What We Ate: September Edition

We've got a lot going in the garden right now.  September is our rainiest month, and this September has seen even more rain than usual, with more than eleven inches. 


You can see some of our starts ride around on my sled on wheels for now, because that makes it easier to quickly get them out of the hard rain, which could flatten them in no time if given the chance.

See the basil hedge (next photo)?  It's well above knee high now, and we can harvest at least once per week.  In my September report on what we ate from the garden, you'll see basil is a frequent feature.  You can look at the actual list of what we ate each day at the end of this post, but for now I'll just tell you some of the ways we enjoyed the produce.

Basil

We have three main ways of eating basil:  as pesto (vegan and delicious!), as part of a chunky fresh pasta sauce or salad (tomatoes, roasted garlic and onion, olive oil, lemon juice, and avocado being several of the other main ingredients), and dried as a seasoning.  But this month?  We even got creative and experimented with an orange, pineapple, basil smoothie.  Which wasn't terrible, but not our favorite!  We've also had plenty of extra basil to make pesto ahead and tuck away in the freezer.

Parsley

We use parsley in everything from stir fry to tofu to its own "parsley cilantro salad", as we call it, but originally developed by a friend as a gluten-free tabouli salad.  I haven't managed to have enough left over from all these favorite meals to dry yet, but there are several plants growing nicely, so I'm sure I'll have enough to dry soon.

You can find my favorite ideas for using eggplant here.
 

Eating something from the garden every day was just one of our fall garden goals.  We've also been working on adding nutrients to the soil everywhere we can, as well as getting flower seeds and starts ready to put in for the bees.

Right now we're adding grass clippings to the soil as a mulch every time we mow the lawn.  When we spread the clippings around the eggplant bushes, we noticed an improvement in the plants within two days.  The grass clippings are a good quick source of nutrition for the soil, since they don't take very long to decompose.  That in addition to a few bags of manure here and there is making a big difference for our dense, clay-filled soil.

We had so much fun eating the produce from our garden every day, and we'll be keeping that up during October.  There's just no delight like the delight of picking leaves and fruits from your own plants, and bringing them in to make a meal, even if your garden produce is only a small percentage of the meal.

Want to see what we ate day by day?

1.  Guajillo pepper.  2.  Basil, parsley.  3.  Basil, parsley.  4.  Parsley.  5.  Basil.  6.  Basil.  7.  Basil.  8.  Basil.  9.  Basil, okra, eggplant.  10.  Basil.  11.  Basil.  12.  Guajillo peppers.  13.  Basil, guajillo peppers.  14.  Parsley.  15.  Basil, parsley.  16.  Parsley.  17.  Parsley.  18.  Basil, oregano, thyme.  19.  Basil.  20.  Cayenne, basil.  21.  Basil.  22.  Basil.  23.  Basil.  24.  Basil, parsley, okra, eggplant.  25.  Parsley.  26.  Parsley.  27.  Parsley, guajillo peppers.  28.  Guajillo peppers.  29.  Guajillo peppers.  30.  Basil, parsley, eggplant, okra.