End of year wrap-Up

I can't believe it is September already! I consider this gardening year a success. The harvest was turned into several pans of Eggplant Parmigiana. Three different types of pesto is packed into the freezer, a tangy lemon that is great on fish and in tartar sauce, a sun-dried tomato-basil is tasty on pizza and toast! And a good old genovese pesto. Will be using pesto for a very long time, a taste of summer in the middle of winter. Pickles, the lemon cucumbers choked out allot of my pickling cukes. Lesson learned. But lots of lemon cucumber bread and butter pickles with banana peppers. Refrigerator pickles, cucumber and zucchini dill slices. And lots of sandwiches with salt and lite mayo. The Zucchini had allot of blossom rot, but I still got allot because I was greedy and planted way too much. Fried Zucchini, pickled zucchini, breads with chocolate, pineapple, orange and walnuts, loaves of labeled bread in freezer along with muffins of each kind. And several loaves have been given away, and allot of fresh picked was given away. Cookies where made also, a Intense Chocolate Zucchini Ancho Chili. Still working on the recipe. Lots still bagged in the freezer. And a few meals of zucchini potato rosemary pancakes, those are the best! Made lots because they freeze well and I love to share those with people because they are so good. Banana peppers grew nicely I mixed them in with pickles to add a little heat. I made cowboy candy with the little hot chili peppers and banana's. I have a beautiful thick long string of cayenne peppers drying. A bunch of sage drying. And a tray of little red hot chili's drying. Roma tomatoes all came in the house along with the big boys. Four heaping flats under the grow lights, as the ripen I have been dehydrating them with sea salt. Packing them into jars with sprigs of rosemary and olive oil. I will have at least a dozen jars to add to gift baskets. I love using them in sauces and just to top on things. Beans, lots and lots of beans went to my Mom and brother, I pickled them, made dilly beans. And made a few jars of Spicy Bloody-Mary Beans, I used the beans that grew too big to eat. A nice spicy garnish for cocktails and the juice is good in Bloody Mary's. I picket over a dozen ice-cream buckets of both yellow and green beans. I only like young yellow beans, blanched and then finished in butter , sautéed onions and creme. What herbs I could bring in I have growing in the windows and the counter island, I have a grow bulb in that light. Both my parsley's failed this year, the only reason I can think of was the dirt, it was pretty rich, a few herbs did not do well, the fragile ones. But rosemary and basil are always winners. Used up all the dill and I will never be able to use all the chives I now have. I lost my carrots, a few but not all, I probably can still go out and dig I will find. Beets and feta, beet relish, a nice crop of beets. Even made a good size pot of Borscht. so frozen bags of that for a cold winter night. We ate peas and snow peas. I think that about covers the main garden. The Gourd wall has a dozen of the same kind of gourd, and then yesterday I found a new kind, scared the shit right out of me! It is long with a bulb at the end, at first I thought it was a snake! now it looks like a pod from another planet. Wait till the vines die to pick those. One lone Banana squash growing still, it's a winter one, let it grow for awhile longer. Atlantic Giant Pumpkin, at least I have one! And it is getting big, starting to turn orange now, I can't lift it, I would say it is about 75 pounds. It will be fun to carve and roast the seeds. 

The flowers this year grew and grew and grew. My Cosmo wall was thick and tall full of orange flowers that got really boring. A few weeks ago a rogue purple one started blooming and that was pretty. The sunflowers all came tumbling down during a storm, no more giants, The Teddy bears did so well, they are still blooming and several bouquets have been brought in the house. The wildflower mix grew beautifully, lots of poppy's, and the day lily's bloomed nicely. My moon-flower is huge and thick with no flowers! Still looks pretty. Everything looked really nice, it still does. I have flowers still blooming. And I have a three foot high stack of flowers that are being pressed. I even stuffed nasturtiums with a goat cheese pesto one night for a snack, that was MMMMmmmm.
Success!!!