In the Garden with Pat Rubin

Bee garden writer Pat Rubin writes about everything that grows, from flowers and trees to vegetables and lawns. Pat volunteered for several years as a Placer County Master Gardener and has written about gardening for many national and regional publications. In addition to gardening, she spends time raising and showing miniature horses and miniature donkeys.

In the Garden will include news, events, advice and other gardening tidbits. Pat will also answer reader questions.

• Ask a question

« Sasanqua camellias | In the Garden front page | Another reader weighs in on fall bounty »

October 25, 2007

The summer garden goes on...

Some Octobers are chilly, rainy and frosty. Not this year. We’ve had amazingly warm days, and comfortably cool nights. Vegetable gardens all across the Sacramento area are enjoying a resurgence.

Tomatoes are producing better than they did during the summer. Ditto for peppers. Yet the weather is cool enough for lettuce and spinach.

Bill Bird of Natomas reports that summer is definitely not over in his Natomas vegetable garden. He sent this photo, and writes, “ the summer garden is now in full swing -- providing all sorts of bounty!”

After a slow start and problems with wilt diseases, Bird has tomatoes everywhere. He has Kellogg's Breakfast, Zapotec Pleated, and Green Zebra.

“They have been drizzled with olive oil and dusted with salt, pepper and oregano.”

And he has peppers, including Ariane, which he calls "the mother of all bell peppers. It was about the size of a small cantaloupe. There are perhaps three or four cut up peppers in that big bowl. That's all it took -- when you added in the mother of all peppers.

He also prepared green pepper beef, although he used ground turkey. "The recipe is Vietnamese in origin, and the sauce includes beef broth, soy sauce, brown sugar, ground ginger and a few other spices. Tasty!" he writes.

He figures he'll be harvesting broccoli and spinach in another week or two.

Ask a question

Please use the form below to submit your question. Because there is a 100-word limit for questions, a word counter is located directly beneath the box where you enter the your question.