Fenton Friday: Rain and Mini-Harvest



Okra and Ground Cherries

Finally, we had rain!!! And not just a sprinkly, several heavy downpours came through yesterday afternoon into the overnight. So refreshing and more than that it frees up my time. Spending 1-2 hours a day watering the Fenton plot and my own containers, just trying to keep everything on life-support was exhausting. Now I can use that time for actual constructive projects.

Earlier this week at the plot I used my last amount of open space to plant 'Golden' sweet corn and Kentucky pole beans. I wanted to do corn in the beginning, but then changed my mind as I know what a pain it is and it is a space hog, if you want good pollination. Then several of my plot neighbors put in corn and it is coming up quite nicely. So I figured if I put in a few hills of it, maybe we can cross-pollinate and get something actually going. If it proves fruitless, I plan to use the corn stalks for fall decor in any case.

I harvested a total of 1 okra along with several ground cherries. I promptly place the solitary okra in a jar of pickling juice in the refrigerator. I loves me some pickled okra so I'm hoping this works! As to the ground cherries, the ants got to some of them during out 3+ week drought period and sucked the juice/pulp right out. I did find a few are pristine inside their little brown "paper" wrappers and made a great snack. I spent some time googling ground cherry recipes. It looks like jam may be the best way to use them, if I ever get enough ripe at one time.