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It's that time of year...saving seeds for next years garden.

Hello Everyone.

It was early last week, when I collected beans that had grown too plump to eat, the pods turned dry and crackly. Slipping them open to reveal seeds, tiny gifts to save and grow again next spring. Like good sourdough bread starter, when you save seeds you can easily grow enough to also give away to other gardeners.

Besides collecting seeds, my kitchen windows are steamed up by canning jars filled with Green Tomato Piccalilli and Ginger Peach Chutney. The last of the tomatoes are being chopped into Fresh Tomato Salsa and soon it will be cool enough to turn on the oven to bake a Pumpkin Cheesecake.

As the garden comes to a close, it's a good time to reflect on the success and failures, make notes and possibly plan out a new garden design. I'll be starting a new series of kitchen garden workshops from my Vermont home and garden for you to join me at the drawing table.

You'll get lots of ideas, individualized attention to help you work on your own design and hands-on time in the garden learning about seed saving, soil health and other seasonal and timely instruction to help you become a better gardener. If this sounds like something you'd like to try, contact me and I'll send along details.

As Always,
Ellen Ecker Ogden

www.ellenogden.com
Author of The Complete Kitchen Garden and Garden Speaker
Check out my new lectures for the 2020 Season with my upcoming book.

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Reflections:

As gardeners, we know the taste of food pulled from the ground, the feel of easily twisting off a green bean from its stem, or the fragrance of an apple dropped from a tree at the peak of ripeness. As summer draws to a close, I'm taking notes about things I loved this year.

Favorite Word: Tilth. Sowing this month: Cover Crops. Favorite Garden Plant of 2019: Annelino Pole Beans. Worst Garden Plant of 2019: Artichokes ( not an edible variety). Best Garden Resource: Away to Garden book and blog. Favorite Summer Project: Photography with Matthew Benson for my new book, The New Heirloom Garden. Next year I vow to: Prepare better plant tags for keeping track in the garden. Cooking Tonight: Cauliflower Leek Gratin by Susie Middleton.

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instragram september

Follow me into the garden to spark fresh ideas for your own kitchen garden on Instagram.

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"Everybody needs beauty; Places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.” --- John Muir

 
         
 
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