out with the old
12 Sep
This weekend we got rid of most of the summer plants; a full growing season now pretty much behind us. Dismantled the beans and their makeshift trellis, chopped down everything that was in the self-irrigating planters (plan to write about our success – failures? – with the SIPs later), and pulled up the dried-out tomatoes and bell peppers. It was rather cathartic.
We lugged home a huge bag of dried beans in their pods, shelled them and put them in glass jars for keeping till winter. I felt like the Ingalls family, yes! (My secret childhood fantasy was to live in a log cabin. Instead I grew up in a listless east-of-L.A. suburb.)
Did I ever post any photos of the sage? We started them from seed and ended up with two. I’m not sure why we chose sage, considering it’s usually used in stews and soups and, um, it’s summer. I was reading up on companion planting at one point, and vaguely remember that sage and carrots are friends. Maybe that’s why. Then I remembered I didn’t even like carrots and pulled them up a few weeks into the season. Next year: Grow stuff you’ll actually enjoy eating.
Anyway, we are now drying stalks of sage. For what? Not sure.
Finally, our last bell pepper. Too cute to eat. Our peppers were all so small.
I had to take down our beans last Friday… mostly due to a crazy aphid attack!! Bittersweet. Well, hopefully next year I’ll be armed and ready to fight :) I saw a great recipe for using dried herbs in making your own sugar or salt mixes and herb infused oils and vinegars in Gayla Trail’s book Grow Great Grub.
Hi, Connie! Lucky me, you stumbled upon my blog. I’ve been pretty lucky this week finally discovering gardeners who blog and Twitter. {I do love to cook, too, but playing outside is more fun!}
The beans are gorgeous, and the sage, of course. Cute pepper!
Now you got me all excited about self-watering planters. Let me click on that!