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More adventures in canning

I picked ten more pounds of tomatoes this week. Watch the magic:

Tomatoes, red onion, jalapenos, dried red pepper, cilantro, garlic. Any guesses?

first step: blanch and peel, of course

after much chopping, mix all that stuff in a pot along with red wine vinegar and some spices

bring to a boil and cook for 10 minutes

can it!

enjoy the leftovers immediately!

This recipe for "SpicyTomato Salsa" can be found in The Ball Blue Book of Preserving. It's delicious!

"Pleasant thoughts" on tomatoes

It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato. ~ Lewis Grizzard

As expected, our first Brandywine tomato was just the beginning. Last week I picked more Brandywines and over 13 pounds of Marianas.

We're enjoying the Brandywines fresh off the vine. And the Marianas? Well, here's what happened to them:

blanched and peeled

We had a nice assembly line going from the stove to the sink that made short work of this task.

Then, I halved the tomatoes, stuffed them into jars, and processed in the canner for 1.5 hours. It was time-consuming, but so many of our favorite dishes call for tomatoes; it will be worth the effort come winter.

halved, in juice, ready to eat ... later!

The first tomato

Just half of the massive Brandywine Tomato I picked yesterday.

With dinner simmering on the stove, I went out to the garden to quickly pick some beans before the approaching rain hit. I grabbed a few zucchini too, of course (I think we have a lifetime supply going now) and, just as the first fat raindrops began to fall I spotted our first ripe tomato. It was huge, about 8" long and oddly crescent-shaped. But oh, was it ever delicious. We had some fresh mozzarella and basil on hand, so we made a very nice Insalate Caprese . The sweet, ripe flavor of the Brandywine Tomato was quite simply to die for.

In my hunger and enthusiasm I neglected to snap a picture right away. The kids, who think I'm nuts to take pictures of produce, encouraged me with thoughts that the camera angle might hide the fact the tomato had been cut. Well of course it didn't, so you have to imagine the other half of this; it was actually quite symmetrical.

I expect by the end of the weekend we'll be drowing in both Brandywines and plum tomatoes. I'm looking forward to doing some canning !

Produce Aplenty

July turned out to be a busy month, so it's been quite a while since I posted here. But of course the garden keeps right on growing, and has prospered even though I've not been able to give it the attention it deserves.


We harvested our first potatoes on Saturday. These are Maris Pipers (white, on the left) and Desirees (red, on the right). It was fun digging them up, a bit like hunting for Easter Eggs or buried treasure, filled with nervous anticipation of what lies beneath the ground. Once again, I was amazed that nature actually works, even under the care of a novice like myself. Many of the potatoes are smaller than we'd like, so I want to research possible causes and make some improvements next year.

Zucchini, which just started producing a month ago, have continued to pump out squash large and small. The green beans have done very well, indeed. I've been pretty vigilant about picking beans regularly. I usually cook some right away, and then blanch and freeze the rest. So far I have put away 3.5 lbs of frozen green beans we can use in the coming months.

The tomatoes are large and plentiful, but have been slow to ripen, which is apparently happening to everyone in our area this year. Well, everyone except, thankfully, the Amish family that runs Briar Hollow Farm Market. I bought some lovely tomatoes there today and am glad they can keep me supplied while I wait not-so-patiently for my own green Brandywines and Marianas to turn a beautiful red.

Sunday dinner will be a curry using home-grown potatoes, peas, and green beans. Now that's what this gardening thing is all about!

Duck, duck, duck ...

Since their arrival 4 weeks ago, the ducklings have transitioned from a safe, contained area to the wide-open pond. They seem to get on well with the other ducks, and their fluffy down has turned into full-fledged feathers. I present below, a Pekin and what we think is an Indian Runner crossed with ... something:

On another note, last week we added a new duck species to our life list; here are some family members celebrating the event:

Mid-Season Garden Progress Report

There's been a lot happening in the garden! Overall I'm pleased with the results, and am keeping detailed notes to guide next year's planting: more of this, less of that, change the bed layout, rotate, and on and on ...

I met my personal commitment to berries, made last year. The strawberry harvest was great, yielding 3 quarts a day at its peak. It was much more than we could eat, but I now have several bags of berries in the freezer so they will not go to waste. Unfortunately our raspberries haven't done so well; we have a couple of bushes yielding pretty berries but several where the berries are tiny and dry.

We planted about 8 rows of peas this year, and the yield was OK. But we will plant more next year, because fresh peas are wonderful, and even with decent yields it takes a lot of plants to enjoy the peas for more than one meal. We harvested the dried pods to save as seeds, tilled the bed, and this is what we're left with. I'm trying to decide whether we want to plant something else this season -- carrots, perhaps?

The lettuce hasn't done so well; I think we planted too late. And then, just as some harvest-ready leaves appeared, we went on vacation. Bunnies enjoyed them during our absence.

Zucchini is known the world over for huge yields that send you searching through your cookbooks. Being new to gardening, I was sure I'd kill half the plants, so I've probably overdone it. Of course we're experiencing the yield that gives zucchini its reputation. Take a look at this guy, standing at attention! I just took two loaves of zucchini bread from the oven ... tasty! Surplus squash will undoubtedly be cooked in many forms, and foisted on unsuspecting neighbors and office colleagues.

Tomatoes are in flower. Like zucchini, these are relatively easy to grow so we may end up with much more than we could possibly consume. But with tomatoes, that's by design: I cook a lot of dishes that call for tomatoes, so I'd like to try my hand at canning and enjoy the abundance all year 'round.

It looks like we'll have beans soon as well; I'm seeing lots of pretty flowers like these on the more mature plants. I've tried seeding these rows in succession to stagger the yield.

And last but not least, the potatoes are growing like mad above ground; I only hope they are prospering below! This is a bit like waiting for Christmas, knowing full well I mustn't peek. In any case, we have about 35 plants which may or may not deliver more potatoes than we can handle. Stay tuned ...