{"id":14119,"date":"2024-10-17T13:17:09","date_gmt":"2024-10-17T20:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/?p=14119"},"modified":"2024-10-17T13:33:23","modified_gmt":"2024-10-17T20:33:23","slug":"first-frost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/2024\/10\/first-frost\/","title":{"rendered":"first frost"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

First frost last night. Today’s weather was sunny and beautiful though! A very energizing combination. We got a lot done around the yard today. I really like this time of year. When the garden stops producing so much, I can pay more attention to each plant that remains. Noticing their colors and forms, remembering when I planted them, imagining what recipes I want to try, what I’ll need to preserve, how long until harvest, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I harvested a lot of tomatillos today. The plants were frost-damaged, but the fruits were ready. I’ll make salsa verde. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There’s fennel, chard, leeks. Potatoes underground. For flowers, marigolds and borage, a few cosmos flowers. And a wheelbarrow full of squash from the community garden plot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t cook a lot with fennel, but I like the taste. I’ll need to do some research to find out how to use these still-fresh bulbs. I should be able to do something with the fronds, but I never used the bag of fronds I froze one year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fennel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Chard will last awhile. The plants always grow huge. At some point in early fall, I clean them up, removing dead lower leaves and stalks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Chard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Leeks are very hardy. They will stay until late November or early December. I love to make potato leek soup from the garden in late fall. In previous years, I harvested a whole bunch of leeks at once. It’s a very dirty process because so much wet, cold dirt clings to their roots. This year, I’ll try to pull up one or two on an as-needed basis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Leeks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Lots of marigolds – should I dye with them or just save the seeds? There’s a horseradish leaf in this photo. Should I dig horseradish this year? I think yes. It is horrendous to process it because the fumes are so strong. But it makes a nice gift, plus it’s tasty. It spreads vigorously so if I don’t dig up the roots, it kind of takes over. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Marigolds<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Some of these squash looked a little frost-kissed, but I think they’ll be okay. The butternuts are mostly huge. And the Blue Hubbards are massive! I’ve always wanted to grow them. What am I going to do with those huge Blue Hubbards? I’m imagining roasting one of them whole in the oven and serving it on a platter at Thanksgiving. Probably not the most convenient way to serve it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t know why this year was a great year for winter squash. I didn’t really do anything different. It must have been the pattern of weather and watering that made them grow like that. I put some of my pumpkins around the yard and driveway for decoration because they are not so tasty. I’ve got to build up my recipe file for squash dishes. I use an app called Paprika 3 for recipes – I love it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Wheelbarrow full of squash<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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First frost last night. Today’s weather was sunny and beautiful though! A very energizing combination. We got a lot done around the yard today. I really like this time of year. When the garden...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14114,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-garden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14119"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14123,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14119\/revisions\/14123"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gemtactics.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}