In My San Diego Garden and Kitchen

The vegetable garden is in transition now. The bush beans are producing well, the peppers like the warm, sunny days, the delicata squash are nearing harvest and the zinnias look like they could go until Thanksgiving. Elsewhere in the garden I’ve planted radishes, carrots, beets, lettuce, broccoli and sweet peas. Seasonal rhythms in the SoCal edible garden.

I lost four of my prized red bell peppers to the critters this week and then they started on the green ones and the ‘Baby Belle’ peppers. I’m about ready to harvest even what’s undersized and call it the end. They seem to be trap-wise and prefer the big stuff.

The peppers, green beans and my stored red onions make some versatile dinner options. They’re the colors of the summer garden.

Last night’s dinner was an homage to the changing season. I sautéed the last of the baby zucchini and served over pasta with Trader Joe’s Autumnal Harvest Pasta Sauce. If you haven’t tried this seasonal offering, do if there’s a Trader Joe’s nearby.

Rhubarb, the dowdy but faithful cousin continues to perform. The freezer holds dozens of pints of stewed rhubarb, rhubarb-applesauce and my favorite, rhubarb-guava-applesauce.

Here’s a particularly chunky rhubarb-applesauce I made this week with strawberry guava stir-ins.

We’re about two-thirds into the strawberry guava harvest and this week’s take of 17 pounds was particularly nice.

That yielded 20 cups of puree, which mostly went to the freezer for jam making later, yogurt stir-ins, fruit toppings and smoothies. No sweetener needed for this rich, multi-dimensional fruit puree.

Sunday’s church bouquet had a decided seasonal shift with leucadendrons, zinnias, pennisetums and tagetes foliage. I do like fall.

See what other garden bloggers harvested last week at Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.