A productive Saturday

It was the first Saturday for awhile that I was not working, so I got a lot accomplished. After an early morning run to the grocery store, I got dishes prepared for supper club tonight. I roasted all the vegetables I had recently harvested –all the eggplants, peppers, tomatoes along with an onion and several cloves of garlic. Then after they were done, I pureed it in the food processor for a wonderful dip for tonight. I also cleaned and seared a beef tenderloin and put that in the fridge, and made a pear crumble from pears MGs gave me in Carroll county. Once that was all done, I then spent several hours in the garden.

I made a huge dent in what I had hoped to get done. I pulled the green beans and planted bok choy in that space. I pulled up some of the eggplants and tomatoes and added soil around the remaining two tomato plants and planted Brussels sprouts, dinosaur kale, lettuce, and arugula. I fertilized everything and watered the new plants in. I have lots of kale, spinach and lettuce coming up from seed, and the onions look really good too.

The dinosaur kale and giant red mustard greens I planted a few weeks ago are growing huge already. Anybody have any good recipes for dinosaur kale? I have also heard it called Italian kale. It is really pretty.

I also cleaned up the herb garden, cutting back many of the basil plants severely and planting some more cilantro and parsley.
My pineapple sage is finally in full bloom and is stunning. I love this plant and it is a great perennial in the garden.

The recent rains and the mild temperatures have really spurred on fall flowers. I have buds opening on my camellia, and the Soft Caress mahonia is in bloom, along with Japanese anemones and I can see the start of flower buds on my Christmas rose hellebore already.
And the harlequin clereodendron just gets better each day. From fragrant white blossoms to these stunning pink and blue waxy flowers, even though it is agressive, I love this plant!

I also got around to the deck today, replanting several containers and reorganizing. Katie blew off the deck and we saw no signs of yellow jackets! In fact, we even started supper club outdoors on the patio tonight. It did get a bit nippy towards the end. Then we came inside for a great meal. Everyone brought a dish to add to the meal and it was amazing. Great food and great friends!