By Margaret Sloan, Sunset production coordinator

While gardeners are processing tomatoes, we beekeepers are deep into processing hive products.

After we drained the delicious honey from the mashed up comb, we were left with a bowl full of sticky wax. We also had some random bits of burr comb  we've collected during hive inspections. (Burr comb is comb the bees build at odd places on the frames rather than building on the foundation we provide)

In order to use the wax, we had to clean it, melt it, filter it, and transform it into a block of wax that we could store easily.

First we washed the wax by putting it in a sieve and running water through it.

Then we placed it between two paper towels and let it dry overnight.

The next day we put some water in a glass bowl (the water keeps the melted wax from sticking to the glass). Then using string (the rubber band we first tried snapped in the heat), we tied a paper towel over the bowl. The towel needs to be fairly taut across the top of the bowl to prevent it from sagging into the water. The washed and dried wax  goes on top of the paper towel. This all goes into a solar wax melter, where the wax will melt and filter through the paper towel into the water below.

Making a solar wax melter (thank's to our favorite bee blog,  Linda's Bees) is easy. Line a styrofoam cool chest with tin foil, put it in the sun, and cover it with a sheet of glass or clear acrylic. We put in an oven thermometer out of curiosity; it was a warm day, and the temperature inside the solar melter was a little over 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Since beeswax melts at 145 degrees F., this was plenty hot enough.

At the end of the day, we had this lovely block of clean wax.

We’re not sure yet what we’ll do with this wax. Hand salve? Lip balm? Anyone have a good recipe to share?

By Erika Ehmsen, Sunset copy chief

Couldn't pass up the old newspaper joke, sorry. To cap off Tomato Week on our One-Block blog, I had to post these recent shots from just off I-80, near California's Central Valley. Admittedly in part because I pestered my husband to take these photos, but mostly because I wanted to share what late-summer and early-fall tomato harvest looks like in northern and central California.

The state is number 1 in "processed" tomato production, meaning ripe ones that tumble off tomato trucks were most likely destined to be squashed for ketchup and sauce. A truck can carry 50,000 pounds of tomatoes, and while this one was empty and on its way back to Dixon's Valley Farm Transport yard for a snooze, they're frequently piled high with ruby jewels.

While I wouldn't recommend stopping and scooping on a highway or off-ramp, I've often been tempted to pull off on a frontage road and bring home some freebies for canning of my own. Readers, any of you tried such frugal foraging?

With all these tomatoes taking flight, why not tarp the trucks? Visit the California Tomato Growers Association's website for the answer and more tomato facts, including the Supreme Court decision that ruled a tomato is a vegetable (although it's technically a fruit—dictionaries were called upon to testify!).

A notable tomato grower: Think your tomato plants are out of control? This guy grew almost 11,000 tomatoes this year. In his Southern California yard. For real, peoples. Think about how much sauce that could make! Think of all the lycopene! Think of the storage space! (Los Angeles Times)

Wait, there's more! The blog Tomato Casual (it's an entire tomato blog; who knew?) has found the 11,000-tomatoes man's blog. Read Bill Anderson's precise growing log here.

So cute and craft-tacular: If eating and admiring tomatoes aren't enough for you, have you considered sewing them? Sublime Stitching, the funky Austin-based home of the world's hippest embroidery, is selling some adorable patterns in their I Luv Veggies series ($3.50). To see what the embroidery looks like on actual kitchen towels, check out this blog. (Knits With Carrots)

A  tomato pep talk: Love this inspiring post from Seattle blogger Deborah Gardner. Everybody needs a reassuring round of "You're a good gardener" every once in a while. (Go Frolic)

Not about tomatoes, but about local eating: On this blog, we're down with the local-eating thing. But not like this. Seriously, just look at this URL: http://ask.metafilter.com/102583/Taste-like-chicken-but-with-poison You've just gotta click it, right? (Ask Metafilter.)
 

By Erika Ehmsen, Sunset copy chief

Ever catch yourself drooling while watching Food Network or Fine Living ? A few years ago, I was so inspired by a Martha Stewart Show segment on canning tomatoes that I had to try it myself. I invited over some friends—including Sunset.com editor Sheila Schmitz, who had all the equipment—and here are the glorious results.

And here’s Martha’s recipe.

A canning party is a great way to learn alongside friends and get some extra helping hands (the prep work is messy but fun). But always focus when you’re measuring, and remember to turn on the timer—you don’t want runny sauce or, gulp, something tainted because you weren’t watching the time and temperature.

You’ll need some equipment that you probably don’t have lying around your kitchen, canning basics like a jar lifter (think giant tongs—that's Sheila wielding a jar lifter in the shot above) and a wide-mouthed funnel. In fact, you’ll need to clear out a pretty big cupboard to store a water bath canner. But it’s an essential: This giant enameled pot “processes” your canned goodies by boiling the jars and their contents to the point where any microorganisms that might have intended to munch on them are killed off. (Bug off, botulism! Those are my tomatoes!)

Food poisoning is a very real concern, so always follow processing instructions exactly to ensure safely canned food. Mountain dwellers, make sure you process according to high-altitude instructions; try this PDF (from the University of California, Davis).

If none of your friends has canning equipment to bring, you can get a Home Canning Basics Kit on Amazon for less than $50. It’s likely that your local hardware store still sells 1-quart wide-mouth mason jars (I’ve seen them at several Ace locations), but you can throw in a 12-pack for $14.50 more on Amazon.

Before you get started, check out the USDA Canning Guide—yes, it was posted in 1994, but really, how many improvements can be made to a technique that was mastered by our grandparents so long ago?

I’m going to “put up” tomatoes again this year (Sheila, you in?). My inspiration this time? Completely dry-farmed tomatoes from Two Dog Farm in Santa Cruz County, on the Northern California coast. They’re amazing. So lusciously sweet and juicy. My 2-year-old daughter gobbled them up plain, grabbing slice after slice without requesting the usual dressing of salt, pepper, and olive oil.

I’m already looking forward to those 18 pounds of tomatoey goodness distilled into 6 quarts of sauce. A whiff of summer on a chilly winter night—I’m drooling just thinking about it.

By Elaine Johnson, Sunset associate food editor

Tomato gardeners know. There comes a time in the season when the plants go bonkers pumping out the fruit, and you’ve got a choice: get cooking, or get composting. That’s where I am with my heirloom yellow tomato plant at home.

So I was especially happy to try chef Craig von Foerster’s zingy Thai yellow tomato gazpacho at the recent Carmel TomatoFest and honor him with the Sunset Gold award.

His soup is loaded with perfumey and spicy seasonings, crunchy vegetables, and most importantly, tomatoes! We’ve been enjoying it by the bowlful in our test kitchen, and I know what’s on the menu at my table this weekend.

Von Foerster is the executive chef at Sierra Mar restaurant at Post Ranch Inn located in the land of nirvana, Big Sur. Now I know that the definition of nirvana extends to tomatoes, too.

Thai yellow tomato gazpacho

SERVES 5 or 6 (makes 5 1/2 cups)

TIME 45 minutes, plus at least 2 1/2 hours to chill

Thanks to chef Craig Von Foerster of Sierra Mar restaurant at Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur, California for his intensely flavored interpretation of the classic summer soup.

2 1/2 lbs. ripe yellow tomatoes, cored and quartered
3/4 cup seasoned rice vinegar
5 kaffir lime leaves or 2 tsp. finely shredded lime zest
2 stalks lemongrass, chopped
1 cup peeled green or half-ripe papaya cut in 1/4-in. dice
1/2 English cucumber, peeled and cut in 1/4-in. dice
1/4 cup minced red onion
3 tbsp. fresh lime juice
2 tbsp. minced fresh galangal or ginger
1 tbsp. each finely chopped mint leaves and Thai basil or regular basil leaves
1/2 to 1 tbsp. Sriracha
Thai or Vietnamese fish sauce or kosher salt

1. In a food processor, pulse 1/3 of tomatoes at a time until finely chopped. Pour into a bowl.

2. In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine vinegar, lime leaves, and lemongrass. Bring to a simmer, then remove from heat and stir into tomato mixture. Chill about 2 hours to blend flavors. Press mixture through a coarse strainer into another bowl and discard contents of strainer.

3. Stir remaining ingredients into tomato mixture, adding Sriracha and fish sauce to taste. Chill until cold and flavors are blended, at least 30 minutes and as long as overnight.

by Elizabeth Jardina, Sunset researcher

Not every tomato ripens.

As we move into autumn, with its less sunshine and cooler nights, the days of tomatoes turning heavy and red in the garden are numbered. (Readers in Seattle, I'm looking at you: 61 degrees and rainy.)

Like its tropical companion basil, the tomato plant gets cranky come fall. Generally, the advice is that before your first freeze — or before it gets so wet and miserable outside that you can't stand it anymore — you should gather all your green tomatoes and bring them in to ripen on the counter.

This has both advantages and disadvantages. The obvious advantage is that on your counter, they will, in a sense, ripen — redden, soften, start to look like reasonable approximations of tomatoes.

The disadvantage is that tomatoes will fool you. Yep, they'll look red and pretty. But left on the plant, they continue to get sweeter and more flavorful. On the counter, they'll only get more colorful.

This is the heart of the problem with industrially produced grocery store tomatoes: They look red and shiny, but taste like not much at all. That's because many growers pick their tomatoes when they're just starting to blush pink, then keep them in cold storage until they're needed, at which point they're exposed to ethylene gas, which artificially "ripens" them to a facsimile of a tomato.

So I'd like to propose that we stop asking green tomatoes to be what they're not, and encourage them to just be what they are: tart and green and fresh.

You've just started thinking about fried green tomatoes. Let me lead you one step further. If tomatoes + bacon = joy, why not this equation: Fried green tomatoes + bacon + sandwich = even happier. And, judging from the food blogs, this is an untapped trend: Go here and here for recipes. (Dinner Tonight and The Slow Cook) 

Alternately, give your green tomatoes a South Asian twist (Indian-Style Green Tomatoes and Vegetables Over Rice from Cooking Light) or an Italian accent (a spaghetti recipe from Mario Batali).

Or just grill 'em up the way they are and top with a colorful salsa: Grilled Green Tomatoes with Red and Yellow Tomato-Basil Salsa

By Sheila Schmitz, Sunset.com editor

Join us this week as we give summer's tomatoes a juicy send-off. Check in daily for luscious tomato photos, juicy tomato recipes, and tips from the garden plot. And send us your own stories and advice! Tell us, for instance:

What's the tastiest tomato variety, and the best way to serve it?

What's the easiest way to can or freeze? Do you blanch and peel? What do you make with them in January?

Did your plants do well? Or did they, like mine, remind you of Charlie Brown's Christmas tree?

Send us your best recipe, tip, or photo. We'll post them along with goodies from our food and garden experts. (Food ed Margo True gives a recipe for Indian-style sweet-spicy tomato pickle.)

Scroll down or jump to:

Perfect tomato pairings

One way to improve on tomatoes + basil

Sweet-hot tomato chutney

Tomato Filo Tart

and more....

photo by Elizabeth Jardina, Sunset researcher and tomato canner

Fresh Bloody Mary made with Kellogg's Breakfast tomatoes

Cut about 1/2 pound ripe Kellogg's Breakfast or similar yellow tomatoes in half crosswise. Press tomatoes, cut side down, through a colander or a coarse wire sieve set over a bowl to collect juice (you'll need about 3/4 cup); discard skin.

Mix the 3/4 cup tomato juice, 1/4 cup gin or vodka, 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice, 1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce, about 1/4 teaspoon salt (or to taste), a pinch to 1/8 teaspoon celery seed, and hot sauce to taste. Pour into ice-filled glasses. Garnish with a celery stick or green onion. Sprinkle with fresh-ground pepper.

photo: Christina Schmidhofer

By Margo True, Sunset food editor

Just last weekend, Nugget seemed doomed. By Sunday, he had no place to go other than Half Moon Bay Feed & Fuel, where we bought our chicks. The helpful person who answered the phone there said, without hesitation, "Sure, we'll take him!" When I asked what would happen to Nugget, the guy said, "You want the truth, or the sugar-coated truth?" Basically, the chances of someone waltzing into the feed store, spotting Nugget, and giving him a home in green pastures amid sleek and curvaceous hens -- well, they were pretty remote. More likely, he'd end up in a stew.

He's really a good-looking rooster, too. Big, red, proud, and protective.

Then on Monday, I found an e-mail sitting in my in-box from a woman named Tina. Tina had been reading the blog mainly for the bee posts, since she's a bee person, but was taken aback by the iffy news about Nugget. Her e-mail, which sat atop a chain of other e-mails between her and a small network of chicken-rescuers—a flurry of action in cyberspace!—urged me to immediately call a number down in San Juan Bautista "if the other option is the dinner table. :((  ".

So I called. A woman with a quiet voice picked up. She doesn't want me to use her name or address because she worries about people knocking on her door to pick up animals and do bad things to them. She says she's a "private individual" who helps find new homes for farm animals, and she's choosy about who she allows to adopt. "I have three emus," she said.

"Wow," I said. "How many animals do you have altogether?"

A pause. "Lots."

"What other kinds of animals do you have?'

"I have a hedgehog in the bathtub and three chinchillas in my living room. And I have a barn full of rabbits."

This lady had been raised on a ranch, but unlike most of the farm people I'd heard from on the topic of chickens, she didn't believe in executing them when they were no longer needed.

She told me what she had in mind for Nugget. "He will go to a 30-acre orchard, totally fenced, where he will join lots of other roosters. They don't fight because there are no hens. THe farmer uses them to eat the bugs."

Lucky, lucky Nugget.

She continued: "They roost in the trees and have three different watering spots." She giggled. "They form little buddy groups! It's a happy spot for chickens. If I were a rooster, that's where I'd want to be."

So, dear reader, Nugget goes off to chicken paradise. Fate has never smiled more widely on a rooster.

Here's how it will go down (I hope):

Tomorrow night, after dark when Nugget is groggy with sleep, we will sneak into the coop. One of us will hold a cardboard box over the entrance to the henhouse, a box big enough for Nugget. The other will go around the side of the house, open the door there, and with a long thick stick and wigglings of a flashlight, urge him gently out the main entrance (WITHOUT waking up the rest of the flock and causing a tornado of thundering wings and frantic squawks) and into the box. Box will be instantly closed and taped shut. We'll put the box inside the office for the night. Shortly after dawn, Pat McCarty will pick him up and transport him to San Jose, where she'll hand him off to Tina. Tina will drive him down to San Juan Bautista, to his happy forever after. 

Drumsticks crossed!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * 

Immediately after talking to Ms. San Juan B, I Googled chinchillas. Could anything be cuter? Somewhere there must be a Japanese cartoon about this creature.

Bacon, Basil, and Tomato Sandwich

photo: Christina Schmidhofer

Join our tomato blogfest

by Elizabeth Jardina, Sunset researcher

What do tomatoes pair with? Of course, basil. A friendship made in marinara, their bond is the stuff of legends. But beyond the herb, here are some other ideas:

A quick lunch: Tiny Sweet 100 tomatoes with canned chickpeas, a sprinkle of dried thyme, black pepper, a splash of balsamic vinegar, and tuna. (I like Tonno Genova, available at my local Trader Joe's for $1.99 a can.)

A creamy partner: Any soft farmer's cheese is a delectable foil for  a ripe, fruity tomato, but I particularly like chèvre's goaty, chalky richness.

A surprising salad: Roasted golden beets, cut into cubes, plus thinly sliced red onions and big luscious chunks of Brandywine tomatoes. Dressed lightly with red wine vinegar and olive oil. Beets and tomatoes: sounds so weird, tastes so good.

A sassy side: Microwave green beans in a bit of water until they're cooked, then chop into bite-sized lengths. Toss with chunks of tomato and lots of chopped mint and oregano for a fragrant Mediterranean-inspired side dish.

In Fresh Dirt today: See what cherished, un-named tomato just won a big taste-test, and where you can get some seeds.

By Sarah Gaffney, Sunset Idea House program manager

I've always had a strong, visceral reaction to the scent of tomatoes and basil. The combination of the two, specifically.

During summers of my early childhood, my mother worked in a tomato cannery. My sister and I, the first generation of latchkey kids, would often meet her in front of the cannery at the end of her day and walk home with her.

We'd wait alongside Italian women, the swing shift, who sat on long benches eating tomatoes and basil sandwiched between thick slices of sourdough. The working woman's version of bruschetta, my all-time favorite appetizer.

I made some this weekend, now that our crop of tomatoes are finally bearing fruit. Paired with a crisp Pinot Gris, it's instant heaven. Click here for some Sunset bruschettas you can make this weekend!

By Margo True, Sunset food editor

For months now, I have been craving tomato chutney. Not just any tomato chutney, but a specific kind of explosively tangy, sweet-hot Indian chutney that I've had a few times in India. There's nothing better with grilled steak or lamb burgers, or with a comforting bowl of Indian lentils (dal) and cooling yogurt on the side.

I bought a few jars, but none of them were hot enough, or tangy enough. I needed one with a kick. So finally I just made it myself, using tomatoes from our one-block garden.

It's pretty close, I think; if I'd had time to go find some jaggery (Indian brown sugar) at an Indian grocery, I would have used that instead of light brown sugar. But brown sugar works just fine. You can make this chutney without going to an Indian market—although I highly recommend such an excursion, if you've never been. It's like a mini-trip to India—aromatic, bustling, and full of interesting foods to try.

Spicy-Sweet-Hot Tomato Chutney

Makes: 2 cups

Time: 1/2 hour, plus anywhere from 1 to 4 hours to simmer down, depending on how juicy your tomatoes are

This chutney is so intense that it tastes as though all the flavors were dancing on the head of a pin.

2 tbsp. each minced garlic (about 5 cloves) and fresh ginger
1 minced green serrano chile
3/4 cup finely chopped onion
3 tbsp. canola or safflower oil
1 tsp. each black mustard seeds and nigella seeds*
1 tsp. each cayenne and kosher salt
½ tsp. ground cumin
2 lb. coarsely chopped ripe tomatoes (about 5 cups)
½ cup each light brown sugar and cider vinegar

1. Put the garlic, ginger, chile, and onion in a bowl (you’ll need to toss them into the pot all together, quickly).

2. Heat oil and a few mustard seeds in a heavy-bottomed 3- to-4-qt. pot over medium-high heat, covered. When seeds begin to pop, quickly toss in the rest of the mustard seeds and the nigella seeds and slap on the lid to keep them from flying all over the place. Swirl the pot around on the burner for a few seconds to mix the seeds with the oil and help them pop.

3. Add the garlic, ginger, chile, and onion and lower heat to medium-low. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are soft, 6 or 7 minutes.

4. Stir in cayenne, salt, and cumin and cook for a minute or so. Add tomatoes, sugar, and vinegar; bring to a boil, then lower heat  and simmer uncovered until thick and jam-like, anywhere from 1 to 4 hours, depending on the juiciness of your tomatoes. Taste and add more vinegar, salt, or sugar if you like. Serve warm.

* Nigella is a little flowering plant native to southwest Asia. Its black, teardrop-shaped seeds taste strongly of celery; they're used in the Indian subcontinent (often in chutneys and pickles) and in the Near and Middle East to sprinkle on breads. You can find nigella seeds in upscale grocery stores or in Indian markets, where they're labeled kalonji.

Make ahead: Keeps in the fridge for at least 2 weeks and 1 month in the freezer.

We're celebrating the season's last great tomatoes all week. Here's a goodie with a recipe to match.

The Hillbilly slicer dates back to 1880, when it first wowed kitchen gardeners with its 1- to 2-pound, heavily ribbed fruits. The flesh is orange-yellow and mottled with red, with an almost peachlike texture.

Taste one now, then put it on your winter seed-shopping list. Jump down for a fast, fresh recipe.

Hillbilly Tomatoes with Balsamic Vinaigrette

Mix 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, and 1 tablespoon minced shallots. Rinse and core about 1 1/2 pounds firm-ripe Hillbilly or similar tomatoes. Cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick slices. Arrange tomatoes on a rimmed platter or plates. Drizzle dressing over tomatoes; add salt and pepper to taste. If you like, garnish with baby arugula leaves. 

Photo by Christina Schmidhofer

Tell us: What's your favorite way with tomatoes?

Marty Bonvechio throws her own tomato feast (see video) every September at her house in Ojai, Calif. Friends bring tomato-inspired dishes, drinks, even desserts. The gang loved what she made this year:

Filo Tomato Tart

Do you celebrate tomatoes? Join our tomato blogfest.

Check out Jim McCausland's review of "The Heirloom Tomato: From Garden to Table," in Fresh Dirt today.

Author Amy Goldman, he says, "starts with one of the best essays on starting tomatoes from seed that I've read, and ends with pages of mouth-watering recipes, offering up everything from a lovely tricolored gazpacho to pizza to home-made ketchup."

Read it now, he says, and you'll feel like an expert by seed-starting time in late winter. More

by Elizabeth Jardina, Sunset researcher

You may be wondering what happened to Ophelia.

You remember Ophelia. Our Ameraucana hen with an oversized crop. The chicken who, bizarrely, had chicken surgery. The one we were keeping in a cardboard box in art director Jim McCann's office and hand-feeding yogurt.

Good news: She seems healthy. Her crop is still larger than the others' — but it's puffy and soft, not hard and angry like it was before the surgery.

Now, a puffy crop is not strictly a sign of good health. That's part of the reason it took me so long to update the blog; I was afraid that she was battling some kind of sneaky infection that would suddenly claim her. I wanted to avoid a triumphal post — "Ophelia is better!" — after which she would promptly keel over.

It's been three months though. And she's still perky, still laying an egg a day.

The vet told us that for chickens — any bird really — if they're sick, they won't lay. And Ophelia is plugging along.

She (and the others) do get supplemental plain yogurt as part of their diet now. The beneficial bacteria in it is supposed to help regulate the natural fungi-bacteria balance in their digestive systems. Plus, they think it's delicious. And I think it's hilarious to watch them eat it, so everyone is happy.

By Margo True, Sunset food editor

What to do with Nugget? Now that he's sprouted into a fiesty, illegal rooster? Some of us really didn't want to face the truth and were hoping he was just a big mutt hen with a bad temper. After all, he had not yet crowed.

Test Garden Coordinator Johanna Silver, who's been around many a chicken in her time, came out and said it: "Guys, Nugget's a dude. Big green tail. Upright stance. Aggressive with his feet."

So, for the past two weeks — as poor Elizabeth Jardina, Sunset Researcher, has steadily collected peck-welts from Nugget's beak — Team Chicken has been mulling how best to deal with him.

We got together in a conference room and discussed it. Initially the solution had seemed obvious: eat him. By joining our flock, he'd become part of our one-block diet, after all. Coq au vin, fried chicken, and chicken cacciatore were mentioned. Johanna, who has had experience with chicken-harvesting, volunteered to get him ready for the pot, with help from whoever was interested.

But then we thought about it some more. Here's how the conversation went, more or less:

-- Is there something slightly vindictive about us killing him? He's just doing his job and being a rooster.

-- What if we took him back to McDonalds?

-- What about the SPCA?

-- Who would adopt a full-blown rooster? He's no pet. He'd be put to sleep the next day.

-- We could give him away, but probably the only people who would take him would also eat him. The world is pretty bleak if you're a rooster.

-- You people need to get real. This is what you do with farm animals!

-- I actually don't think we should kill him.  It's be different with hens. You eat their meat when they stop laying because it's part of the cycle. Let's find him a home.

-- Also, he was initially given to us so that we would take care of him and let him live.

This last argument ended up deciding matters. We wanted to respect the feelings of Pat McCarty, one of our entertainment-kitchen cooks, who brought us tiny Nugget back in May and definitely did not want him ending up as dinner. Johanna would ask her farmer friend, who has chickens galore, to take him. And Pat would search for homes, too.

Well ...

The farmer friend had too many chickens of his own, and actually needed to cull a few. And Pat contacted just about every farm-animal sanctuary in the Bay Area (and a few beyond), and all were full.

Meanwhile, Nugget is getting bolder and stronger by the day. He's also terrorizing poor Honey, flying at her like a demon from hell and chasing her into the henhouse. (Whenever I go visit the chickens now, I take a pitchfork, just in case I need it.)

If we can find a place for Nugget  FAST — as in, the next few days — we'll give him away. Otherwise, we're going to reconsider those chicken recipes.

 Nugget on the move:

By Margaret Sloan, Sunset production coordinator

We’re still processing our first harvest. After we let the honey drain from the mashed comb into a food grade plastic pail, we let it sit for a few days. Bubbles and foam rise to the top of the honey.

An inch from the bottom of the pail is a hole stoppered with a neat gizmo called a honeygate. It’s decidedly low-tech. You loosen one of the bolts, and and the gate swings up to open the spout; out pours the honey.

By Johanna Silver, Sunset test garden coordinator

It's been a rough week in the test garden (for the gardener, that is). We're just past the peak of abundance, and now it's time to really start thinking about our cool season crops in this climate. That translates into a lot of pulling and forking (and back aching).

The patty pan squash are finally decreasing their productivity. I think we're all a little summer squashed out around here. Elizabeth Jardina documented as I ripped out our crazy, overgrown patch.

First we found this crazy, mutant stem:

Then I yanked:

Then I yanked some more:

At last I found the root:

And came out victorious:

Except that actually, I came out with a terrible squash-induced rash all over my body. We don't have pictures of that part of the story. Sorry.

Why all the hard work? Is it worth it? YES! Our sweet babies have germinated in the greenhouse:

Read More

By Erika Ehmsen, Sunset copy chief

Fall is in the air, and winemakers are getting antsy to pick, crush, and start fermentation on grapes that are hanging heavy, dusky, and delicious on the vine. And you don't have to take a backseat to the action—wineries have a set number of tanks they can fill with grape juice, and many sell their excess tonnage.

In California’s Sierra Foothills, the El Dorado Wine Grape Growers Association is posting wineries with available grapes, from Barbera to Zinfandel.

And on the message boards at MoreGrapes, well, more grapes are being added every day. (Yes, there are $3,000/ton Napa Cab grapes on there. Undoubtedly yummy, but leave those to the pros and start with something like a nice Merlot from a smaller AVA for 40 cents/pound.)

You might even find a U-pick vineyard near you. (Or, hmm, apple wine?)

Before you get clipping, check out WineMaker magazine’s handy “10 Tips for a Successful Harvest Day.”

What to do once you have the grapes at hand foot? Sunset's Team Wine has been blazing this trail for you, and we've collected our year of winemaking experiences into a downloadable guide to both reds and whites. Got a garage and a garden hose? Consider yourself on your way!

That’s how we got our start, and in two weeks we'll be marking the one-year anniversary of picking our Syrah grapes and bringing home our Chardonnay juice. But in order to crack open a bottle of our wine and celebrate, we need to do some bottling, and that’s exactly what we plan to do!

So check back in early October for more adventures in winemaking … possibly featuring some video. Just think: slippery glass bottles, tubes squirting Chardonnay, a hand-cranked corker squeezing and punching wet corks into bottle necks, and other merry mayhem caught on camera. We can't wait.

by Elizabeth Jardina, Sunset researcher

Which is easier: Reading an egg carton? Or actually acquiring and caring for a flock of chickens? Before I read this article, I would have said that it's easier to buy eggs. Now I'm not so sure. (New York Times)

How far does your food travel? If you guessed an average 1,500 miles, you're right — but only if you live in Chicago. Jane Black gets to the bottom of it. (Slate)

Way fewer than 1,500 miles: Sneak squash into your parking strip planting or plant corn in the sideyard. (Greenwalks and Fresh Dirt)

Plan for your local harvest this winter. It's not too late to plant a winter garden! Here's a free planting plan for mid-week inspiration. (Fresh Dirt and Sunset.com)

By Margo True, Sunset Food Editor

One of the cool things about growing your own potatoes is that you get all sizes of spuds. The medium-to-larges are great in standard potato recipes and for the big golden crunchy potatoes Anna from our one-block feast.

But I like the marble-size ones the best.

When you spot them at your farmer's market (or pull up a handful from your own yard), bring them into the kitchen and try this. It takes about 20 minutes.

1. Put the little guys in a pot, cover them (barely) with water, add a good amount of salt, and simmer them, covered, until tender.
2. While they're cooking, toast a handful of walnuts over medium heat in a heavy-bottomed pan until they're fragrant and golden. Chop some garlic.
3. Pour the toasted nuts into a bowl. Put the pan back on the fire and glug in some olive oil (however much you'd like on your potatoes). Add the garlic and sizzle it for a minute, just until fragrant.
3. Drain the potatoes and pour them, piping hot, into a bowl. Pour the garlicky oil all over the potatoes. Chop the toasted nuts and add them too, along with some torn mint or basil.

Good with steak, a glass of sturdy Cabernet, and some sliced ripe tomatoes from your garden.

by Elizabeth Jardina, Sunset researcher

I bumped into some of our bees today, in the Test Garden. At least, I like to think that they're our bees.

Hanging out, gathering pollen from squash blossoms on a sunny afternoon.

by Margo True, Sunset food editor

                                  The chickens, eating yet another batch of pattypan squash.

As with every good thing, our summer garden is coming to an end. The cornstalks are so dried out and decrepit that they're starting to lean over. The pattypan leaves are mildewing, and even though the plants still produce squashes like crazy, we're totally sick of eating them. We've given armloads to the chickens, who have obligingly eaten them, but now even they seem unexcited.

It's time to move on to the winter one-block feast! We need to get planting, so we have to decide on the menu. There's nothing like planning a meal, oh, five or six months ahead. Talk about anticipation.

First, a flurry of ideas: Homemade sauerkraut! Hot bread with freshly made butter! Maybe amaranth, because it's such an interesting, beautiful, delicious, and prolific grain. Wedges of melting-fleshed orange squashes with some kind of topping involving our own chiles (dried from summer); piles of leafy greens, transformed into a stew. A dinner bursting with vitality and flavor.

Plus, we still have a good stockpile of our own olive oil, wine, and vinegar, and of course eggs and honey. We've pickled our tomatoes, garlic, and trombetta zucchini and made a pseudo-pesto with our garlic, basil, and oil. Our hardier herbs are still alive, and probably will be as long as we cover them when it freezes. Ditto our lemon tree.

We figure that's part of the job of a summer garden: to make some serious contributions to winter eating.

So, just as with the summer menu planting, we sat down with Team Garden for a reality check. Hard red winter wheat, the best bread variety that will grow in our area, is harvested in June or July--not great timing for a winter menu. Amaranth grows in summer and is harvested in fall. Mustard greens, which you do harvest in winter, don't yield seeds (we had visions of whipping up our own mustard). Rats. My dream of a walnut tree is nixed because a) we'd have to plant a baby tree, and there's no way it will yield in time for winter and b) they're very messy trees; the hulls stain everything black. And, the BIG disappointment, no golden, hearty winter squash, because--who knew?--we should've planted it right alongside the summer squash. It takes that long to mature.

After much discussion, we narrowed our choices to the following list:

* Broccoli Rabe

* Cauliflower

* Chard

* Savoy Cabbage

* Endive

* Escarole

* Kale (both regular and lacinato)

* Mustard greens

* Spinach

* Quinoa

Stay tuned for the progress of our plants (and feast).

by Elizabeth Jardina, Sunset researcher

I've been avoiding blogging about this, but there's really no denying it at this point: Nugget is a rooster.

And not a secret, demure rooster. A big ol' red roostery rooster.

This poses a few problems for us. First and foremost, we can't keep a rooster at our headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., because the city code forbids it. (All that crowing!)

Second, as he's grown up, he's gotten nasty. He's taken to attacking me when I come into the coop, which is okay on days when I'm wearing boots and jeans but is decidedly uncool on days when I wear a dress. He breaks the skin and leaves little red peck marks.

Third, if we left him there, our hens would eventually end up with chicks of their own — and we're not in the business of more chickens.

It's a hard life, being a rooster. Half of all chickens are born male, of course, but chickens don't pair up one hen to one rooster. The recommended ratio is one rooster to 10 hens — sometimes more. The inevitable consequence is that a lot of young roosters never grow up to be adults. When you think of people killing their Sunday chicken, that chicken is likely a rooster. Why kill an egg machine when you can kill a squabbly fighter?

Which brings me to temperament. Some roosters are reportedly lovely — pets, even. All over the Internet, there are accounts of roosters who follow people around the garden and leap into their laps like cats.

Those stories are outnumbered by desperate pleas asking "What do I do now that my rooster has gone mean?" Because when a rooster gets to be 22 to 24 weeks, his natural instincts kick in. Your flock of hens? He doesn't see them as yours. They're his. And you are an interloper, threatening them.

Roosters of the red varieties — Rhode Island Reds, New Hampshire Reds, mutts like Nugget — have the worst reputations, because some strains in those varieties were bred only with egg-production in mind, no consideration given to charming personalities. Nugget, who aggressively tries to stay between me and the hens when I walk into the coop, and who bites my ankles and calves and feet in an attempt to get me away from them seems to have inherited every bad habit.

The advice often given on BackyardChickens.com is that a rooster that attacks you sees the stew pot.

I recently sent out an email to Team Chicken taking a hardline stance, suggesting that we kill Nugget.

Other members of Team Chicken were not so sure. After all, we're not in the farming business, exactly. And we've named him Nugget, for pet's sake.

Figuring out the right thing to do in this situation feels tricky to me and the rest of Team Chicken. Some people report good rooster rehoming experiences — finding a friend who lives in the country who can keep a rooster, for example. But horror stories lurk: How do you know your rooster won't be used as bait in a cockfighting operation? Or otherwise mistreated? Or simply taken in by a sturdier sort of person, who will swing the hatchet that you didn't have the nerve for?

And the idea that we would shy away from this part of raising animals — farm animals — seems coy to me. We're literally in the business of writing recipes for easy chicken dinners. One of our top magazine cover lines is "Crispy chicken tacos." If we're all chicken-eaters, why not eat this chicken? We know his history; we know he's been raised humanely; and we know that if we have to kill him, we would do so humanely and respectfully.

The answer looms large: It's the unpleasantness. It's the difference between chicken you buy plucked and wrapped up in the supermarket, and the chicken that you dispatch yourself, with the heavy thud of an ax.

We may find a new home for him yet. Test Garden Coordinator Johanna Silver has a lead on a farm that may be able to take him. I'll update when we know more.

By Margaret Sloan, Sunset production coordinator

We were so pleased to harvest any honey from our bees. It’s the our first year with these hives, and we had been warned the bees might not make enough honey to share with us.

But end-of-summer San Francisco Bay area is still a paradise with many blooming plants, and the nectar seems to keep flowing (I see  many bees foraging at late blooming lavendar, catmint, and other plants in the neighborhoods around Sunset). We felt ok about pulling four frames of capped honey—honey in the combs, sealed with wax by the bees -and giving the bees new frames to fill. We shall see if they’ll draw out new comb at this late date in summer.

But in the meantime, we had four frames of honey to process. Each frame full of honey weighed about 8 pounds. One frame, the drone frame, has no foundation, so that honey can all be harvested with the comb (more on that in another post).

We don’t own an extractor, a gizmo that whirls the frames around and spins the honey out of the comb without damaging the wax cells.  So we decided to use the cut and crush method of honey extraction.

We needed a glass bowl (honey is slightly acidic, so containers need to be nonreactive), a bench scraper, and a spatula. We balanced each frame on two wooden spoons placed crosswise across the bowl.

First, using the bench scraper, we cut the honey—wax and all—off the plastic foundation into a bowl. This was very satisfying. The honey runs in a bright amber stream off the frame. It’s really hard to refrain from licking your fingers and singing like Pooh Bear.

Next, we used a spoon to crush the honey and wax in a bowl.It smells heavenly.

We poured this slurry of wax and honey through two layers of cheesecloth and a stainless steel strainer into a food-grade plastic bucket, and left it to drain and settle over the weekend.

The result was 12 pounds 10 ounces of glorious honey, heady and fragrant, and ready to be bottled. Or enjoyed, as the case may be.