Harvest

It's a beautiful weekend. Windows are open and I am starting to see hints of Fall coming our way.

Remember last year's post at about this same time?

Cammie and Justin are home this weekend. Tomatoes and peppers are a-plenty so here are the plans for this weekend:

• Cammie and I are canning pepper jelly (recipe in my Ball Blue Book), two different batches, habanero and chipotle. This jelly is great on Rosemary oatmeal crackers
• Making White Bean Tomato Salad.
• Mixing up Sassafras Iced Tea

White Bean Tomato Salad

• 1 can of Cannellini, Navy or Great Northern beans, rinsed and drained
• 2 beautiful tomatoes, diced
• 2 T. olive oil
• 1 t. lemon juice
• 2 t. white wine vinegar
• 1 t. minced garlic
• Salt and pepper to taste
• A little chopped flatleaf parsley

Gently mix the beans and tomatoes together in a medium sized bowl. Stir together the next four ingredients in a small jar or bowl, then pour over tomatoes and beans. Mix gently and let sit for five minutes. Add salt and black pepper, then taste; if your beans do not have much salt, you may find it needs more.

 "Hints of Fall" out in the yard, early this morning.

The Carousel Barberry is starting to change colors on the end. It will be a brilliant sight when the whole bush is a flame.

The Copper Frost Birch is also starting to show some color.

The bark peels and becomes salmon colored later in the Fall.

  

Sedum will bloom this week.

Black-eyed Susans thriving

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This is my favorite. The Heavenly Blue Morning Glory vine will bloom until the snow kills it. I am eagerly waiting for blooms to appear. When it does bloom, it will deserve a dedicate post of it's own.

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Simply Salad

These sprouts are Simply Salad Alfresco seeds from Stokes.

The seeds were planted one week ago in the 24"w x 8"h terra cotta pot.

This seed is a multi-seed pellet which means 3 seeds are encapsulated in a pellet that breaksdown in the soil. The pellet is easier to plant because it is uniform in size and larger than the individual seed.

A pack of seeds is about $5.75.

See how all the sprouts are closer to the center. At a later date, I could plant more seeds around the outside and keep the "age" of the plants varied. We will have lettuce all summer long.

These seeds will be ready to harvest in about 3 weeks.

It will look like below when it is ready to cut and eat.

The greatest thing is how decorative it is. Looks good on the patio AND will give you many, many salads.

I grow multiple containers whose planting is staggered.

Each time you cut salad greens, cut it about 2 inches from the dirt. 

It will continue to regrow.

To add to the salad for flavor, I grow flat leaf parsley on the edge of the patio.

I planted a black plastic pot in the ground filled with good soil.

You know why I use the pot?

 So Don would not think it was a weed and mow over it.

I 'll leave you with a picture of the pink Naked Lady lillies.

They go from under the dirt to this picture in 5 days.

They are called Naked Lady because the leaves of the plant grow in Spring, then wilt and die.

A few weeks later, the flower grows out of the ground.

 

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