The Garden Thread - September, 2025

September 1, 2025 | Diana in WI/Greeneyes in Memoriam

[Diana in Wisconsin]

You’re ahead of the game, as usual! Sounds like a nice remaining week ahead for you. :)

[1Old Pro]

Better off growing an eggplant with a tomato plant for sauce.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Mssr. Pollard: If you cook Lamb consider Flagolet beans!

Gordo Rancho Beans!

Flageolet Beans

"A super mild European-style classic heirloom bean, known for its pairing with lamb but excellent as a pot bean and with roasted tomatoes.

We owe a lot to France for developing the Flageolet from what were originally beans native to the Americas. It's ultra-creamy and dense and it stays whole despite a little rough treatment when being cooked.

This mild, creamy bean is famous, and rightly so, for teaming with lamb or even fish, but don't let vegetarian options slip by. Roasted tomatoes and garlic mixed with the cooked, super creamy beans, topped with a drizzle of your very best olive oil, sounds like an end-of-summer highlight."

Yes, they are light green, pricey and currently out of Flagolete, but they do have a waiting list! (check out their other bean offerings!)

Source: Native Seeds; They offer Teppary Beans which are said to be less gassy!

Native Seeds

Brave Search aggregator gives:

"Tepary beans are noted for causing considerably less digestive discomfort and gassiness compared to other beans, making them a favorable choice for those sensitive to gas. This reduced gassiness is attributed to their unique composition, including high levels of soluble fiber and a low glycemic index, which also aids in controlling cholesterol and diabetes. While some sources suggest that soaking beans with baking soda can help reduce gas , the inherent properties of tepary beans appear to make them naturally less gassy. For optimal results, soaking the beans overnight and rinsing them thoroughly before cooking is recommended. Additionally, cooking them slowly, either on the stovetop for up to 90 minutes or in a crockpot for 6-8 hours, ensures they are tender and may further aid digestion."

Disclosure: I have not tried these rather pricey beans.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

The article has a point. If you really want it its probably easier to get it at the grocery store and concentrate on things that either cost a lot ($5/lb Heirloom tomatoes!) or cannot find in a store (Gravenstein apples!)

Then that surprising "Zucchini as poison" thing!

Really liked Liz' recipe above! Cover it in lots of Cheese! (Does this not concede the lack of taste issue?)

[Pollard]

# Beef Rub

* 1/3 c coarse black pepper
* 1 tbsp chili powder
* 3 tbsp garlic powder
* 3 tbsp onion powder
* 1 tsp cayenne
* 2 tbsp kosher salt

mix and rub on beef - can also be put in a shaker

[Pollard]

I've got the unlisted walmart special size of 5.5 qt. Both the 4.5 and 6 qt say best for breads so I'm covered there. Now I just need a 7.5, 3.6 and 1.5.

Flour, yeast, salt and water. I've got those.

[Augie]

Elderberries and pawpaws...

When I was a little kid Mom would pound the road ditches collecting wild elderberries. Mostly she used them to make jelly. Sometimes she would save back some juice to drink fresh.

Mrs. Augie loves fresh elderberry juice. She buys it in bottles at the local hippie food store. The stuff is stupidly expensive but it is really tasty, along with being good for you.

We have several elderberry plants on our property, but it takes a decent size patch to get enough fruit to make processing worth the effort. There’s only so many hours in a day and chasing them doesn’t pay much so the birds get them.

I might try to get a patch of named cultivars established here if I live long enough to retire.

Best I can tell pawpaws from the Misery State Nursery are grown from seed. I’ve planted 20 or so from there over the past ten years. I don’t think any of them survived more than a year or two after being set out. I’ve come to the conclusion that if I want them I’m going to have to take it in the shorts from Stark Bros.

What’s the old saying? Buy once, cry once?

If I’d done that to begin with I’d be telling you how good my home-grown pawpaws taste instead of still talking about planting them. lol

[Diana in Wisconsin]

It’s amazing to me that people tend to IGNORE the first rule of gardening: Plant ONLY what you and your family will WILLINGLY eat - unless you plan on selling it. ;)

I’ve got things pretty refined by now, and I am only feeding the two of us now, versus the SIX I had to feed for two decades. The garden helped so much with that, as did hunting and fishing.

Looking forward to this winter when I can do some more planning and refining for the 2026 growing season!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

You’re building your Dutch Oven Empire, LOL!

[Liz]

....... that “Zucchini as poison” thing!......dashed by Liz’ Zucchini Parm recipe above!
Cover it in lots of Cheese! (Does this not concede the lack of taste issue?)........

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Yup, cheese makes anything taste good....that and frying.....chuckle.

[Augie]

Do you have a homemade cider press, or did you buy one?

I bought a $150 Ninja juicer from Amazon. It does a good job on apples but it's slow.

This week's Howard Report is post #898 on the August thread. Copied here so you don't have to run it down:

Howard had a rough day yesterday. He got stung on the right hind foot by a red wasp as I was letting him off the deck. The dang things built a nest under the steps and I stirred them up as I was opening the gate. He yipped and yiped and hopped around on three legs for bit after that.

Later in the day he got into the electric fence around my tomato patch with one of his front legs while I was moving the soaker hose. I heard the arc snap from 50' away. He was mad at me for a little while afterwards. I tried to explain to him that he did that all by himself but he wasn't having it. He got over it eventually but I'm pretty sure he still blames me. lol

Aside from that he had a great week. He's 100% settled in to the daily routine now and is making steady progress with learning the boundaries. We've been working on learning which fences are ok to cross and which fences are FENCES. I think we've gone two weeks now without having to go to the neighbor's house to retrieve him. He still wants to go but he's figured out that it's best to come back when he's called.

Mrs. Augie still isn't thrilled at the idea of having another dog, but Howard loves her and she can't resist his big brown eyes so I think it's going to work out ok.

[Liz]

BEEFY ZUCCHINI BAKE

Ing 1 lb lean ground beef 1 med onion, chp 1 overgrown garden zucchini, chp/unpeeled,
1 can cr/mushroom soup 3/4 c sharp cheese S/p Seasoned salt 3/4 c buttered bread crumbs

Method Saute ground beef/onion; drain. Cook zucchini tender. Put 1/2 meat mixture in pan; add zucchini then rest meat. Cover w/ soup then cheese. Sprinkle w/ crumbs. Bake 350 deg 40 min.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

If my experience with raising hounds is ANY indicator, Howard is going to have a STEEP ‘Learning Curve’ in front of him.

Here’s one for ya! Beau and 9 dogs left yesterday evening for Bear Camp, 6 hours North.

He has one dog, ‘Shawnee’ (two years old) who is a total go-getter and has been VERY good on the training hunts so far this season. HOWEVER, she is not a hound (Plott Hound) that can be contained! She is a fence-climber, a tree-climber and always finds a way OUT of any dog box you put her in for transport.

Beau added additional metal strips to the dog box that she would be riding in yesterday to make the ‘windows’ that they can stick their heads out of SMALLER. Somehow Shawnee STILL managed to jump out of the dog box when he stopped at A STOP SIGN for a few seconds in Rhinelander. (Way-Up-There Northern Wisconsin!)

He got a call about an hour later from a lady who said she had his dog! (All of our dogs have collars with metal tags with Beau’s phone number on it.)

He turned around (about an hour away) and there was Shawnee, in the back seat of this lady’s SUV!

So happy she wasn’t hurt, and Beau NEVER would’ve found her again if that nice lady hadn’t found her.

Life with Hounds. NEVER a dull moment! EVER! Please! Could we just have ONE Dull Moment? Pretty Please? ;)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

OK. THAT looks like a good way to use Zucchini! :)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

“I bought a $150 Ninja juicer from Amazon. It does a good job on apples but it’s slow.”

Thank you! Never thought of that! :)

[Liz]

OK. THAT looks like a good way to use Zucchini! :)

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The beef, cheese and buttered crumbs give the zucchini a great flavor.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I have a few Zucchini recipes that I like and use every year, but if you’re REALLY looking for a lack of FLAVOR in a dish, cook with Eggplant, LOL!

[Paul R.]

if you’re REALLY looking for a lack of FLAVOR in a dish, cook with Eggplant, LOL!

Well, that all depends on how you season it. Kinda like eggs from chickens, really...

[Paul R.]

Dang, you’ve been BUSY! And you’ll be even busier if those 50 little bluegill “pan out” into a good catch of catfish!

We are very dry here too, with a 30% chance of light rain early tomorrow morning, but, radar looks like the stuff holding together will miss us.

Generally, my garden is really liking this cooler weather, as long as I can keep up with the watering. A couple of the late transplanted tomato plants are not doing so well, but the rest are: I’m up to 7 fruits growing on the “big” Mortgage Lifter plant that took forever to fruit. If this thing produces tomatoes the size claimed, I’ll have more tomato than we need, and I have 3 other ML plants going. There’s a “free veggies” stand on the way to our nearest small town — I may donate or swap a few tomatoes to them.

[Qiviut]

Our yard, front & back, looks like a tornado hit! My brother brought his pole saw & went to town! We have many old trees with lots of dead branches & most of those branches are down. In the front, there was a maple where the whole top of the tree was dead & we felled the tree. The felling went perfectly - used ratchet straps tied high on the tree, then hooked together for about 40 feet & attached to the truck trailer hitch to make sure the tree went down where we wanted it. Some huge branches cut & coming down off of other trees were scarier, but no one got hurt.

We have company coming Sunday & Tuesday - not sure at all we can have the tree debris cleared by then. I have to shop/cook for both days, so that will take a chunk of my time away from cutting & hauling. The chainsaw has worked great - we’ve made our money back many times over with that purchase. Knowing what we paid spring before last for tree removal, we did about $2k worth of work today. More trimming to do & 3 more trees to fell: one (much smaller) in front plus 2 chestnuts next to the shop, but they will be for another time when my brother can come back to help.