Pull weeds, can tomatoes, stuff peppers

  • By Kyle Valentini
  • August 14, 2012
  • 342
                        
Summary: Late summer rewards the gardener with a few mundane tasks but also with juicy tomatoes to can, freeze or dry and peppers to stuff. Autumn will be here before we know it but there is still time to spend in the garden. Unfortunately most of the tasks left are in the form of weeding and clean-up. With cooler temperatures on the way time spent on these mundane tasks is not nearly as dreadful as it would have been in the heat of the past month. July was so hot and dry I forgot I even had a garden. When I finally made my way back to it, it was full of weeds. Weed pulling is simplified after it has rained as the roots come up a lot easier. Pulling eliminates the need to hoe and the risk of reseeding, something weeds do remarkably well. Grasp the weed as close to the soil line as possible and it should come up relatively easy. Some plants with tap roots might need to be pried up. Some gardeners compost weeds. I don’t. Enough of them find their way into the garden as it is. I don’t want to risk adding any more. You’ve obviously got vegetables to harvest this time of year. My neighbors on both sides have tomatoes rotting on the vine and it begs one to wonder why they planted them in the first place. Vine-ripened doesn’t mean rotten so get the tomatoes in and make sauce to can freeze. Another option for preserving fresh-from-the-garden tomatoes is drying. Once dry they are easy to store and impart a flavor unlike a raw or cooked tomato. An inexpensive electric dehydrator does the job but so does the oven set on the lowest setting. If the weather is sunny and not too humid, tomatoes can be dried outdoors where they will earn the right to be called sun-dried. My peppers were abundant this year. We typically eat them raw in salads, on sandwiches or slow cooked with something delightful stuffed inside. With three vegetarians in the house and only one omnivore I generally opt for meat-free stuffed peppers. The surprise of the season was mascarpone and parmesan stuffed Hungarian wax peppers in tomato sauce. Wow. I never imagined a tub of cheese nearing its expiration date and usually reserved for sweet dishes could be so unbelievably good in a pepper. There is still time to put in a few rows of greens like spinach, lettuce or some spicy arugula. Plant in succession so it all doesn’t come in at once and you’ll have fresh salad until November or even late if you put up a row cover. By now the basil plants have gone to seed but there are plenty of leaves for harvest. I never dry basil because drying makes it taste like parchment paper. Freezing basil can makes it turn black and ugly. One way to freeze it for later use in cooked dishes is to freeze it in ice cube trays in a bit of white wine or vermouth. It doesn’t turn black and when added to a pot of sauce the wine adds a nice bit of flavor as well. Although we have had weather incidents masquerading as rain there is still a need to water to make sure the garden is getting at least one inch of water per week.


Loading next article...

End of content

No more pages to load