Canned Tomatoes !!!

I am always so happy when my tomatoes start getting ripe!  It means that I can get started on the biggest crop my garden provides me with.

Yes.  There are cucumbers again too.  :)

We eat fresh the firstlings .... then we get to canning!  This small batch of tomatoes will only provide me with a few canners full. 

I got 16 quarts out of this sink full. 

In case you have never canned tomatoes before, I have taken pictures of the different steps to help you along.

You do not need to wash the tomatoes, I only rinse them, so the grass, leaves, petals and other pieces that are not attached get rinsed off.  You don't actually even need to do that.

Once your tomatoes are gathered up, you need to BLANCH them.  This is a process where you place the tomatoes in boiling hot water and then remove them to cold water so the skins will come off.

Typically the skins will start to split, and a small amount of pressure will cause them to 'slip' off.  Sometimes you need to use a knife to get it started, or to lift the skin from the flesh of the tomato and peel it.  You should never have to cut the skins off, except at the stem and if there are any blemishes you may have to cut right around the blemish.  If you are cutting more than that, you need to boil them just a little longer.

Once the tomatoes are blanched and peeled, you simply pack them in the jars following the wonderful instructions in your canning book.  The book I own is the Ball Blue Book of Preserving, but since it looks like that is an old version, I would simply recommend getting any Ball Blue Book at a reasonable price.  It is a wonderful quick reference.  It has just enough detail, not so little you are lost and not so much you are overwhelmed.  Great for beginners!

One last tip for blanching.  The temperature of the water, the time in the hot water and the ripeness of the tomato all play a part in the finished product.

The first tomato is very ripe.  The second tomato is barely ripe.  They were blanched at a lower temperature than the third barely ripe and the fourth very ripe tomato.  Can you see the texture difference?  The two on the left are very firm and the two on the right are almost mushy.  Both are good for canning, but the ones on the left will be prettier.

Grapes!!

I love my grape vines.  I planted them about 4-5 years ago, moved them about 3 years ago, lost one of my two vines and finally got a crop.  Yeah!  It was only 3 bunches and I had to save them from the wasps that were eating them, but they are sooooo yummy!

We did find the wasp nest in a neighbors tree ......  We were wondering why they hadn't tried to build in the eaves of the house like the last 3 years.  I guess they found a more suitable spot, a hiding spot of sorts. 



We found 'em!!

Zucchini Pasta

Right now I have a major abundance of zucchini coming from my garden.  My favorite thing to do, other than dehydrating it, is to mix it with pasta and sausage in the best dinner ever.
I got this recipe originally from Your Home Based Mom then I changed it up a little to suite my style.  :)  She calls it Lite Pasta, but I don't think it's very 'lite'.  :)

ZUCCHINI PASTA

16 oz Spaghetti Pasta, cooked and kept warm

32 oz Kielbasa Sausage, sliced

1 Red Bell Pepper, cubed

1 Onion, sliced

2 tsp Basil

2 tsp Garlic

2 tsp Chicken Bouillon

1 small Zucchini cut into approx. 1/2 x 2" sticks

1 can Olives, drained

Brown sliced sausage in pan.  Remove from pan and saute Onion and Pepper.  Add olive oil if there is not enough left from sausage.
Add Basil, Garlic, Bouillon and Zucchini.  Cook until Zucchini is tender.
Toss vegetable blend, sausage and olives with pasta.

My husband likes it with a little cayenne on it.

Cucumbers and Carrots and Green Beans ... Oh My!!

So.  My garden is determined to kick my butt this year.  Carrots are having a slow start, but the cucumbers and squash are in full swing and the green beans are coming to a close.

It's not the first canning I have done this year ....  but man, it was the most in one day!
27 pints of pickles
3 qts of pickles
9 pints of green beans
1 pint of carrots (thank goodness they process the same as green beans!)
16 half pints of chicken

There is enough chicken prepared to put up maybe 24 more half pints, but I am out of energy for the day.  It will have to wait until tomorrow.

I am most excited for the pickles.  I bought a new book, "You Can Can"  I wouldn't recommend it instead of the Ball Blue Book, but it has some different recipes in it which can be fun.  We made dill, with dill fresh from the garden and dill from a store bought packet.  We also made sweet and spicy dill and bread and butter chips.  1 qt of whole dill and 2 qts of spears. 

Thanks to the invention of the mandolin slicer and the discount store selling one for $12, my chips are all perfectly sliced.  Literally. 

Now, I am exhausted. 

Peace Out Folks.

Cherries !!!

I DID NOT GROW THESE beautiful tasty cherries.  I wish I had a tree, but unfortunately we do not.  A kind co-worker offered to let us finish cleaning off his tree and I swear we got a couple hundred dollars worth off the tree.  I am so into planting a cherry tree now.  :)

I do not know how many pounds we picked, I just know it was a lot and after all my canning efforts, we still had 11 lbs for fresh eating!

23 quarts.  Makes my food storage happy!  Yummy yummy!!

My Garden

I have a tiny tiny lot.  I suppose it is large compared to someobdy in a town home or condo ...  but for a stand alone house, it's small.  Not even 1/5 of an acre and the house is huge at 3600 sq ft.  So if you can imagine, there is not much yard left.

Some people think I have such a huge garden, but the fact is ....it is only 240 sq feet.  It is only even that big, this year after we put in 2 more beds.  We have 6 4x8 beds and 3 2x8 beds.  In this space I have been able to grow 19 tomato plants (we lost one), 1 bell pepper, 32 ft of beets, 56 ft of carrots, 40 ft of bush beans (if you compared it to row plantings), 1 watermelon vine, 3 cucumber vines, 2 zucchini, 1 yellow crook neck and 2 smaller melon vines like honey dew.  In my beds I have also added the permanent plants of lavendar, dill, Rhubarb, pot marigold and chives...I think I may have to replant the chives.

I have some border beds...what others use as flower beds, and in them I have planted various herbs and edibles.  I have mint, marjoram, poppy, thyme, and pineapple sage.  We have a planting of raspberries above a retaining wall and a grape vine that frames a window.  We have planted peach, apple and choke cherry trees.  I have plans to plant more herbs and edibles.

My point in this posting is ...  no matter the size of your yard or garden.  You can grow SOMETHING.  Only have a small decorative flower bed??  Thyme is a beautiful plant which produces green or green/yellow foliage and purple flowers.  Mint, Sage and Chives are just green foliage and if you interplant them with flowering bulbs for color can make a low maintenance and beautiful border or bed.

South facing window?  Hang a pot w/ cherry tomatoes.  Small patio or porch?  Plant stands with anything can be nice.  Cucumbers and tomatoes can make good container vines while peppers and eggplant and almost any herb make pretty upright plants.











Don't judge me.  I was too lazy to roll up the hose for the picture.  :)  We have the auto water system working now so no more hose except when starting new seeds.

I love my poppies.  They grew and bloomed!  Last year, they grew and died.  :)   This bed is about 2 feet deep and runs the length of my front porch.  I have room for a few bush/trees here and plan on planting currant bushes.  The poppies are planted to border the currant bushes I will plant next spring.  I love red flowers, they are my FAVORITE!

Aphids and Squash Bugs

We have been infested with aphids and squash bugs this year.  Soooo sad!  I just thought I would share some of the remedies that I have been using and how they work.

Aphids

Aphids on my trees, aphids on my bushes, aphids everywhere!  The most effective thing I have found against them is garlic.  I planted garlic all around both my trees and so far it seems to have helped.  A few years ago we had them all over the honey suckle in the front yard and I planted 2 cloves of garlic next to each one and never had a problem since. 

The tree's are more precious to me than the honey suckle so I planted multiple cloves around each tree.  I was fortunate that although I did not plant the garlic until late June, they are already growing.  I think they are helping.

I just need to dig the grass out a little more so my Mr. doesn't whack the tops off when he is trimming and mowing the lawn.  :)

Unfortunately, I believe I now need to add garlic to my whole yard.  I am finding what I believe are aphids less on my trees and more in my flower gardens.

Although I am not a fan of planting for the sake of planting.....I do have a particular soft spot for lilies and lilacs and roses.  As such, my garden with lily bulbs is showing the signs.  I will add the garlic soon.

Squash Bugs
These horrible little creatures serve no purpose, in my opinion, other than to make life difficult.  I cannot see how they may be useful in any way at all.  I have battled them every year for the past 3 or 4 years.
Nasturtiums are said to repel them.  I planted nasturtiums, but still got the bugs. 
The most effective measures I have found is Diatomaceous Earth sprayed on the underside of the plant leaves with a Garden Spritzer.

This looks like a water toy that your kids might want, but a little bigger around and a fancy inside of the tip to evenly dispense a mist of the DE powder.

I alternate this DE spray every 3rd or 4th day with a spraying of Neem oil.  I use a regular 1 gallon insecticide sprayer which was purchased special for the food safe products.  Neem oil is a natural product, and I don't want to be spraying with a residue of Sevin when I am not trying to.

These two methods with handpicking the nasty little buggers off and squishing their guts into the ground seems to be effective.  When it's not, out comes the Sevin.  I prefer non-chemical natural measures of control but not at the expense of my crop or at the risk of infestation the next year because the natural methods didn't work.

One year, I lost 6 huge, full grown and healthy cucumber plants to squash bugs after they finished ravaging my traditional squash plants.  Did I mention I hate squash bugs?

Another method to control these things is to plant a sacrificial crop for them.  Most common is hubbard squash.  When the plant has attracted all the bugs and is starting to be 'infested', pull it up and throw it away.

One year I planted acorn, yellow summer, zucchini, hubbard, pumpkins, cucumbers and watermelon.  For your FYI....the hubbard went first.  the acorn, pumpkins, yellow and zuch were infested next.  The acorn fell to the infestation, but although heavily infested, the yellow and zuch withstood to produce the whole year.  The pumpkin was attacked, but with intense efforts, was manageable and produced.  After the acorn went, the buggers attacked my cukes, which put up a fight and produced, but eventually fell to the bugs.  The watermelon were not touched. 

Our management efforts were the same on all plants.  I believe some plants are a little hardier than others and locations and plant growth features (how dense the leaves and stems are v. being more spread out) made the efforts effective on some plants and not on others.

Thought it was interesting, so I am sharing.  I do recommend not keeping an infested plant in the ground after the infestation is identified.  I recommend pulling and sealing in a garbage bag and sending to the dump.  This experience was the year I learned what I was dealing with and I did not do as I should partly because it wasn't till the end of the year I finally identified the little buggers.  I have had to battle infestation ever since.

Squash bug, not yet fully ugly adult.  Too close for comfort though.  Pulled off one of my zucchini plants.