Shakshuka is a Mediterranean/North African dish that uses a lot of bell peppers in the tomato sauce. We had frozen slices of bell peppers from the last harvest this year before first frost. Yum!
So, in spite of rain all day and temperatures in the 30s F, I went out and cut all the plants. That’s the giant pile of cut basil on an overflowing Rubbermaid tub and assorted cut off pepper plants nearby. The rest of the day was getting basil leaves off the stems. The basil stems were so big I had to use the loppers to cut them at the base.3608 grams of basil leaves. This is 7.95 pounds. Yes, we did tare the tub weight. Yes, it is a lot of basil. No, I don’t even know what’s going to happen. LeafhopperTrue bug nymphJumping spiderPraying mantisWe had several little friends come in on the basil. All were released back into the shelter of adjacent plants outside.
Paula made refried beans with bolas maycoba beans from last year as well as some Rancho Gordo beans of some variety. The Chef made a pepper hot sauce from all the ripe Chimayó chile peppers in the garden plus everything pepper leftover in the freezer, including farm share jalapeños, two year old poblanos from the garden, and assorted mystery peppers.
Heath asters were buzzin‘!Common Eastern bumblebees were all over both the Heath asters and these Liatris mucronata. Wooly bear!Marigolds doing well around the sweet peppers. A close up of the same marigolds. They really thrive in the fall.
Paula and The Chef collaborated on tonight’s dinner. Larb (or laab) is a meat salad. We used the lettuce leaves as little scoops/wraps and put rice with each scoop. Very tasty. From the garden, the larb contained Chimayó peppers and mint. It was delicious.
I got very behind on the garden and the blog the last few weeks with my household humans on a trip. The cats said they needed feeding and it just kept happening! The long skinny peppers in the colander are Corbaci peppers. The upper left conical red one is an Apple Pepper (I assume it’s named for the shape). The lower left orange one was California Wonder bell. The lower right brown one is a Chocolate Bell. Some peppers, like these apple peppers, were at a stage where I’ve just extracted their seeds to save. Mom made a delicious dish of veggies, pasta, and beans for dinner during her and Dad’s visit! From the garden, it had apple peppers and California Wonder peppers (both sweet bell-ish types) in it, as well as fresh basil and oregano.
Garden ingredients are garlic, saffron and Corbaci pepper. All other veggies except carrots were from the farm share. Shrimp and rice from the grocery store.
Briar helpfully alerted me to a potential friend carefully crossing the back fence today! What a magnificent neighbor. Turns out a few peach flowers survived. The ones with dropped petals are quite striking with pale tips over maroon backgrounds!I believe this is the annual (?) Cardamine sp from nearby seeded into the prickly pear planter. Abby has kindly identified this as a human-introduced species Armeria serpyllifolia, thyme-leaved sandwort. It isn’t from North American originally but doesn’t seem to dramatically disturb the landscape. This one may be an introduced chickweed. But a fuzzy one, not Stellaria media. More baby inland sea oat seedlings in a second pot!myMultiple baby native Rosa sp from Fannin Co TX. Thanks Mom!This seems big enough to be the persimmon I actually planted??Seedlings in false gaura pot, but not sure they look right. Oklahoma penstemon given to me by a kind fellow Norman citizen!Maybe smartweed amongst the Chenopodium. We shall see. A Datura maybe?? The label fell out of this pot. Anybody recognize this seed?I am informed the mustard leaf garnish is from garden and that the soup contains poblanos from last year from the freezer.