Food Gardening Magazine • September 2021
By Kim Mateus
There are a few ways to think about the changing seasons. As summer slips into fall here in the Northern hemisphere, we can see and taste the literal fruits of our work. Our gardens are a study in abundance and joy. Those late summer vegetables are bursting with flavor and in cooler climates, we’re starting…
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Food Gardening with Amanda
I grew up thinking September was a time to wind down from summer gardening and switch over to harvesting. But I’ve actually learned that there are vegetables to plant in September that thrive in cooler temperatures, depending on your location.
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Guaranteed, the last time you had a to-die-for homemade vinaigrette in some swank restaurant, the recipe for that vinaigrette began with macerated shallots in vinegar of some type. I don’t know why, but thin-sliced shallots and vinegar are always the start of something beautiful. That’s why when I wanted to make an apple cider vinaigrette, I knew exactly where to start.
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When I had the genius idea to fill in my new raised bed surrounds with crushed stone, I must have forgotten that I spend 99% of my summer in bare feet. Or maybe I thought that my bare-footedness would prepare me for walking on little daggers all summer long, but it did not. Some people like making DIY concrete stepping stones for aesthetics, but for me, it wasn't just for the look of it, it was by necessity. I mean sure, I could dig up my flip-flops to go into the garden, but stepping stones would help too!
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If you've been looking for a way to grow more squash in your vegetable garden, but don't have the space or time for lots of plants growing every which way they please, then you should know how to train squash to grow vertically. It's easy and it will help maximize your space without sacrificing yield. Plus, squash and trellises are basically made for one another. Squash vines are vigorous, they love to sprawl out and they need support on which to climb.
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Gardening Guide Close-Ups
When I think of growing cilantro, I think of a fresh bowl of our BLT Guacamole, ready at the helm. If you're growing tomatoes, onions, and especially avocados, you have a recipe for guacamole right in your backyard. You also have ingredients for salsa verde, tom yum soup, and chicken curry. Cilantro Lime Rice is one of my favorite recipes to make with cilantro!
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Like most people, I was once in the camp of those who didn't believe that you could really taste a difference between lettuces, but maybe that's because my two main lettuce food groups were iceberg and romaine. As life moved on, I've had the pleasure of tasting and growing different types of lettuce and can admit that different types of lettuce have unique flavor profiles, from nutty to spicy—and if you let them bolt, quite bitter.
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Apple diseases are particular to apples, so don't try to use your knowledge of other tree and plant diseases when trying to identify different apple diseases. Remember that plants themselves can be hosts to organisms such as bacteria or fungi; however, the plant's tissue is not infected. Therefore, symptoms will show on parts of the plant which we normally do not eat, like leaves, stems, and roots. In addition, apples have a short lifespan (when compared with most plants), and therefore there is less time for an apple disease to infect the whole tree. Most apple trees in home gardens live around 15-20 years before they die off.
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