potatoes. I dug up an handful of sweet potatoes just to check the size of them. They need a few more weeks to grow, but are certainly edible now.  Here's the weekly tally:

Carrots:  1 1/ 2 pounds
Celery:  1 1/2 pounds
Corn: 15 and 1/2 pounds
Cucumbers: 10 pounds
Green Beans: 7 3/4 pounds
Onions!:  63 pounds
Peppers: 12 1/4 pounds
Potatoes: 3 1/2 pounds
Red Beets: 2 pounds
Spaghetti Squash: 2 3/4 pounds
Sweet Potatoes:  1 1/2 pounds
Tomatoes:  10 pounds

Total:  131.25 pounds of vegetables, 305 pounds total so far this year.

An unidentified, ripening heirloom tomato

Onion drying rack.  1/3 of these were sent to storage this week.

celery!


A one-day harvest.  Love it!
A collection of heirlooms.  The Black Krim in the front was luscious.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Bring on the Heirloom Tomatoes


It's time.... the heirlooms are starting to ripen and I'm licking my lips with delight.  I noticed some blossom end rot on a couple of the plants, so when the fruit starts showing shades of pink, I've been picking to avoid a damaged fruit later on, unless I see it's perfect, then I'll let it hang.  I enjoy being surprised with my mix of heirlooms and this year is no different.  Part of the fun is identifying the heirloom.  I'm cheating a little since I grew this mix in years past and know what's in there.  So far, I see the Peach tomato, Black Krim, Fox Cherry, Amish Paste, Brandywine, Roman Stripe.  I have some difficulty identifying the huge brandywine-ish pink tomatoes.  I'll work on those.  All in all, so far a great year for the heirlooms. 

Saturday, July 28, 2012

The Painted Lady, Baby Bluebird, and Goldfinch

Painted Lady Butterfly

Baby Bluebird about to fledge
Back in May, I discovered hungry little caterpillars munching away at my echinops.   After a little investigative research, I discover it was the caterpillar of the Painted lady butterfly.  My discovery is in this post from June 1.  Yesterday, I finally saw the end of the metamorphosis -- the beautiful butterfly.  She was very difficult to photograph; shy and fast-moving.  When she sat down to feed, her wings nearly never opened and when they did, it was a quick open and shut.  Butterflies, bees, and birds are always welcome in my backyard. I call them "my staff."  Working hard and never taking a break, they are the great must-have pollinators.    The bluebird nest box has been in the garden for many, many years.  Each spring, the bluebirds make a nest and try to raise young, but each year they are challenged with sparrows destroying the nest.  One year, I found dead baby birds in the nest.  This year, three nests of eggs were destroyed with the exception of one lone egg which hatched and the baby was raised to a fledgling.  I was very excited to see him fly off into the world.  He was a special little baby this year.  His odds of survival were 1 in 15.  And he made it.  The goldfinches are enjoying themselves this year.  From two sunflower plants last year, at least 50 plants volunteered to grow on their own and I transplanted them at numerous places throughout the property.  The goldfinch are delighted to test each seed head and play around.  The backyard is bustling with activity -- what a delight to sit and watch.

Goldfinch

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard - Busy Kitchen

Pepper freezing time.
Fennel, squash, and a leek for soup.
One day's worth of harvest.
It's getting pretty hectic in the kitchen with all the produce in near-full production.  This past weekend was spent away from the garden, so when I checked things out Monday morning, boy was I surprised with all I found.  First, were the peppers.  I planted 29 peppers plants: 6 bells, 4 Nardello, 6 banana, 6 jalepeno, 6 Corno di Toro Rosso (heirloom - love them)  and 1 cayenne.  Needless to say, there a bunch of peppers ready to harvest and store.  My storage of choice is the freezer.  The peppers are cut into pieces in sizes we typically use for our recipes and frozen in freezer bags.  Simple as pie - no blanching needed.  To use, I just tap the frozen bag to loosen the pieces and dump out however many I need.  The remainder goes back to the freezer.  We've been doing this for years.   Now that the freezer is starting to fill up, I had to reorganize and found some butternut squash from last year.  So we've been trying to use up the last of the squash to make room for this year's harvests.   Most of the squash keeps for months in our 55-60 degree cellar.  But when it shows signs of getting old, I cook it and freeze it.  Squash was frozen in one-cup containers mashed for pies, custards, and cream soups; and also cubed for hearty soups and casseroles.  It worked quite well.   And the cucumbers!  Dang... not sure what to do with them all.  I'm trying some pickles and eating a cuke a day to keep the doctor away.  I'm not a fan of sour cream and cukes (I try not to eat dairy), so I've been eating them with hummus and salads, and also just raw as a snack.   Little did I know hubby doesn't like them!  I never knew that.  So next year the cukes are getting crossed off the list.  I can live without cucumbers.   The green beans need picked nearly daily.  We ate the first two harvests, but it's time to start cutting, blanching, and freezing.  That will likely happen this weekend.  Lastly, the sweet corn is coming in.    I planted three successions this year.  That means I'll have sweet corn into September.  We at the first dozen ears, so the next bunch will likely be blanched, cut from the cob with an electric knife, then frozen in freezer bags.    I'm grateful to have a neighbor with a huge chest freezer that invites me to use some space.  Otherwise, we'd have our own chest freezer because the freezer with the refrigerator isn't near big enough for all this produce.  Fun times!  

Monday, July 23, 2012

Harvest Monday - July 23, 2012

It was a good week:  green beans, peppers, cukes, a volunteer leek, some fennel, a handful of cherry tomatoes and corn.  But the pick of the week MUST be sweet corn - the highlight of the summer. Sweet corn ranks high on the summer harvest anticipation chart. It's up there with heirloom tomatoes and watermelon. This year, through the recommendation of fellow-bloggers and a couple facebook friends, Spring Treat is the variety of choice and it definitely did not fail. The kernels are crispy, sweet and not a worm/disease in sight. Excellent variety and one I'll stick with for a few years. With the dry weather we've been experiencing over the past month, I was skeptical on how the ears would develop. Luckily, my every-other-day watering came through and the ears were full of plump kernels. Only two ears had slightly scattered kernels and uneven rows. I'll take it! This first picking is small and will only be about two dozen ears total, but the 2nd and 3rd plantings will be much larger -- as much as 7 dozen each. The plan is to freeze a bunch of it. Hubby and I both made pigs of ourselves -- we LOVE sweet corn.    Daphne's Dandelions hosts Harvest Monday - thank you Daphne. Click here to see and read about 50-60 fellow Monday-harvesters. Fun to read.  And here's my harvest tally for the week:

Celery:  1/2 pound
Sweet Corn!:  3 pounds (7 ears)
Cucumbers:  8 pounds
Fennel: 1/2 pound
Mixed Greens: 1/4 pound (finished)
Leek: 1/4 pound
Green Beans: 3/4 pound
Onions:  1 - 1/4 pounds
Peppers: 3/4 pound
Potatoes: 3 1/2 pounds
Spinach: 1/2 pound
Tomatoes: 3/4 pound

Total vegetables:  20 pounds

Kentucky Wonder pole beans

From left to right: banana pepper, corno di toro rossi, nardello, and jalepeno peppers.

Spring Treat sweet corn. 

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Finally, Weather Relief

Most of the East Coast has been under the grips of unrelenting heat and in some areas, no rainfall for just about a month.  It's been taking its toll on the gardens.  Either the heat is making the cool weather crops stop growing (thus, we're pulling the crops), the dryness and lack of consistent moisture is causing stunted fruit development or tomato end-rot issues, or, the crazy, sudden thunderstorms bring torrential downpours and high winds that create havoc in the vegetable patch.  What freaky weather!  On Friday, we finally got some relief here in my little corner of the world in central Pennsylvania.  A slower, steady rain fell (about .80 of an inch) and the temperatures finally subsided back into the 70's.  The long range predictor has the temps in the 80's with some rainfall on occasion.  Possibly the rain dance is now working.   On tap now that the temps dropped and its a bit more comfortable to be outside working, is some fall seed planting.  Brussels sprouts, lettuces, carrots, and spinach are going into the ground this afternoon or Monday.  I have to prep a couple areas first.  The harvests right now aren't as labor intensive so there's a bit of time to do some other stuff.  The next big job is sweet corn which is about to start coming in.  I checked an ear last evening and at least 6 ears will be on the dinner table tonight.  I planted three successive plantings this year, so we'll have sweet corn for the next 6 weeks, at least.   I'm thanking the weather gods for the lovely temps and moisture.  There's nothing quite like a warm, summer, rainy day.   Beautiful.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

The Quickest, Easiest Backyard Dinner

You just can't wrong with serving a "dump" salad from the backyard.  My brother-in-law is visiting from Florida and last evening's dinner was whatever I could muster up from the garden.  Here's what it ended up being and included:

Ruby Swiss Chard,baby beet Greens, perpetual spinach, red torpedo onion, arcadia broccoli, icicle radish, nardello pepper, fox cherry tomato, celery, and nantes carrot salad.  All from the garden, all freshly picked an hour before dinner. 

It's really that simple.... just walk around and pick what appeals to you for in your salad.  Add some kidney beans, chickpeas, or black beans and you got yourself a well-rounded, nutritional meal.

Monday, July 16, 2012

Harvest Monday - July 16, 2012

Daphne's Dandelions hosts Harvest Monday whereby 50-60 fellow-backyard/patio/porch gardeners share their weekly harvests.  Click on her blog to see the others.  This was my lightest week of harvesting, but one of my busier weeks in the garden. It's onion time... which means about 400 onion plants will be pulled over the next month, cured on screens, then moved to the storage area. Like Daphne with the garlic (and others with onions), they won't be weighed until they head to storage or are cleaned for eating.  Red beets were turned into pickled red beets.  The process was just like my grandma's, complete with the hot-water bath canner.  6-quarts of pickled beets were the final tally.  I also harvested basil and rosemary for drying, and starting cleaning the already-dried thyme which is "time" consuming (pardon the pun), but no real weight is recorded for either.  And garden cleanup began to prep for fall planting.  All the broccoli was pulled and the area was cleaned up.  Compost was moved in but not yet spread.  The seeds were ordered:  only carrots, beets, spinach and lettuces -- all things hubby likes also.   The pick of the week is cucumbers, as you can see.  I believe I may have picked them slightly early because some of them were bitter.  I'll have to keep a watch on the flavor of the larger the pickles.  The exciting pick of the week was celery!  I never grew celery, so it was pretty exciting to pick my first bunch.   It was slightly small, but I needed some for bouillabaisse and wasn't going to go buy any with 12ish bunches growing.   Here's the final tally this week:

Carrots:  2 pounds
Celery:  .50 pound
Cucumbers:  4.25  pounds
Red Beets:  4 pounds
Peppers:   .50 pound
Swiss Chard:  .50 pound

Total Vegetables:  11.50 pounds



Sunday, July 15, 2012

Country Garden Crafts - Circa 1997-98

15-year old dried lavender
Thank you growitathome for reviving sleeping memories of days-gone-by from the backyard.  My post on drying herbs prompted some questions by Joelle that I hope I answered adequately in the comments and also on her blog, Grow It At Home.  But it also resurrected the remembrance of the little business I ran from the backyard many moons ago.  It was called Country Garden Crafts and revolved around dried herbs and flowers.  Back then, I grew few vegetables and focused on herbs - LOTS of herbs. My, how times have changed because I grow very few herbs and tons of vegetables these days.  Below is what I dried for wreaths, arrangements, edibles, cooking, moth chasers, soap (yup, I made the soap too), bug repellents, etc. etc.  Where did I find the energy and time while working full time?  The lavender in this picture still is as fragrant as the day it was picked.  I have this and some moth chaser mixture remaining, but that's about it.   I went to a few craft fairs and yes, folks loved this kind of thing.  But it was very time consuming for the little profit made, but still enjoyable. 

Dried herbs and flowers of years gone-by.:

All the Artemisias (there are hundreds):
Sweet Annie (still comes up from seed by itself after all these years)
Silver Queen
Silver King
Wormwood
Southernwood
(the above make good moth chasers too)
Lavender (used in potpourris, moth chasers, soap, and food - very versatile plant)
Tansy
Sunflowers
Straw flowers
Globe Amaranth
Crested Amaranth
Wheat Amaranth
Echinops
Lemon Balm
Many mints: Kentucky, spearmint, peppermint (luscious), mountain, horse, etc.
Thyme (several: lemon, transparent, english (for cooking)
Basil
Curly parsley
Rosemary
Dill
Fennel
Sage
Tarragon
Cilantro
Green and Silver Santolina (leaves and flowers)
Black-eyed Susans
Antique roses of all kinds (used the petals in potpourri and also in tea sandwiches)
Rose hips (for jam)
Peonys (dry beautifully..looks like a huge rose)

My memory escapes me surely, but these are the herbs and flowers I recall drying and using.  Have fun!

Friday, July 13, 2012

Onion Harvest 2012

And so the annual onion pulling begins. The tops fell on the sweet yellow Spanish onions so they are now all pulled and drying under the shade canopy. The tops of the Torpedo red and Candy varieties are not falling yet, but probably in a week or two. They will set under the canopy for about 3-4 weeks until the tops are completely dry. Then, I'll clean the tops off and put them in baskets to store in our 60 degree basement. That's slightly warm, but they should be ok. Last year we stored them in mid-August and had onions until February. It's onion season! Has anyone ever stored Candy? This is my first year growing that variety.


Thursday, July 12, 2012

Herb Drying




After discovering the beauty, ease, and affordability of growing your own herbs some 20 years ago, life just hasn't been the same.  That's when I first got the gardening bug and had hundreds of types of herbs.  Heck, I even placed second in a garden contest that year.  So you could say my roots are in herbs.  Our favorite culinary herbs are rosemary, thyme, parsley, oregano, basil and sage and they've been grown in the backyard, harvested, and dried in my 110 degree 2nd floor of a garage for going on 20 seasons now. Parsley is the only exception to air drying because I like to retain the brilliant green for in recipes and it tends to turn brown when air drying.  We used to dry parsley in the microwave and here's my post on that.  More recently, after a couple close calls with burnt parsley in the microwave, we've used the dehydrator (in picture) which works quite well.  I can't recall the last time I purchased any of these herbs. This week was herb drying week for rosemary and some purple basil.  I dried the thyme and oregano in the spring when it was at its peak (just before flowering).  The parsley also was dried early this year after last year's crop provided a 2nd year cutting.  The basil was getting ready to bloom so I picked a bunch now, but will pull the entire plants in the fall and dry the whole plant also.  Herbs are very, very easy to dry.  Just cut stems before blooming and lay in a single layer on screens and let dry in a 85 to 100+ degree attic or warm area.  They'll be dry in about a week.  I've had luck drying rosemary on a paper plate on top of a refrigerator also - it just takes a little longer.  The hard part is jarring the dried herbs.  Thyme, especially, is a practice in patience - for inpatient me anyway.  Each tiny dried leaf is stripped from each tiny stem to avoid stems or branches in the jar.  Very time consuming, but worth every time-consuming second.  The basil and oregano also is a joy to crumple in pasta in the middle of the winter.  Homegrown dried herbs are much, much more flavorful and worth the effort.

Monday, July 9, 2012

Harvest Monday - July 9, 2012

Once again, thank you to Daphne's Dandelions for hosting Harvest Monday whereby we all can see what's coming out of each others gardens.  I'm enjoying seeing the production as small as containers to community plots.  It's awesome to see everyone growing their own.  Nice job!  Broccoli still takes home the trophy for prized harvest of the week.  The final tally came in at 14.75 pounds for the week for a final spring harvest of 36 pounds of broccoli.  One of the heads this week weighed nearly 2 pounds.  I'd say that's a successful broccoli harvest this year and we're pleased.  All the plants were pulled because of the heat.  While the variety - Arcadia - is bolt-resistant, the buds still were larger than normal and I could see the shoots trying to bolt.  It was best to pull it all.  I noticed some of the stems were getting tough also, so I'm glad it's now all harvested.  I froze about 10 pounds altogether.  The remainder ended up in salads, soups, and steamed with slivered almonds.   The runner-up has to be red beets at 7.25 pounds and the surprise of the week is my first cucumber. Best of Show has GOT to be the 14 ounce "Candy" onion.  I don't believe I ever harvested an onion quite that large.  I have about 200 more that are looking like this one, so that'll be at least another 150 pounds of onions.  Woohoo!   Here's the tally for the week.

Broccoli - 14.75 pounds
Carrots - 1/2 pound
Cucumber - 1/4 pound
Mixed Greens - 1/4 pound
Beet Greens - 3/4 pound
Onions - 5.50 pounds
Potatoes - 4.0 pounds
Radishes - 3/4 pound
Red Beets - 7.25

Total Vegetables:   34 pounds




No fruit this week from the garden.  Although I found a bargain at the local Amish discount store and my mother and I froze 40 pounds of blueberries.  They were only $1.80 a pound and we felt that was a bargain enough to make the purchase.  My parents love eating frozen blueberries as do I.  Hubby prefers them in pancakes or muffins, so that's what he'll be getting with them.

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Still No Significant Rainfall But Plants Are Bearing Fruit

With over a week of 90 to 100 degree temperatures, winds, and threats of thunderstorms but nothing but a spritz or two, the gardens are screaming for water.  The hose has been getting a workout and I've been digging little holes at the base of most of the plants so the water can soak in.  The squash is on a slope, so I had to take extra measures to keep them moist because a south-facing slope tends to dry out a little quicker than flat land.  After the little trenches were dug on the high side of each plant, I put an extra layer of compost over top to help keep the moisture in.  I'm watering all the produce every-other-day.  I noticed once I started the regular watering (about two weeks ago), the blossoms on the plants burst into action and I'm seeing a bunch of young fruit.  Here's what's been showing up with the regular watering.  Keep rain dancing folks - its bound to help.
Roman Stripe Heirloom tomato


Another heirloom...not sure yet what this will be (I plant a "mix" on purpose to be surprised at what I get)

Yet another heirloom... from the looks of the shoulders, maybe a brandywine?

Amish paste heirloom tomato

I believe these will be the Peach heirloom tomatoes

Sweet Corn!  It needs a LOT of water

Pickles!  They too like water.

A Young Spaghetti Squash

Watermelon!  Can't wait for these  babies.  We are sooooo hungry for watermelon but won't pay the going price in our area of about $5.00 a melon.  WAY too much.  Watermelon likes a bunch of water too.

Butternut squash

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Pickled Red Beets

The Gardener of Eden hosts "Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard" whereby folks share what they are doing with their harvests and otherwise in the kitchen.  There's always good info there... thank you Gardener of Eden.  I've mentioned this recipe and cookbook numerous times throughout the years, but both are worth repeating.  My go-to cookbook for using up the garden harvest is Simply in Season.  I find myself nearly always reaching for this book first because of the layout of recipes by the four seasons and what's being harvested that season.  The index is also organized by produce.  It's a must-have cookbook if you plan to eat from the back yard. When red beet season is here, I always turn to the pickled red beet egg recipe.  I first wrote about it here in 2009.  Everyone just loves this recipe.  So here it is again.  Enjoy.

Cooking beets: Scrub 4 quarts beets. Leave on tails and 2-3 inches of tops. Place beets in tall pot. Add water to halfway up beets. Boil until fork tender - 1-2 hours. Drain and set aside beet juice. Run cold water over beets while sliding off skins with hand - the skins slide very easily, but guaranteed, your hands will be stained. Slice or dice beets as preferred.

3 cups white vinegar
2-1/2 cups brown sugar
2 cups beet juice
1 cinnamon stick
6 whole cloves
1-1/2 teaspoon salt
Combine in a pot, add sliced or diced beets and bring to a boil. Boil 3-5 minutes. Cool. Beets may be kept covered and refrigerated for 4-6 weeks. Or place hot beets and liquid into hot canning jars and seal with sterilized lids and rings. Process either pints or quarts in boiling water bath for 30 minutes. Add hard boiled eggs to mixture as desired, but do not store eggs with beets -- the eggs will not keep as long as the beets.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Surveying the Gardens - Taking Measures To Combat the Heat

The temps have been in the low to mid-nineties now for over a week and there's no relief at least until early next week and that relief is upper eighties.  No rain is predicted except for spotty thunderstorms.  The rain dance outfit is singing a tune.  Please bring some moisture Mother Nature.   Tonight, the hose got a three-hour workout and that won't stop now until the rains come.  With three fairly large beds and my anal way of watering (I won't use a sprinkler, don't have a soaker hose, and I water at the base of every plant for a minute or so so the moisture soaks in well), the watering won't stop because by the time I'm done with all three beds, it's time to go back and start over.  But it was a good time to get up close and personal with the plants and take a survey on what's going on with them.  The most noticeable and exciting observance is the heirloom tomatoes.  I plant a "mix" on purpose to be surprised at what I'm going to get. Heirlooms are so much fun.  It's also fun trying to identify what they are.  Three years ago, I ended up with Roman Stripe, Peach, Black Krim, Fox Cherry, an unidentified huge orange tomato, and a yellow semi-small tomato I also couldn't identify.  It appears I'm going to have more roman stripes (loved them - great for slicing and drying), and I believe the Peach tomato is in the mix also.  Gonna be a great tomato year as long as the late blight stays away (no signs yet).  I also noticed how the bean varieties differ in stalk strength.  The soybeans, for example, are very sturdy and stand straight up at attention.  There's no leaning or lying over -- just straight up and strong.   But the limas in comparison, are all lying over (they are a bush variety).  The same with the kidney beans vs the black beans:  the kidneys are wobbly but the blacks are fairly sturdy.  Interesting.  I also noticed my homemade composted horse manure/grass clipping mulch is doing a great job at keeping the moisture in but I have to cut a hole in it to GET the moisture in.  It acts like a barrier and the water runs off.  So I dig a little hole at the base of the plant to make sure the water gets in.  I noticed it most in the tomatoes... I watered a couple days ago but today they were stressed from lack of water.  Apparently the water didn't penetrate the mulch enough. The winter squash are everywhere.  They are vining like crazy and I'm going to have a ton of squash.  There's spaghetti, butternut, and sweet dumpling squash.  I'd wager I'll harvest 500 pounds total.  I don't think I'll have any problem hitting the 1,000 pound harvest marker.  Dang.  The broccoli is holding up quite well in the heat -- I'm surprised.  I have about a dozen heads I'm nurturing to maturity with a cool dose of water every other day.   And how are YOUR gardens surviving the heat?

Monday, July 2, 2012

Harvest Monday - July 2, 2012 - A Week of Broccoli

The harvest-of-the-week is broccoli.  We totaled 13.5 pounds this week with two of the largest heads weighing in at 1.5 pounds each.  The variety is Arcadia for those interested in huge heads.  Here's the tally for the week:

Broccoli  - 13.5 lbs.
Carrots - 2.5 lbs.
Mixed Greens - .75 lb
Beet Greens - .25 lb
Onions - 4 lbs.
Sugar Peas - .75 (finished)
Snap Peas - 1.75 (finished)
Red Potatoes - 3.5 lbs
Red Beets - 1.75
Total Vegetables:  28.75 (highest yield thus far this year)

Fruit: Black Raspberries - 1.75 quarts (just about finished)

Next week may be a light harvest being between the spring and summer crops.  The beans are flowering as are the cucumbers, so it's possible I might have a pickle or two by the end of the week.  There's a couple peppers and green tomatoes.   The cantelope, watermelon, and squash vines are doing their thing and vining everywhere.  All have beautiful flowers on them and the bees are busy loading up with pollen.   Thank you bees for all your hard work.  I'll continue to have swiss chard, spinach, carrots, and potatoes as needed for the rest of the summer.  Radishes also have been sucessively planted so they should be ready and waiting whenever I want salad or something different.  The same with the red beets. The onions are bulbing up nicely and will likely be pulled in about a month.  The celery is also maturing well.  Oh, and the zuchinni is getting ready to flower also.  I planted a late crop of dumpling squash and cucumbers to make use of the pea fence.  It seemed a waste not to use it for something.  In about a month, I'll plant the fall crops.  Red beets and carrots are on the top of the list.  Not sure of what else since the spinach and chard will continue to grow well into December.  I may do another crop of broccoli. I'm sooooo enjoying retirement (retired full-time in February) and growing our food.  Life is good.