So, Autumn Begins

No complaints here about summer being over and autumn beginning. Since mid August, we've started to pay more attention to what needs doing if we want to extend our season. There's still lots to be done in the next few weeks, mostly though, the veg beds are growing along. To catch you up on what we are eating...most especially, a lot of beans...cold, hot, sautéed, steamed, you name it. One of my favourite ways to serve furry Scarlet Runner beans is to French them with my handy dandy Bean Slicer and Stringer. It cost five dollars at the Paderno Store in Halifax, and has made me a big fan. Each bean is pushed through the opening and pulled out the other side.

It takes seconds, meanwhile the stings are trimmed off either side, and the beans are evenly cut which makes good sense for cooking. Here is a bowl already sliced.

After that, they go into boiling salted water. When the water comes back to boil, I time them for two minutes, then drain and serve. I call them my green bean noodles, served with a sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds, a drop or five of toasted sesame oil and splash of tamari. Simple yet delicious, hot or cold.

The salad greens that were planted out in the raised bed, have taken off. We put the cold frame cover over them two days ago, as we have had some very heavy rains and they were getting flattened and dirty. They are looking much happier now. We hope not to have frost for a number of weeks yet, but one never knows so it was time anyway, to put the cover on.

Lastly, we refreshed the kitchen garden winter bed with compost, and some hardy seeds were scattered in a few spots hopefully germinating as I write. *yes, radish are up! The bed still contains beets, carrots, kale, maturing lettuce and well picked over chard.

Here is a sampling of some of the seeds planted out in the raised bed with cold frame cover and the kitchen garden bed under the row cover.

Fingers crossed, the weather holds for awhile yet. We have semi-dwarf Westlandse kale in both beds. It has been fantastic, so soft and delicious...from William Dam Seeds Ltd. I would like to recommend it not only for it's manageable size but it's tender silvery green leaves. The packet says it prefers sandy loam..that's us!! We will see how hardy it is through the winter but I expect just as hardy as most kales in our area zone 5-6 here in Nova Scotia on the South Shore.