In the garden

I'm a little sad. Our fruit cocktail tree is nearly finished producing for the year. On the positive side, the fruit has been delicious and we're still enjoying it.

The first to ripen was the Blenheim apricots. What we didn't eat fresh, we dried and froze.


Blenheim apricots

The Independence nectarines were next and they ripened about a week earlier than expected. That's okay, we were ready for them. I turned a bunch of them into a cobbler.


Nectarine Cobbler

The Santa Rosa plums are the last to ripen and they're really delicious. They're so juicy, I have to eat them over the sink. Seriously.


Santa Rosa plums and one nectarine

I used the cobbler recipe above and made plum compote. We've been spooning it over pound cake and also mixing it with yogurt. This weekend I used it to make a Red, White, and Blueberries dessert.


Red, white, and blueberries

I picked most of the remaining plums tonight, saving them from the pesky birds and furry varmints.


Santa Rosa Plums

In other garden news, we picked the first tomato of the season today, an Amish Paste tomato. This plant was a surprise as it was self-seeded from last year's crop.


First tomato of 2014

The heirloom tomato plants are doing really well. It seems like they're growing 2 inches per day. We need to corral them into the cages about every other day. Each plant has flowers, so the heirlooms are weeks away.


Heirloom Tomato Plants

7 is a good number

In the blink of an eye (or so it seemed) more artichokes are ready. They're small and tender. Get the steamer going!


7 Artichokes

I'm trying not to get too excited, but the Bartlett pears look good. Last year we had high hopes and they all fell off. Fingers crossed.


Bartlett Pears

Let's eat!

Artichokes are popping up like crazy. We counted 6 on one plant! The good thing is they're not going to be ready to eat all at once, but it won't be long before we have them a few times a week.

This one is ready to be picked.


Ready for the pot

These need a little more time in the sun.


Backyard artichoke


A trio of artichokes

Let's not forget about the apricots. I'm sure the squirrels haven't.


Blenheim Apricot

First spring weekend

Nature marches forward in the garden. The pollinators are out.


Pollinating Bearss Lime Blossoms

The flowers that covered the fruit cocktail tree 2 weeks ago have moved on to the next stage.


Blenheim Apricots

And these plants decided to wait until the official start of spring before revealing their progress.


Artichoke


Fuji Apple


Bartlett Pear

Spring Forward

Our backyard is coming to life with this year's goodies. What's happening in your garden?

The fruit cocktail tree is blossoming on all fronts.


Independence Nectarine


Blenheim Apricot


Santa Rosa Plum

Last year we almost lost our peach graft in a pruning incident, but it's fighting back.


Gold Dust Peach

The Meyer Lemon tree has another crop ripening.


Meyer Lemons

And our raised bed has one plant that has been going strong through the winter.


Parsley

Our garden had a party

Hey look, it's a non-HKF post!

Our garden was quite happy this summer. We had more tomato plants than before and we also planted beans and artichokes. Because the artichoke seeds were planted late, we didn't expect much but we were pleasantly surprised. Without further ado, here'a a parade of photos that shows some of what our garden produced.

July

This is the plant that didn't do much last year. This year it's producing like gangbusters.

Jalapeño peppers


Santa Rosa Plums

We picked our first Sungold, Purple Brandywine, and Amish Paste tomatoes in the last week of July.

First tomatoes

The tomato plants and pole beans were easily over 6 feet tall.

Tomatoes and Beans

Surprise! There's an artichoke in the center of all of these leaves.

First artichoke

We weren't the only ones who enjoyed the Santa Rosa plums.

Bird treat

August

That didn't take long.

It's really an artichoke!

It was delicious.

So fresh

Here's a giant German Stripe heirloom that resembled a small pumpkin. When it was ripe, it weighed over 1-1/2 pounds.

German Stripe heirloom tomato


Beans and Tomatoes

We picked tomatoes every 3-4 days.

First sizeable harvest


A bounty of tomatoes


More artichokes


Tomatoes


Garlic


More tomatoes

We picked our one and only chocolate pepper in August. Maybe the plant will do better next year.

Fruit and vegetables


Tomatoes

With so many tomatoes, we made BLATs (bacon, lettuce, avocado, tomato) sandwiches, Tomato Bisque, salads, and more salsa.

Fresh salsa


Tomatoes

September

The garden really slowed down in September. We don't expect many more tomatoes after these--

The last of the tomatoes and beans

We bought a dehydrator to help preserve the harvest. We dried about 10 pounds of tomatoes, and these apples and figs. This unit will come in handy with next year's fruit.

Figs and Fuji Apples


Dried fruit snacks

That's it! Thanks for staying with me through all the HKF posts.

In the garden

The zucchini has been producing... sort of. For every 2 or 3 good zukes, we have 1 with Blossom End rot. It's a good thing we have 3 plants this year. So far the volume has been manageable.


Hit and miss

Last year we planted a jalapeno pepper plant and thought we'd have a salsa garden. Well, it didn't quite work out that way, our peppers and tomatoes didn't ripen at the same time, and the cilantro plant never took off. This year is different.


Salsa ingredients

After adding some white onion and lime juice, we had salsa in a matter of minutes.


Garden Salsa

Delicious!


Garden Salsa

The netting only keeps the squirrels and birds away from some of the fruit. They ate almost half of this nectarine. We kept it in place because it seemed that while they were able to eat this "forbidden fruit", they left the rest of the tree alone.


Sacrificial Nectarine

The very next day I checked on the sacrificial nectarine and this is what I saw.


That didn't work

I admit, I was a little frightened. I picked as much fruit as I could.


Garden harvest

It wasn't enough for jam, but I had plenty to try a new recipe, Apricot-Nectarine-Almond Clafouti.


Clafouti


Clafouti


Clafouti

It's basically fruit, custard, and almonds. It's quite good and we preferred to eat it cold with tea or coffee.


Clafouti

Then I made this quick and easy cobbler. Don't be fooled by the dark color, the biscuits are cooked perfectly in the middle.


Nectarine Cobbler

Remember these little beans?


Kentucky Wonder Bean

That was 20 days ago. Now they look like this.


Kentucky Wonder Bean

We fixed them a la Mark Bittman's Green Beans with Crisp Shallots recipe and they were fantastic! Good thing, we're going to have plenty more this summer.


Kentucky Wonder Bean