Good News!

Have you heard? The Tower Grove Farmers' Market is being extended an extra two weeks to give everyone a chance to get the produce that is still being harvested. According to the weatherman, the rest of the month is expected to stay 15 degrees above normal. That gives us all a few more weeks to enjoy fresh, local, naturally-grown produce.

Come by and get some for yourself this weekend!

Fall is here!

Fall has arrived and we're enjoying the cooler weather. The flowers are still in full bloom and we're happily bringing in beautiful bouquets to brighten up the house. You can pick up a bouquet for yourself at the market. Bonnie has been doing a wonderful job making the arrangements in assorted colors.

It's been a very hectic summer but the harvest has been pretty good in all of the gardens. The tomatoes have been wonderfully delicious and most of the varieties are still producing. The okra went crazy this summer and are still covered in blooms to be enjoyed every morning. The cooler weather has slowed them down a bit, but they're still producing. The rainbow swiss chard is looking beautiful again. The bugs are finally leaving it alone.

It's finally time to harvest the sweet potatoes. We have two different varieties this year. Danny and Bonnie began digging them last Friday. If you had a savory crepe at Oh Crepes this past weekend, you got to enjoy some of them! This evening, I tried to duplicate the same mixture and filled tostada shells with it. It was delicious!

If you'd like to try it, come by our stand on Saturday and pick up some freshly dug sweet potatoes, an assortment of peppers and swiss chard. Then saute some chopped onions in a little olive oil, add chopped peppers (whatever kind you prefer) and cubed sweet potatoes. Cover pan and allow to cook on medium heat until sweet potatoes are tender. Add chopped swiss chard and cook just until chard begins to reduce. Sprinkle with sea salt to taste. Use this mixture to fill a tortilla shell and fold over. Then enjoy for yourself!

If you haven't had the pleasure of enjoying our heirloom watermelons this summer, you'd better hurry. The Sugar Baby variety is gone now, but we still have the Desert King's. It's a deliciously sweet yellow variety with big black seeds. Bonnie picked the last of them and I'll be bringing them with me this weekend.

It's not too late to fill your freezer with tomatoes for the winter. We have 20 different varieties and they all freeze very well. Just wash, cut in half, take out the core and fill freezer bags with them, squeeze out as much air as you can and put in the freezer. Then take them out as you need them all winter. I love cooking with them. They taste like you just picked them from the garden.

There are only 3 markets left at the Tower Grove Farmers' Market. Don't miss out! Hope to see you there soon!

I've been told it's time for an undate.....

So much has happened since my last post. The summer market is over, the Harvest Festival on October 24th was a success. Our whole family went to the market that day. The boys kept me very busy the day before making muffins. Nate had a ball selling them. It took him all day, but by the end he didn't have a single muffin left. Now he can hardly wait for the opening day of the market in the spring, he wants to do it all over again.

We were happy that we had fresh, ripe produce for the market right to the end. As each thing ended, Danny had something new starting to produce. The last day we still had swiss chard, kale, bok choy, Michihili chinese cabbage, green and purple beans, tomatoes, potatoes and more.

If the chickens leave the gardens alone, we will even have fresh greens for the first winter market next Saturday, Novemeber 14th.

We had enough of a frost a couple weeks ago to put an end to most of the summer veges, but the winter veges love the cooler weather. The excess of rain in October made it impossible to harvest the last of the beans, they could only pick the one outside row. Bonnie said every time they tried to step in any of the rows they sunk. Danny tried putting boards down to walk on, but they sunk, too. We had such a productive fall harvest of beans that we didn't feel too bad about it.

Since the end of the market season, the boys and I have been concentrating on schoolwork. I'm still playing catch-up on grading and logging their schoolwork and trying to organize everything.

Danny finally has time to do some projects around here and work with the boys on school projects.

Were all happy to have a break from the gardens for a while...before we know it the gardens will dry out and it will be time to clean them up and put them to bed for the winter.

Hope everyone's enjoying the beautiful fall weather this week!

The bounty continues!

Do you like the pictures? They give you just a little glimpse of what the gardens are like this year.

Right now, everywhere you look there seems to be something that needs to be picked. The okra is growing like crazy. It's well over our heads. Mom & Bonnie picked it again this evening & they said they had to reach way up to get it. I'll be bringing lots of it to the market this weekend.

The cucumbers are all finished now. Danny pulled up the last of the vines this evening & took down the trellis & t-posts. He tilled up the whole area around it & started hilling up new rows to get ready to plant more lettuce & spinach.

The tomatoes are still producing quite well, although certain varieties seem to be about finished for the year. We have a new variety that started producing this week. It's a yellow cherry tomato that came up on it's own in the front flower bed. They're delicious, I'm hoping to be able to bring some to the market Saturday. (If I can keep the kids from eating them all.) That makes our 18th variety of heirloom tomatoes for this year.

Are you hungry for zucchini? The new row of plants started producing last week. There are several varieties & they look really pretty together. I'll bring extra of my Zucchini Muffin Mix this weekend to go along with it. (I ran out last weekend, sorry if you missed out.)

The cantaloupes & honeydews are gone now, but the watermelons are going strong. They were all so delicious this year. Mom was telling us this evening that she just heard you have to have really good soil to get a good tasting melon. Since this is the first time we've planted in that particular garden plot, we feel very appreciative that it was so rich & provided us & so many others with such wonderful melons. We thought our favorite variety of watermelon was the White Wonder, but tonight Bonnie talked us into trying a Sugar Baby. It's a red variety & every bit as delicious.

The amaranth is beginning to flower. It's not as tall as we expected, but I guess that will make it easier to harvest. We have to wait until after the first frost.

Our second biggest producer right now is the beans. The Fortex green beans and the Chinese Long Red Noodle Beans are way up over the 8ft trellis & are covered in beans as well as blooms. The new rows of bush beans are all covered with blooms & should begin producing any day now.

All the flowers in the front flower beds and in the garden are covered in bright, beautiful flowers. The zinnias are a rainbow of color & the cosmos is a whole variety of pastel pinks & purples, now that the onslaught of Japanese Beetles is over. The lack of beetles has also allowed the Marigolds in the gardens to break out in blooms. They are a bright splash of color among all the shades of green in the gardens.

Fall is in the air now, I'll keep you posted as things continue to change.