By Jody Main

Fall has begun, and there’s a chill in the air. Soon we will be ready for roasted red pepper soup, baked winter squash and arugula salads. As our summer crops come to their end, we harvest and remove them to plant our winter crops, so they may become established before the cold weather sets in.

The fall harvest: peppers

Our backyards and markets are flooded with cucumbers, corn, ripe peppers, beans, tomatoes, winter squashes and pumpkins. It is a good idea to stock up. Nothing compares to the intense sweet flavor and the whopping amounts of vitamins C and A of fully ripe red, orange, yellow, brown and purple peppers, and they can easily be stored by roasting or drying.

Roasting peppers essentially steams the peppers from within and adds a lovely smoky taste. They are best served at room temperature or warmer for a satiny melt-in-the-mouth texture. Use roasted peppers to make roasted red pepper soup and chiles rellenos. Add them to quiche, burritos or any dish where you want a rich smoky pepper taste. You can make a delicious appetizer with toast and goat cheese topped with a mixture of minced roasted peppers and minced kalamata olives.

Cut a small slit in the pepper close to the stem so the steam can escape. Broil, grill or barbecue whole washed peppers close to the flame, turning with tongs until they become limp and charred with black blisters on all sides. Put into a plastic bag.

When peppers have cooled enough to handle, you can easily scrape away the skin, seeds and fibers with your fingers or a knife. If working with hot chili peppers, wear rubber gloves to protect the hands from the hot chili oil and be careful to keep your hands away from your eyes. Store these glistening roasted peppers in the refrigerator for up to two weeks, or in small, handy portions in the freezer for winter use.

Drying is the oldest method of preserving peppers. Select fruits that are red or have begun to turn red, because green peppers are immature and will shrivel and turn dull. Tie the stems of small peppers or chili peppers together with string in bunches, or run a needle and thread through the stems to connect them in strands. Hang the festive ristras in a warm place where the air circulation is good.

Larger and thicker peppers are dried more successfully in the sun, the oven (with the pilot light on or very low heat) or a dehydrator in just a day or two. They may be dried whole or cut up. Check often and, when dry, store these beautiful glossy dried fruits in sealed glass jars.

Dried peppers and chilies may be crushed for sweet or hot pepper flakes or ground in a coffee grinder for a sweet or hot paprika. Paprika peppers are best for this, but pimentos and ripe red bells produce a very flavorful paprika as well. To remove the seeds, break the ends off the peppers and shake the seed out.

The fall planting: garlic

Winter vegetable gardens are beautiful with the dusty blue-green shades of broccoli, cabbage, leeks and peas. These seedlings and those of sweet lettuces, scallions, chard, peppery arugula, kale and cilantro are all planted now, as well as garlic, one of the easiest winter crops to grow.

Planting garlic is like having a baby … it takes nine months! But as we tuck the small cloves into the earth, we can smell the garlic and imagine harvesting the large, plump heads.

It is hard to imagine life without garlic, and like everything else grown in our backyards, home-grown garlic is a cut above the rest. Fresh from the garden, garlic is amazingly crisp, juicy and flavorful. Grow a lot - it’s a gift most folks would be happy to receive.

This time of year, at our local garden stores we can often find both hardneck garlic (stiff stem, larger but fewer cloves, milder, higher moisture content, shorter storage life) and softneck garlic (soft stems that braid, smaller cloves but more cloves, more pungent, longer storage life). I’ve had equal success planting good-looking plump organic garlic from local natural food stores.

Before planting, separate the cloves from the garlic head. From each clove of garlic you plant, you will be rewarded with a full head of garlic. Remember to save a few for next year’s planting.

To prepare the soil, turn 1-6 inches organic compost into the planting area (a bed, a border, a little space you have somewhere), until crumbly to a depth of 1-1.5 feet. Then turn in a little all-purpose organic vegetable fertilizer according to directions. Cover area with 4 inches straw, leaves or other mulch.

With a trowel, push the mulch back a couple inches, dig a small 3-inch hole and plant a garlic clove, blunt side down. Cover with soil and pat down. Plant the cloves in rows or zigzags about 5.5 inches apart and then water well.

The mulch will fall back down a bit when watered, but the garlic will grow right up through it. The mulch will help keep the soil moist, free of weeds and protected from the pounding winter rains. You will need to keep the soil moist by watering for several weeks until the winter rains begin and the soil remains damp from the cold.

In late spring when thick, round stems shoot up with flower buds, clip them off at soil level, otherwise the garlic plant will not grow bulbs. Always leave a few buds to bloom in the garden for beauty and for the beneficial insects.

In mid-June when the stems are turning brown, check a few of the garlic by digging down to see if they are plump with cloves. At this point, stop watering. After several weeks the garlic will have dried and will be cleaner when you pull it out. Being careful not to break the stems, gently pull the garlic while loosening the soil with a trowel. You can rub any remaining soil from the garlic head with a terry towel. Clip the roots and braid or tie in bunches and hang to dry in the kitchen for ready use.

Jody Main is a professional organic vegetable, flower and herb garden consultant who teaches at Common Ground Organic Garden Supply and Education Center in Palo Alto. E-mail her at Themains@pacbell.net.