Debbie joins Green Acres Garden Podcast to share how to use fall harvest
Debbie Arrington of Sacramento Digs Gardening and Kevin Jordan of the Green Acres Garden Podcast recently chatted about cooking what you grow. Courtesy Green Acres Nursery & Supply
When I joined Kevin Jordan and Austin Blank for the Green Acres Garden Podcast, we talked at length about a common topic for food gardeners: Making use of your harvest. In other words, you grew it; now eat it.
Every backyard farmer knows that lament, heard most often during zucchini season or weeks after an enthusiastic planting spree. To me, it also echoes in my head when it’s time to harvest something I tried growing for the first time, such as some very pretty melons or unusual Asian greens.
What we grow very directly inspires what we cook. Our readers see that every Sunday in the selection of recipes that Kathy Morrison and I create for Sacramento Digs Gardening. Our three seasonal e-cookbooks are packed with dozens of examples of cooking what’s in season – and in abundance.
Before you plant, it helps to have some suggestions of what to do with the product of your gardening efforts. Our most recent e-cookbook, Taste Fall!, has more than 60 seasonal recipes using what we’re harvesting now – more than 30 different fruits and vegetables.
But our Taste Spring! e-cookbook has just as many ideas for how to use the vegetables you’re likely growing or planting right now.
What to do with your harvest – now and for harvests to come – is the basis of a project Sacramento Digs Gardening is now working on with our friends at Green Acres Nursery & Supply. We plan to provide easy links to our recipes at point of plant or seed purchase. (More on that to come.)
Episode No. 99 in the Green Acres podcast series, “Fall Recipes from the Garden,” focuses on using our bountiful fall harvest. For me, that’s a bumper crop of Fuyu persimmons and apples.
Also an avid food gardener, Kevin teaches gardening and a lot more at Leo A. Palmiter Jr./Sr. High School; he’s nursery and landscape instructor for the school’s Sustainable Environments Learning Academy. He was honored by the Sacramento Office of Education as the 2023 Teacher of the Year.
For this podcast, we had a great (and much longer) conversation about gardening and recipe ideas. Austin worked his editing magic to get it to fit into 28 minutes.
Listen to it here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1610311/14021958-fall-recipes-from-the-garden
Find our TasteFall! E-cookbook here (it’s free!): https://sacdigsgardening.californialocal.com/article/60135-taste-fall-recipes-from-your-garden/
New podcast are posted every Friday. For past podcasts: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1610311.
More on Green Acres and what’s ready to plant now: https://idiggreenacres.com/.
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Garden checklist for week of Feb. 8
Dodge those raindrops and get things done! Your garden needs you.
* Start your spring (and summer) garden. Transplant or direct-seed several flowers, including snapdragon, candytuft, lilies, astilbe, larkspur, Shasta and painted daisies, stocks, bleeding heart and coral bells.
* In the vegetable garden, plant Jerusalem artichoke tubers, and strawberry and rhubarb roots. Transplant cabbage and its close cousins – broccoli, kale and Brussels sprouts – as well as lettuce (both loose leaf and head).
* Indoors, start peppers, tomatoes and eggplant from seed.
* Plant artichokes, asparagus and horseradish from root divisions. Plant potatoes from tubers and onions from sets (small bulbs). The onions will sprout quickly and can be used as green onions in March.
* From seed, plant beets, chard, lettuce, mustard, peas, radishes and turnips.
* Annuals are showing up in nurseries, but wait until the weather warms up a bit before planting. Instead, set out flowering perennials such as columbine and delphinium.
* Plant summer-flowering bulbs including cannas, calla lilies and gladiolus.
* This is the last chance to spray fruit trees before they bloom. Treat peach and nectarine trees with copper-based fungicide. Spray apricot trees at bud swell to prevent brown rot. Apply horticultural oil to control scale, mites and aphids on fruit trees soon after a rain. But remember: Oils need at least 24 hours to dry to be effective. Don’t spray during foggy weather or when rain is forecast.
* Feed spring-blooming shrubs and fall-planted perennials with slow-release fertilizer. Feed mature trees and shrubs after spring growth starts.
* Remove aphids from blooming bulbs with a strong spray of water or insecticidal soap.
* Fertilize strawberries and asparagus.
Contact Us
Send us a gardening question, a post suggestion or information about an upcoming event. sacdigsgardening@gmail.com
Food in My Back Yard (FIMBY) Series
Lessons learned during a year of edible gardening
WINTER
Is edible gardening possible indoors?
Hints for choosing tomato seeds
Why winter is the perfect time to plant fruit trees
When to plant? Consider staggering your transplants
How to squeeze more food into less space
Plant a fruit tree now -- for later
Win the weed war by tackling them in winter
Tips for planting bare-root trees, shrubs and vegetables
Time to give vegetable seedlings some more space
Ways to win the fight against weeds
FALL
Dec. 16: Add asparagus to your edible garden
Dec. 9: Soggy soil and what to do about it
Dec. 2: Plant artichokes now; enjoy for years to come
Nov. 25: It's late November, and your peach tree needs spraying
Nov. 18: What to do with all those fallen leaves?
Nov. 11: Prepare now for colder weather in the edible garden
Nov. 4: Plant a pea patch for you and your garden
Oct. 27: As citrus season begins, advice for backyard growers
Oct. 20: Change is in the autumn air
Oct. 13: We don't talk (enough) about beets
Oct. 6: Fava beans do double duty
Sept. 30: Seeds or transplants for cool-season veggies?
Sept. 23: How to prolong the fall tomato harvest
SUMMER
Sept. 16: Time to shut it down?
Sept. 9: How to get the most out of your pumpkin patch
Sept. 2: Summer-to-fall transition time for evaluation, planning
Aug. 26: To pick or not to pick those tomatoes?
Aug. 19: Put worms to work for you
Aug. 12: Grow food while saving water
Aug. 5: Enhance your food with edible flowers
July 29: Why won't my tomatoes turn red?
July 22: A squash plant has mosaic virus, and it's not pretty
July 15: Does this plant need water?
July 8: Tear out that sad plant or baby it? Midsummer decisions
July 1: How to grow summer salad greens
June 24: Weird stuff that's perfectly normal
SPRING
June 17: Help pollinators help your garden
June 10: Battling early-season tomato pests
June 3: Make your own compost
May 27: Where are the bees when you need them?
May 20: How to help tomatoes thrive on hot days
May 13: Your plants can tell you more than any calendar can
May 6: Maintain soil moisture with mulch for garden success
April 29: What's (already) wrong with my tomato plants?
April 22: Should you stock up on fertilizer? (Yes!)
April 15: Grow culinary herbs in containers
April 8: When to plant summer vegetables
April 1: Don't be fooled by these garden myths
March 25: Fertilizer tips: How to 'feed' your vegetables for healthy growth