Garden Happenings

The garden is really starting to produce.

 

We've been getting a lot of cucumbers

which means.....

pickles.....and

 

making "The Italian's" favorite

Sweet Pickle Relish

 

I've harvested a couple small heads of Red Acre Cabbage and....

 

this little tomato...a Dolly Parton!

Isn't it a beauty???

The tomatoes are starting.

I think the big tomato glut is about a week or two away

 

Our favorite slicing tomatoes, Cherokee Purples & Eva's Purple Ball are a regular.

  

I dug one hill of Yukon Gold Potatoes.

I couldn't believe the size of some of them!

 

We've had a half dozen Zucchini, including these two which were almost too big!

 

and the onions!!! Well, that's a post in itself!

 

So, how's your garden producing???

What's Going on in the Garden July 14, 2013

The harvests are starting to pick up and so is the preserving! This week I harvested almost 2 lbs. of peppers. They consisted of Hot Hungarian, Hot Banana, Jalapeno & Sweet Hungarian. All of them were promptly pickled and stored in the refrigerator, since we are totally out of pickled peppers from last year.

I pickle my peppers using 4 parts of white vinegar to 1 part of water, boil, cool and then add peppers and store in the refrigerator. I also occasionally add some garlic.

The first Zucchini and Cucumbers of the season.

There will probably be two more zucchinis ready today at the plots.

 

I've been pulling more onions and starting the curing process.

These are some storage onions.....

and these are some more Walla Walla onions

My largest onion has been 11 oz!!!

 

Some of the Walla Walla onions have been chopped and frozen. They do not store very long and chopped sweet onions will sure come in handy over the winter!

 

We also harvested some more Sungold tomatoes and the first of the very few Carrots we will have this year, another head of Cauliflower and the last of the Broccoli sprouts. The Broccoli plants have been pulled and a bunch of Cauliflower plants that did not form heads. Hopefully the fall cauliflower will do better. There's one more head over at the plots that may be ready today or tomorrow.

 

The big news is that there's a Cherokee Purple Tomato out there that is half ripe......maybe Monday or Tuesday it will be ready!!!!!!

 

Tomorrow, Daphne at Daphne's Dandelions, will be hosting Harvest Monday. Hop on over there to see what's happening in gardens around the globe!

   

Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard..................8/30/2012

With all the produce coming in, the days have been long. I think I'm keeping up pretty well considering. This past week I have canned Tomatoes and Tomato Puree almost daily. I also made some meals and froze them.

This is the Zucchini & Tomato Bake that Dave posted a few weeks ago here. 

We just love it! I have made several and froze them for use over the winter!! I only made one adjustment to his recipe. I sprinkled some seasoned breadcrumbs in between the layers.

Here are a couple of the Tomato Bakes packaged and ready for the freezer.

I also made several Eggplant Parmigiana and froze them too. They are the thicker packages at the bottom of the pile.

Another time consuming canning project was making the tomato salsa, recipe here. I stayed up late on Tuesday evening and made 8 pints. That's enough to get ME through the year! I will also make some Green Tomato Salsa.

Some other things that were frozen this week were Chinese Red Noodle Beans and Asparagus Beans. I think we have enough of the Chinese Beans frozen. But, we can definitely use some more Asparagus Beans in the freezer.

What's been going in or out of your Kitchen Cupboard lately???

Harvest Monday.....................08/06/2012

We finally had a good week of harvests!!! The tomatoes are starting to come in!! I also harvested eggplant, cabbage, beans, zucchini and some peppers. I am happy that the cucumbers have slowed down a bit since most of the pickles and relish have been made and canned.

I wasn't very good at taking pics of the harvests. But, here's an idea of what my kitchen has been looking like lately.

This is the kitchen island before I started canning and chopping.

I think I need more room!

Most of Sunday's tomato harvest.

We just love these Chinese Red Noodle Beans!

I hope you're having some great harvests too!!

Harvest Total: 92.375 lbs
Beans:
     Dean's Purple Pole Beans- 9.5 oz
     Chinese Red Noodle- 17.8 oz
Cabbage - Savoy- 4.5 lbs
Cucumbers - Muncher Burpless - 2.9 lbs
Eggplant -3.6 lbs 
Peppers:
     Hot & Spice - 2.9 lbs
     Sweet - 15.5 oz
Tomatoes - 69.3 lbs.
Zucchini - 6.5 lbs

Hop on over to Daphne's Dandelions, our host of Harvest Monday, to see what's going on in gardens around the globe!

Harvest Monday ........................07/30/2012

My Harvest Monday post is a little late in the day. It was a busy weekend preserving the harvest. The harvests are getting much better. But, I am still way behind last year, especially with the tomatoes. Hopefully the tomato glut will start this week.

This isn't everything that was harvested this week....but, it will give you an idea of what is coming out of the garden.

A few of my celery plants died and a few weren't looking too well. So, I harvested and froze the celery that wasn't all that happy. There are still about a dozen plants in the ground that are doing very well.

The eggplants are coming in and the peppers are starting.

Some nice pretty tomatoes.....and

some more pretty tomatoes.....and

more pretty tomatoes and also the first Chinese Red Noodle Beans. I think those beans are just gorgeous!

The zucchini are coming in at a steady pace

The first heads of cabbage this year. I was pleasantly surprised at the large head of Savoy Cabbage. There are still several heads that are doing well in the garden.

The cucumbers in the Home garden are producing like bunnies! The cucumbers at the plots are dying off. There have been plenty of cucs coming in to finish up our pickle needs for the year.

While I was doing the Can-Can on Sunday, Sophia found at least a dozen tomatoes and some more beautiful cucumbers in the Home Garden. We thought this guy was pretty cute!! After his photo op, he went straight into the sauce I was making since he was a bit over ripe.

Hop on over to Daphne's Dandelions, our host of Harvest Monday to see what's going on in gardens around the globe!

Harvest Monday................07/23/2012

Although the harvests are getting better, I am still about 2 weeks behind last year with some of the crops. It's been a very strange year. Some crops were early and some crops seem to be taking forever. The tomatoes for instance have been loaded with fruit for some time now and I am only harvesting a few at a time. Now that we have been getting rain on a regular basis and the temps have dropped out of heat wave range, I'm sure they will start ripening much quicker.

Last Monday after I posted my Harvest Monday post, I pulled most of the spring carrots.

Monday's Carrot Harvest

Monday's Plot Harvest

We are loving these Red Seed Asparagus Beans!

Tuesday's Plot & Home Garden Harvest

Thursday's Plot & Home Garden Harvest

Friday's Home Garden Harvest

Saturday's Plot Harvest

Sunday's Plot Harvest

These are Purple Viking Potatoes

They are pretty cool looking aren't they? 

Look at this big Red Pontiac Potato

I went to the plots on Sunday to get some purple and red potatoes for roasted potatoes. We were having company for dinner and I thought it would look nice to have a variety of potatoes. I really wanted just a couple of smaller reds and I got this big MaMa and another one that was almost as big. I can't wait to dig those potatoes once the ground dries out a bit!

Sunday's Home Garden Harvest

We sure are enjoying the Sungold tomatoes. They are wonderful! 

Hop on over to Daphne's Dandelions, our host of Harvest Monday and see what's going on in gardens around the globe!

Harvest Monday.........07/16/2012

It's been a couple of weeks since I did a Harvest Monday post. The garden is starting to produce a variety of veggies right now. Just not enough of a variety and poundage to make me happy. I'm sure I'll be complaining in a couple of weeks about too much produce. Here is some of what I have been harvesting from the gardens the past couple of weeks.

The carrots are getting bigger.....

and bigger and stranger.....I think I'm going to pull the main crop of carrots today.

The first slicing cucumber has been harvested at the home garden.

The first Happy Yummy Sweet Pepper has been harvested.

As some of you know, I harvested about half of the Yukon Gold potatoes.

We've had a couple of zucchinis...and

yesterday I finally had a nice varied harvest!

Hop on over to Daphne's Dandelions, out host of Harvest Monday to see what's going on in Veggie Gardens around the Globe!

The State of the Plots Mid-July Part 2

In the previous post "The State of the Plots Part 1", I went through Beds #1-4. In this post we will go through Beds # 5-8 and Plot 102.

Click on any picture to enlarge

This is Bed #5

In the front of Bed #5 are French Cantaloupe. I lost one plant so far and it looks like another one is on it's way out.

Behind the cantaloupe in Bed #5 are some more Pickling Cucumbers. They are struggling along just like the other cucs and just starting to produce.

The next in Bed #5 are two Small Sugar Pumpkin plants. They are very happy right now. Let's hope that it stays that way!

Following the pumpkins are a few leeks which I forgot to take pics of. They are struggling with this weather. Next are the cabbage. There are a couple of Savoy, Tet Noire and Red Acre. All of the heads are small and I have yet to harvest one. They were planted late.

This is where the spring Broccoli was planted. I sowed some Great Northern Dry Beans here and covered them with straw. These are starting to pop up too.

The Sweet Peppers are next in this bed. They are also much much smaller then the plants last year. I'm sure we will have enough to get us through the winter. At the end of this bed are two Zucchini plants which I failed to take a picture of. One was sown 2 weeks ahead of the other and are doing well.

Bed #6

The Raspberries and Blackberries are planted in this bed. They transplanted well. Hopefully we will get a late harvest of Raspberries. The Blackberries have some fruit and new shoots on them. Their harvest will be very very small as they were cut way back to transplant.

Due to the small size of the Blackberry transplants I was able to plant celery, onions and Purple Pole Beans in this bed. Next year I don't think there will be much space for any additional crops. The celery is really suffering due to our extreme heat and lack of rain this year. The onions are also very small.

The Purple Pole Beans are doing well and hopefully will start producing soon.

Bed #7 is the Strawberry Bed.

The transplanted strawberries are much much smaller then the roots I put in at the far end.

This is where the Strawberries transition from the transplants to the new roots. Boy, what a difference! They are even the same variety. Hopefully we will have a bumper crop of strawberries next year!

Bed #8 is divided in to 3 parts. 

There is Asparagus at this end. In the front I sowed some late peas where the Favas were planted. I also covered them with straw to hold moisture in so they would germinate.

In the middle of Bed #8 there are 4 Celery plants and onions. As you can see all of the celery is really struggling with this weather. It's a good thing I planted way more then we need to get us through the year.

The onions are so so small in comparison to last year. I really don't know if we will have enough for the year.

There are a few good size onions. But these are Walla Walla onions and they should be twice this size. I'm going to dice them up and freeze them.

The far end of Bed #8 is planted with another variety of Asparagus. I also sowed some peas here.

Last but not least is Plot #102.

Patti & I pulled all of the tall weeds in about 1 1/2 hours. Yesterday, I weed whacked the rest down. Now, we just need to get it tilled. Then we will put up the fencing we have accumulated and start planting fall crops!