Category: The Garden

Canned tomatoes

We pressure canned 10 jars of tomatoes today (citric acid, salt). That was pretty much all the ripe guys. I took the leftovers and the skins, cooked, blended, and stained them into a bowl of thin sauce. The cut ends and remaining skins went into the “trash soup” (broth) bag.

First day back in the garden

This was my first day harvesting since my surgery a week ago. (Might have overdone it… /:)

Lots of lovely nova tomatoes and peppers. Def doing those from seed again next year. We are now talking about our canning options, because… The kitchen is already full of ripe guys.

Also got a bunch of green and yellow beans. I went through and cleaned up the plants a bunch, pulling excess leaves off.

We’ve had some okra and peas.

This was the second-chance plant, and it has given us much

Everything else is a little overgrown, because I’ve not been able to harvest or eat much. I wish wish wish we had a larger freezer for this stuff.

Washing the smoke out

It’s been hot and very smoky here, but this morning we had a little rain and the air is almost breathable. The garden is looking a-ok

Got a good amount of food out today.

Cooked up a yummy low-fat lunch to starve my gallbladder.

Dude, I love arugula.

That was a few days ago at 4:30. So much smoke that the sun turned red

I fertilized the tomatoes, squash, and blueberries a couple of days ago.

MORE!

What to say… There is much food. The Arugula is delicious, I’m also growing it inside, in the Aerogarden.

Some of the onions are still going. The hops are GIGANTIC. I found one okra, and that is enough to make growing them from seed worth it. The tomatoes are doing well, ripening. P loves spicing the sauce ones up and cooking them down into sauces. I think we have enough that we might eventually tire of that and have to can some. Green beans are doing well. I think the squash could use more irrigation (note for next year) as could the blueberries. (I filled a pocket up of blueberries yesterday. Whimsical!)

Uhm, looks like I might have a couple of Brussels sprouts and some leeks this winter; raspberries are happy.

Strawberries are having a second (small) berry time. Yay!

All of this is perfect timing to make me little less aware of my health. My gallbladder went from warning me occasionally, to hurting whenever I have any kind of fat. I do have a relatively low fat diet as a vegetarian who mainly eats home cooked meals, but I am missing my cheese and olive oil something fierce. There is hopefully a cure on the horizon, but it will mean a short break from tending the plants.

In the meantime we are getting creative with proteins, and I have developed a snack I call “hand salad”, which is basically a handful of lettuces (kale, arugula, mesclun) and tomatoes which I shove in my mouth.

It’s like potato chips, except not at all.

Take that nutritionist!

Raining! Finally! I

It’s been hot (90+) almost every day, and dryyyyy. We are having cooler rain and thunder today, which worked out well with my berry picking plan (but means I couldn’t get any photos while it was happening.).

Here’s the haul- full colander of blackberries (revenge!), and half one of blueberries (screw you, robins!). I pulled a bunch of tomatoes to save them from rain related explosion. There are still some solal berries out there, but they will have to wait.

I also sprinkled some more arugula seeds. We have a few plants that have come up, and they are delicious in our current favorite way to eat the garden veggies – orzo salad. Yum.

There looks to finally be some action in south c- so maybe I’ll have Brussels sprouts and leeks this winter.