Kale is the ultimate crop to extend the season of fresh vegetables.

For New Years Day breakfast, I decided to make a Kale Quiche topped with oven dried tomatoes. I dried and froze the tomatoes back in the middle of September and they survived the freezing process quite well. Here’s the link on how to make oven-dried tomatoes http://karneyfamilyrecipes.com/2013/01/06/oven-dried-tomatoes/

The Kale is still quite good despite the couple of nights in the mid teens this past week. The Quiche was so good, I made another today! Here’s the recipe: http://karneyfamilyrecipes.com/2013/01/06/kale-quiche-with-oven-dried-tomatoes/

I’ll definitely plant a lot more late Kale next year and have already decided to plant more Roma tomatoes since the oven dried tomatoes freeze so well.

I’m starting to look at seed catalogs. It’s just a little over two months until planting time for spring greens and snow peas.

It’s just a couple of weeks until Christmas and I am still picking Kale. I don’t think it’s growing at this point but the flavor is great after all the freezes. I am cooking it as I did for Thanksgiving, minus the bacon. Absolutely delicious!

I finally dug the seed packets out of the barn when I did the final cleanup. The variety I planted in the spring is Red Russian (Ragged Jack). It is still yielding well from the 12 ft. row that I planted. The variety I planted in late July is Vates Dwarf Blue Kale, this is still in good shape and I prefer it for salads. The Swiss Chard planted in July was Fordhook Giant, while the stuff planted in the spring was plants from Goebbert’s. A picture of those plants is the masthead for this blog.

I’ll be looking for other varieties of kale for nest year as it was the first crop to mature and lasted into December. It has all the health benefits of broccoli and it is delicious once you find the right recipes. I’ll also be looking for other long season crops.

The Rosemary is still good, and we used it on potatoes a couple of times this week. Parsley, sage and thyme are still in good shape also.

A couple of weeks ago I had a nice batch of weeds emerging and getting ready to flower in the garden. I hit them with Roundup and it seemed to work in spite of the cold temperatures. These are the weeds that take over the garden by April. I’ll have to find out what they are.

Well the garden keeps on producing even though we’ve had a few nights in the mid-twenties. Everything I’ve read on Kale states that the flavor improves after  a hard freeze, and I can verify that.

The Kale I picked for Thanksgiving was from the bunch I planted at the end of July, which has smaller and much more curly leaves than the spring crop which, I might add is still doing well. The leaves on that Kale are almost as large as the Swiss Chard.

I picked about a pound of it and removed the stalks and chopped it. I also chopped a pound of brussels sprouts and an onion. I sauteed them all in olive oil for about 10 minutes and seasoned with salt and pepper and finished it with 2 Tbsp. of Champagne Vinegar with Herbs of Provence, and topped the mixture with some crumbled bacon. A great addition to the Thanksgiving dinner!

I’ve also been using the Kale in soups and salads. I’m still picking Parsley, Sage, and Rosemary. The Thyme and Oregano are still good, too. Hmmm, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme — sounds like a folk song. Looks like all of these will last until December, since that’s only a day away and temperatures in the low 60’s are predicted for the weekend. Hopefully, I can finish the yard work.

Note to self. I need to go into the barn and see if there are seed packets left from the Kale so I can note the varieties.

The final garden pizza of the year before adding the cheese and toppings

We haven’t has a frost yet, but the weather has turned cold and it looks like it’s going to stay cold, so I picked the last of the veggies on Friday and made a pizza for our Friday night group. I had just enough tomatoes, and I chopped up a bunch of small green peppers for topping. Unfortunately, the basil is long gone. I used dried basil but it really doesn’t bear much resemblance to the fresh. Everyone enjoyed the pizza anyway.

Today I cleaned out most of the garden and put away the tomato cages and the pepper stakes, rolled up the chicken wire fence that I put around the zucchini and raked up all the dropped fruits. The compost pile is overflowing. The Swiss chard and Kale are the only things left and they are still doing very well.

I found a bunch of peppers and a couple of tomatoes and a few tiny patty-pan squash, so we’ll fry that up and have it over pasta this week. Tomorrow, we’re off to the annual cooking expo at Arlington Park.

I hope the roto-till everything before the ground freezes so that I am ready to go in the spring. With Jared and Izabella getting married in May, Spring prep time will be at a premium, so I will try and get most of the cleanup done this fall.

The National Weather Service blew it last weekend and there was no frost. I picked most of the remaining tomatoes and made Swiss Tomato Pie for our Friday night group. I also made Kale Soup with about a pound of my Kale, but that hardly made a dent in it.

I’ll probably need to find a Thanksgiving Kale recipe.

i only got a couple of Patty pan Squash, and one Zucchini from the new plants. I’ll need to get the Fall crop in at least a couple of weeks earlier next year.

We had frost warnings this weekend so I picked all of the peppers and  the roma tomatoes in anticipation of the end. The end of the season tradition is to make stuffed peppers from the bounty of green peppers.

Natalie stuffed all of them and we had three meals , sent some to her mother and she had a lunch or two.

I picked the last of the cucumbers this weekend as the vines are pretty much dead. With the drought continuing, I just couldn’t keep enough water on them. Tha area along the fence needs to be built up as it is too wet in the Spring and needs a lot more organic matter in the soil as it is too dry in the summer. I probably wouldn’t be a good idea  to plant cucumbers there again. as I’ve done it there for 5 or 6 years.

We picked lots of hot Hungarian peppers, sliced and pickled them for Jared and Jeff — they each got a 1 qt. jar. The plants still look good. The tomatoes are bearing in full force, I probably need to skin and freeze some next weekend.

I got a few Patty Pan squash this weekend and the new crop of beans is ready for picking. the fall zucchini have some small ones. Everything is suffering from lack of water, so I put the sprinkler on for about 5 hours which produced over an inch on the rain gauge.

We had a couple of near frosts this week with night time temperatures in the mid-thirties, but no damage. I made Calabacitas <karneyfamilyrecipes.com> from the last couple of zucchini from the summer plants. I also roasted a bunch of the sweet Hungarian peppers for it and they were wonderful.

New crop of Roma Tomatoes ready to be oven dried.

I picked another large bunch of Roma Tomatoes today which I will oven roast and dehydrate. I will try freezing them which I am told works very well.

The Roma plants are small and bear very well. I think that they can be planted closer together next year. Probably three across the bed like the peppers and closer together, maybe two feet or less.

New Garden Bed – One month after planting.

The plantings that I put in at the end of July are about ready to go. My spring planted Zucchini is on it’s last leg, but not to worry, the new plants are blooming and have some tiny fruit on them. We’ll see how quickly they mature.

The Patty Pan squash should have edible fruit later this week. The beans are flowering and the Kale and chard could be a little further along. The butternut squash was probably planted way too late, and the location behind the barn was probably too dry and maybe not enough sun.

Everything probably could have gone in a week or so earlier, other than the butternut squash, which probably have been planted around the 4th of July. We’ll know definitely when the season is over.

My Basil is starting to yellow and look pretty sad, so I decided to do a little reading up on the culture of the crop. According to the articles, once the plant flowers, the Basil turns bitter and that’s the end of it. This makes sense as I never get to the buds quick enough, and the plant is flowering before I can pick them off.

I made Pesto last year and it was bitter, which I thought was due to the fact I used walnuts instead of pine nuts, which didn’t seem right. Now I know it was the Basil. I bought some potted Basil at Heinen’s, our new food store in town. I got three 8-inch pots for $1.99 each. Great price!

I made pesto with half new and half from my old plants and it turned out great.

The articles also recommended to add Basil to your cooking at the end. It holds it’s flavor better.

Next year, I’ll put a couple of plants in and then try succession plantings from seed.