Maybe This Is It...

Every time I think we have seen the last harvest of our Summer Garden Guy comes in with a big bowl of stuff. We are still getting tomatoes, mostly the little ones, but a few Golden Delicious and Black Krim, and we actually got 3 Painted Serpent cucumbers - they are really tasty and look so pretty with their two tone green. They reminded us of the swan gourds at Ila and Stuarts!

The Cold Weather Crop Is In

Well, no matter that it's October 16th and 80 degrees here, our winter crop is in the ground and looking good.

Capitalizing on our summer garden learnings we have planted quite a lot more of the things we really love in hopes to be able to both eat and can those items.

The winter crop includes; snow peas, sugar peas, onions, carrots, (from seed) broccoli, (from both seeds and seedlings) brussel sprouts (both green and red) I had no idea there were red brussel sprouts! Spinach, kale (both red and yellow), celery, parsley, and assorted lettuces.

We also planted a few fava beans to see how they would do and a little cauliflower, which is not my favorite but Guy loves it.

We also planted a few acorn squash and pumpkin, from seed, so we will see if those come up, we've had good luck with squash so hopefully it will work.

We were hoping to plant some parsnips and rutabegas but have not seen any of those seedlings available in the area, next year we'll have to get ahead of the game and do those from seed.

Lessons Learned and End of Summer Harvest

Well, it's been too long since I blogged about our garden, I first wanted to share this photo of our end of summer harvest, I think it is beautiful and really defines our garden.

Fresh summer veggies, wonderful herbs, and beautiful fragrant flowers.

What you see pictured are our Zucchini, Machinaw Eggplant, Tomatoes, Mini Watermelon, Butternut Squash, Sweet Basil, and two of our wonderfully fragrant roses in delicious deep summer colors.

Lessons Learned

We loved our tomatoes, all of them, and will plant even more next year, but wait about 4 weeks in between plantings so that we can keep up with all the canning that will be needed to reap the benefits of their prolific production. The pruning of the unproductive tomato branches, those without blossoms, really did work to bring on more tomatoes and give the growing tomatoes more light.

We need many more pepper plants, next year we are planning a pepper patch with 4-6 plants each of several different kinds of peppers. We really did not grow enough peppers to meet our needs this year and so that will be a new strategy for us.

We will plant more Machinaw Eggplant, this Japanese Eggplant was the perfect ingredient all of our Thai dishes, and we eat quite a few, due to its tender skin and quick cooking. An added bonus, it looked so pretty growing in the garden - we will also plant this a little earlier in order to extend the productivity, this year we ended with several off color eggplants on the vine that never made it to full fruit due to weather issues, that is so sad!

Forget about the strawberries, until we have enough land to plant rows and rows and rows of strawberries we cannot seem to get enough berries to pay for the land they are using - next year we will use this land for the peppers.

We will not plant pole beans, they did not grow nearly as well or prolifically as the bush beans, next year it will be bush beans all the way, and we will again plant this in two waves to keep the beans coming all summer and give us additional opportunity for canning.

Fresh Pack Canning

Today was our first day of fresh pack canning. We picked tomatoes on Monday and then again today and ended up with close to 40 pounds of the following varieties, Abraham Lincoln - a large red tomato, Golden Delicious - a juicy yellow tomato of varying sizes, Stupice, a medium red tomato, Black Krim, a juicy deep purple tomato of varying sizes. All are heirlooms and have incredibly rich flavor.

Look at the big smile on Guy's face as he is filling these bowls with tomatoes, we love the harvest, it is worth every bit of effort that goes into the garden up front.

We decided to fresh pack these, we (the royal we because Guy did all of this) simply picked, cleaned and quartered/halved the tomatoes, then packed them tightly into pint jars that were warm, at least 180 degrees, from the oven, thanks for the tip Mom. We packed the tomatoes so tightly as to can them in their own juices, only adding a tablespoon of lemon juice to help with the acidity, and a pinch of salt.

Previously we had canned about 20 lbs of Super San Marzano Roma tomatoes, those we canned with green pepper, garlic and onion to use in all of our Italian sauces/soups come winter.

While the canning is quite a process, and made me very nervous at first, I have found that like most things, if you go slow, read up before hand, ask a lot of questions and follow directions the end result as as you expected if not better.

Now we have in our garage, 18 jars of fresh packed heirloom tomatoes, 7 jars of Italian style chopped tomatoes, 4 jars of basil/garlic tomato sauce.

Now its time to get out into the garden harvest a few more green beans, fertilize the eggplants and start planning the layout for the "Cold Winter Crop". We are thinking, sweet peas, parsnips and turnips, more beets, potatoes, broccoli, brussel sprouts and are looking for additional suggestions!

For Ila

I had to post this picture for my Aunt Ila, she loves tomatoes with feta and balsamic vinaigrette almost as much as I do so I know she will appreciate this photo.

We had a combination of our Heirloom, Golden Delicious, Abraham Lincoln, and Stupice tomatoes in this salad. We cut up a little of our home grown basil, added some feta and balsamic vinaigrette and we had a veritable tomato feast!

Nothing better than homegrown tomatoes!

Just budding out...

We have seen for the first time now the Machinaw and Casper eggplants we put in the ground more than 3 months ago, little tiny fruit, no bigger than 1.5 inches have appeared - very exciting. The Machinaw is a from of Japanese eggplant so it will be great in our Thai Curry and other Asian cooking dishes. The Casper, yes so named because it is a white eggplant, is supposed to have a thinner skin than the traditional Italian Eggplant and we hope to be able to slice bread and bake/fry that for various Italian dishes.

Equally exciting is the appearance of little itty bitty melons, really no bigger than a large jaw breaker at this point and so cute!

Things continue to move along out in the garden, we have one mystery squash, I'll have to post a picture of it and see if anyone out there knows what it is, I'll do that next week.

Blake and Kendra, Living Garden Gnomes

We had a lot of fun last week in the garden.

Our seven year old twin niece and nephew stayed with us for a few days last week and couldn't wait to get out in the garden and pick some strawberries and vegetables.

Of course they only ate the strawberries, but they enjoyed picking everything.

The tomatoes are really coming on now, I think it has something to do with the fact that our temps have hovered between 90 and 105 for the last two weeks!   I've been able to share tomatoes with friends and family and think that by the first part of next week I will once again break out the pressure canner and can some tomatoes, the Super San Marzano, an heirloom Roma tomato will be perfect for diced tomatoes and marinara sauce.

Our yellow beans have been a little tough and leathery in the latest harvests and I am wondering if it is time to call it a day with those and plant something new in their place.  Has anyone else had this experience?  The green beans continue to be tender and yummy!     

We are still seeing as much zucchini as we can handle, and one of the gnomes picked our first crook neck squash of the season, more to come I am sure.

We have watered the garden every day, and on days that hit 105 or better twice a day!  I think it is working as we have not yet lost any plants in this heat wave.

The corn continues to grow well, looks like we will see at least two ears per stalk, yay us!       We can't wait to sink our pearly whites into those pearly whites!

Presto Pesto

Yesterday I decided to make a little pesto pasta.

I picked two cups worth of basil from the, Sweet Basil, and Pesto Perpetua Basil plants and went to town.

Pesto is really quite easy, its all about having the right ingredients on hand, I was lucky that I had some pine nuts on the cupboard from a salad earlier in the year.

The recipe is as follows:

2 cups fresh basil leaves

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup shopped pine nuts

1/2 cup Parmesan or Romano cheese

1/4 teaspoon salt

pepper to taste

You just put all of the ingredients in a blender and presto you have pesto!

I stirred it in with my pasta and then threw some of the yellow cherry tomatoes on top, as you can see I paired it with a little Pizza Margherita, I used the Sweet Basil leaves on this pizza and the Super San Marzano Roma tomatoes.

It was yummy and so easy!

Garden Beauty & Bounty

Well, I couldn't resist taking a few pictures of the garden yesterday morning, I took pictures of both the east and west sides, it looks so inviting right now with all of the blooming flowers, and pretty greens of the vegetables.

I'm working on getting a picture of the entire yard, that however requires that the patio be cleaned off and presentable since some of it will have to show, and its a little chaotic at the moment!

This morning I picked the ripe beans and tomatoes, and realized I now have enough basil for a batch of pesto - yummy, I can't wait.

I prepared the beans and dove into my first "pressure canning" project.   I actually did a practice run yesterday with the new Presto Pressure Canner, I didn't want to have any questions when I was in the middle of it today!  It went very well, each of the three jars sealed appropriately and they look kind of pretty.  I think I am going to need some smaller jars, the quart size will be just a little too big for a two person portion and I would prefer not to have left overs when I open our canned veggies. 

Summer Favorites

Two of our summer favorites are sweet corn, and tomatoes.

The tomatoes are starting to ripen, and by the end of the week we should start to see plenty of tomatoes, and should continue to see ripe tomatoes through September YAY !  

I am hoping to make a batch of Pomodoro sauce on Friday with the Super San Marzano's, a 4" heirloom roma tomato that we planted,  and our Sweet Basil.  I love the fresh crushed tomatoes with basil and garlic to throw over a little pasta.  

We had a tomato salad on Sunday, our Stupice and Golden Delicious heirloom tomatoes drizzled with olive oil and topped with basil, also from our garden.

Thrilled to see that corn is starting to grow.  We may only get a one or two ears per stalk but we will enjoy every last kernel of the corn.  We would definitely plant more corn next year it has been very easy to manage.

Pollinate your Zucchini, by hand?  I had never heard of this but I highly recommend it.  

We toured the garden of our friend Ken Mano a few weeks ago and had a discussion about pollinating zucchini.  Ken mentioned that he had been losing fruit in its youngest stages, until he started pollinating the zucchini by hand.  

I came home checked our plants and realized the same thing was happening to us, I found several small zucchini, that had started to shrivel, they were only 2-3 inches in length and were also discolored, kind of yellow/brown.

 I have since this time been pollinating our zucchini by hand and am having positive results.  I simply wait for the bud on the fruit to open slightly, and then take some pollen from the stamen of an open flower and transfer that pollen to the stamen on the bud connected to the fruit.  It takes a few seconds, but is well worth it.

It's started..

Zucchini madness that is, and I love it.

I just made a batch of zucchini muffins and they are fabulous. Nothing like a home cooked muffin warm out of the oven with melted butter.

Yesterday we had sauteed zucchini in our omelet, and on July 4th we'll have California Vegetable Casserole, with zucchini, onion, tomato, cheese and a little Bisquick to hold it all together, its yummy with other BBQ sides like beans, onion casserole and potato salad.

I also need to pick beans today, the green and yellow beans are ready to eat, we'll have those in a salad tonight with our evening meal.

I just love the garden!

Knee High By the Fourth of July?

Since I was little I've heard the phrase, "knee high by the fourth of July", in reference to the growth of corn. Of course, this phrase was repeated by my parents both raised on farms in Illinois, which is probably why, it's not applying to the corn we planted in our back yard.

We have TASSELS ! I couldn't believe it when I saw that each stalk has tasseled, that means the corn is on its way and we are thrilled, as this was the most "iffy" crop we planted this year.

The tomatoes were just out of control, growing wildly and producing clusters of good looking tomatoes that just need to turn red. We decided we had to offer the tomato plants a little more support and so Guy built these amazing trellis' to support their incredible growth and increase our odds of getting all the fruit possible off of these plants.

As an update, the sparkly mylar ribbon did not help keep the birds off the strawberries, but still looks pretty out in the yard. We did put some one inch square mesh plastic over the strawberries to protect the fruit and that is working!

I started new seedlings on beans, squash, and beets this week, to keep our crops going through the early fall, and the beets and squash into winter. I also found an heirloom variety of cherry tomatoes that is supposed to bear fruit in a variety of colors - I'll let you know if those seeds pop up, I have never planted tomatoes from seed before!

Garden Bounty

We returned from our Maya Riviera vacation last night and immediately went out to the garden to see what was new in the last seven days.  We were thrilled to discover the number of golden cherry tomatoes ready to eat, the extraordinary growth of the tomato plants, and the crazy number of beans ready for picking.

So today we had our first garden meal, well mostly garden anyway.

I picked, red and yellow beets, yellow wax beans, and red and golden tomatoes to put in a salad.

It just looked so pretty sitting in the colander out in the garden I had to take a picture.

The salad turned out to be really yummy, the golden cherry tomatoes, Gingers Golden Delicious, are so tender and sweet.  The small red tomatoes are the "Stupice", the heirloom tomato from Czechoslovakia, that has the huge potato leaf, and they have an amazing flavor.

I also steamed some Black Pencil Pod Wax Beans to add to the salad, boy were they yummy and sweet also.

The beets were fabulous, I boiled those in a little salt water to get them tender and was able to peel the skins right off.  We not only ate the beets, but also the leaves from the beets in our salad, which added a nice tangy flavor to the rest of the romaine lettuce.

All in all a great first meal from the bounty of our garden.

Backyard Buffet

Well, I'm more than a little concerned that my sparkly garden trim is not going to keeping the birds from eating our tender fruit....why you ask?

I unknowingly turned our garden beds into a veritable feast for all birds in the neighborhood, and I mean all birds, as I turned the soil over yesterday in my fertilizing efforts.  It was so noisy in our yard last night and this morning it was hard to believe.

That will teach me to fertilize.  My only hope is that they will be so filled up with worms, and other assorted earth creatures that they will leave our veggies and fruits alone!

Well if nothing else I have contributed to the happiness of the local bird population.

Sparkly, Glittery, Garden

Yes, our garden is now sparkling...are you surprised I found a way to make our garden sparkly, probably not :)

It's not just decorative though, the primary function of the sparkly mylar ribbons is to keep the birds from eating our berries and little tomatoes.  We have seen big blue birds and sparrows swooping around the garden and making off with our fruit and we are not happy about it.  Where are the cute little humming birds, those are welcome in our garden any time!

Are you ready for a game of  "I Spy"?  Check out the photo's and see if you can see the vegetables that are starting to show themselves...

It's so exciting, we now have yellow beans, zucchini, yellow squash, and the tomatoes are starting to turn to their "ripe" colors!

We got the garden fertilized today, using E.B. Stone Organics it came highly recommended and seems to have done the trick as we mixed it into the soil with our initial planting.

Tomato & Vegetable Food 4-5-3 E. B. Stone Tomato & Vegetable Food is formulated from quality natural organic ingredients for use throughout the vegetable garden as well as with soft fruits like strawberries. It will contribute to even plant growth without producing excessive foliage at the expense of fruit. The additional phosphorous helps to ensure the production of high quality fruits and vegetables. The calcium in our Tomato & Vegetable fertilizer aids in preventing disorders like blossom end rot and helps to correct acidic soil conditions. For superior produce, use our Flower & Vegetable Planting Mix with native soil when preparing your beds.

I also have to give props to the "Atlas" garden glove, I LOVE these, they are so fabulous, the fit is snug and the Nitrile on the palm allows you to pick up anything small or large, and our hands don't get hot and sweaty in them.  I don't think I will ever again be without this glove.

Atlas 370 Tough Nitrile Gloves
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Atlas 370 Tough Nitrile Gloves Durable Nitrite Coating, resists punctures and abrasions, outperforms leather. No seams, fits like a second skin. Wears like iron; extremely durable.  The flexible nitrile coating is tougher than rubber, protecting palms and fingertips from the rigors of every day work. Seamless lightweight black nylon knit liner increases comfort while it repels dirt and stains. Ideal for jobs requiring maximum dexterity and freedom of hand movement without the fatigue associated with heavier, bulkier gloves. Machine washable.

Anaheim Peppers = Chili Rellano

I spent the morning working in the garden, wow, I love being able to say that!

I thinned out the yellow beets, where there were two or more growing together they were starting to bump each other out and, while they are quite tasty as little baby beets, we would like them to get a little bigger.

I also planted some Anaheim peppers in the same bed as the tomatoes and golden beets, Anaheim peppers are my preferred pepper for Chili Rellano and I want to be sure we have plenty.  We had fabulous Chili Rellano in Cody Wyoming at a little restaurant called Zapata's on our trip, and of course I want to replicate it.  It was unusual because it wasn't breaded and deep fried.  They grilled the pepper, and then laid it on top of eggs which had been prepared as if for an omelet, layered cheese on top and the folded the entire thing over and served it with an incredible salsa.    I may not be able to wait for our own peppers to try it, it was so yummy.

We planted a few more strawberries, I'm not sure how many plants we would need in order to support our "strawberry habit", however I don't think we're there yet.  And while we're talking about strawberries does anyone know if squirrels eat strawberries, we have had a few large ripe strawberries disappear entirely, one the size of a small egg, the only culprits I have to consider are birds or squirrels - any bets?

I had to take another picture of the beans climbing up the tepee and the squash below, I think its so beautiful and now the pole beans have so many blossoms on them.

I wanted to let you all know the beehives continue to work like a charm at collecting lots of white flies and other flying creatures, except the bees.  The actual bees just buzz around all the flowers and plants happily pollinating as they go!

Tomorrow is another day in the garden, I am planning to fertilize, the north and east beds, and if I have the energy the north tomato bed, I'll let you know how far I get!

Surprising Garden Growth

It has been three weeks since my last posting here, we left on our road trip to the family farm in Illinois on 5/11 and returned yesterday 6/1.  The trip was fabulous and we saw beautiful farm land and grazing area all over Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, South Dakota and Idaho.

The growth of the garden is so exciting, we can hardly believe the rapid growth of everything we planted.  

I was also thrilled to see that the pole beans knew just what to do with the tepees, they are climbing right up, and the base of the tepees look so verdant and green with the squash planted right below!

The only garden casualty as a result of our road trip was the newly planted onions.  They did not continue their growth in our absence, I have no idea why, but there is literally no trace of them left.

One of the prettiest things happening right now in the garden is all of the flowering, little yellow flowers on the tomato plants, white flowers on the strawberry plants, large golden buds/flowers on the zucchini, small pink flowers on the black wax beans, and even a beautiful purple flower on our casper eggplant.

And to my surprise the sunflowers have also blossomed!

We had our first bite out of the garden yesterday, a small but very ripe and sweet strawberry!  It was wonderful to pluck it right off of the plant and eat it while we were standing in the warmth and peace of our very own garden.

Today we pulled both a red beet and a golden beet, sliced up the beets and then chopped up the wonderful large leaves and put them in our salad, it was both delicious and satisfying!

Late Spring Rains Make Happy Gardens

We have received rain the last four days and the garden is so happy!  

I can't believe how quickly things seem to be growing, the beets are getting so big, well I assume they are from the way their greens are growing,  the beans are growing tall and strong  and the zucchini and crook neck squash look ready to start their sprawl. 

The tomato plants are quickly becoming bushes and we will stake the tomatoes this week to avoid any breaking branches and encourage that growth.  

I even spied our first tomato one of the Super San Marzano's, can you see it in the photo?

You Catch More Flies With Honey...

In one of our gardening classes as Alden Lane, we learned that white flies are attracted to yellow gold colors.  A  great way to rid your garden of them, without getting anything toxic on your plants, is to cover a board of some sort that's been painted this yellow gold color with a clear plastic bag that has been sprayed with a product like "Tangle-Trap Sticky Coating" and then remove the fly laden bags when they are carpeted with flies and no sticky stuff is left.  It really works!
Of course being me, and believing that all things functional can be decorative as well,  these adorable beehives are the "fly catchers" my husband made for our garden.  We recycle our clear plastic produce bags which slip easily on and off the beehives.

You really do catch more flies with honey!

The Beets Grow On, and Strawberry Fields Forever

The garden is getting bigger, as you can see in the new photo posts the beets are growing, I love the deep red veins you can see in the leaves, and the strawberries are starting to show up.  We really do hope it is strawberry fields forever, between the jam I need to make to keep my Guy happy, and the fruit we eat in smoothies as well as with cottage cheese and cereal we can eat a fields worth between the two of us!  We also planted some new things last week, corn, eggplant, sunflowers, nasturtium, green onions, and basil.  We're trying to spread out the herbs in order to work the idea that those pungent plants help to keep the bugs at bay.

Guy is busy making fly catchers for me, I'll post a photo of that when he's done and let you know how it worked, and I am indoors updating the blog, because it is cold today, well cold for here anyway.  It is only 55, we had a heavy marine layer from the bay this morning, and the wind is blowing fiercely, if we measured wind chill here I bet it would be about 40.  It's a good day to catch up on indoor work, laundry, cleaning, and blogging, tomorrow should be warmer and I will plant my carrots.

The Stupendous Stupice

The Stupice Tomato is described as, " a Czechoslovakian Heirloom tomato that bears small red fruit and has a potato leaf", they're not kidding, look at the size of this leaf.  The camera is not exaggerating the size, this is the biggest leaf and is probably 4" x 6", can you imagine - and don't the roses look beautiful blooming in the background?  We didn't have to sacrifice the beautiful roses for the "edible" landscape.

Back in Town

We are back in town tending our garden after visiting friends and family for several days, and are grateful our sister was here to water for us given the 90+ temps we have seen lately!

The heat has done wonders for the tomatoes, they have really grown, and it has also brought out the bugs, we will implement some of our organic pest control techniques tonight and see how they do against ear wigs and snails, these seem to be the biggest culprits in the garden so far.

We got our yellow bean seedlings in the ground before we left and today the carrot seedlings, it's really starting to look like a little farm out there!

Green Beans and Apron Strings

They're in the ground, all of the Kentucky Blue Beans have been planted, yippity skippity, and no surprise to those of you who know me, we did end up with tepees for the beans to climb.  I think it will add a lot of height and color to the garden, and I will have so much fun watching the beans climb up the poles!  We fashioned the tepees out of bamboo sticks tied together with the fabric left over from our niece Ashlyn's apron.  Now we have two reasons to smile when we look at the beans, the cool tepees and thinking of our cute Ashlyn! 

Look at these Kentucky Blue Beans - they look like a little bean forest in the flat the seeds were planted in.  They are so ready to get put in the ground, I planted the seeds about ten days ago and can't believe how quickly they have popped up.  Hopefully the rain will slow down a little this afternoon and I will be able to get them in the ground.  These are pole beans so we will need to decide whether to build tepees or a trellis for them to climb, I think the tepees would be cooler and add some visual interest to the garden but a trellis might be more practical, hmmmm wonder which will win over?

The Pencil Pod Black Wax Beans, bet it will surprise you to know these are yellow beans, also popped up, no trellis needed for these, they are bush beans so they only need to be staked.

I was excited this morning to see the first Yellow Crookneck squash poking up through the potting soil it's funny how fast things are moving along, I thought it would take much more time for the seeds to get going, but I guess all that warmth and light really accelerated the timeline.

The Beginning

October 2008 - We determined it would be in our best interest to re-purpose much of our back yard, which was primarily lawn, and roses, into an "edible" landscape.  Our reasons for this included a desire to be more self reliant, increasing the nutritional value of our produce, reducing our carbon footprint, (and our grocery bill) and following the teachings of our religious leaders.

November 2008 - While we weren't ready to plant anything, we decided to get ready by starting to compost all organic waste.  We built two compost keepers out of 1" mesh wire for a cost of about $16.00, one of our goals is to keep everything as cost effective as possible.  Everything organic went into the compost keepers, all the shells from the Cioppino we enjoyed over the winter, egg shells, onion skins, avocado and banana peels, leaves, grass clippings, you name it, the only thing we didn't include were weeds.

February 2009 - We were anxious to begin planning our garden and decided to educate ourselves by attending classes at what we consider to be the premiere local nursery, Alden Lane Nursery in Livermore California.  We attended classes on soil preparation, requirements of organic gardening, and pest control, both traditional and organic.  With these classes we felt we were ready to plan our garden, we consulted several books from the library to identify the best crops for our area, and understand their growth habits.  Now we knew what would grow best in our area, and how best to organize the garden based on the needs of the crops.

March 2009 - We began the process of re-purposing our back yard, we converted about 40% of our back yard to an "edible" landscape and did not give up any of the roses or other strictly decorative plants, we only converted lawn.  We did shift some roses in order to create more room but they have all lived through the move!  Once we identified where we wanted our "garden to grow", we set about making raised beds, this is critical in our area as our natural soil is "clay rich". 

Once the raised beds were constructed we began to enrich the soil. We used a fabulous soil amendment, Bumper Crop, which contains yummy things for the soil and your veggies, like chicken manure and bat guano.  We also turned in to the soil E.B. Stone Natural Granular Gypsum, again for the clay, and E.B. Stone Organic Tomato and Vegetable Fertilizer, we were striving for very happy rich soil!

We also started our seed planting in March, preparing for April planting of beets, beans, squash, and carrots. 

April 2009 - The tomatoes we ordered from Ginger of Sun Catcher Harvest arrived last week and we planted them immediately,  Our tomatoes include; Abraham Lincoln Hybrid, Stupice, Super San Marzano, Gingers Golden Delicious, Sungold, and Black Krim.  I can't wait!