Back At Last... April 19, 2011

Retired and loving it - and back to blogging! The garden is taking shape for the summer. Tomatoes all in, onions and garlic up, and the last of the spring peas are going wild. The winter greens were delicious and I am still finding carrots we missed.

Yesterday we put in a 4 x 10 raised bed for our son as a housewarming present - what could be better to make a house a home than homeraised, fresh organic veggies? So simple to build a box, fill with good manure, topsoil and layer in straw, and get to planting! We started them off with tomatoes, squash, herbs and lettuce and soon will add peppers and eggplants. Perhaps an idea for young people in your family or neighborhood just starting out? Instead of more *stuff* for them to cram into their lives, how about a new garden they can enjoy year round?

Fall Produce ... Nov. 28, 2009

The collards, mustard greens and other fall veggies are going gangbusters - we have enjoyed fresh collards at least once a week and I have been taking bags to give to co-workers. But with gardening activities slowing down I have looked for other ways to save money while getting fresh, homemade vegetables. The after Thanksgiving sales had me finding ways to preserve sweet and white potatoes. So far I have frozen mashed Russet potatoes, baked sweet potatoes and twice baked Russets. Those will be so easy when we're tired - just pop them in the oven at 325 and 30 minutes later, hot twice baked potatoes! When sweet potatoes are on sale for 19 cents a pound and Russets for 25 cents a pound, I just had to find a way to put them up for the fall and winter! We will be enjoying dehydrated sweet potatoes as well in our roasted vegetables when the weather calls for a hearty meal. Tomorrow I will be dehydrating some of the Russets to add to vegetable soups. Frugal and delicious!

Micro Tomatoes, collards and fall...Oct. 30, 2009

The Micro toms are ripening under the fluorescent lights - will have them on some of our potted mesclun lettuce mix tomorrow... the collards have filled the beds and that beautiful October sky makes being outside so much more appealing now that the air is crisp instead of muggy.

Fall apples... Oct. 17, 2009

The NC mountains, besides being beautiful, produce great apples. Although I was unable to get up there, a friend brought me a bushel of Winesap, Granny Smith and Golden Delicious. Four pints and eight half pints of homemade organic applesauce are in the pantry now and tomorrow we will have apple maple crisp for desert. Certainly helps us get over the loss of ripe homegrown tomatoes as fall descends!

Micro Tom Tomatoes... Oct. 3, 2009

Had to share some pics of the fruiting Micro Tom tomatoes - they are growing now inside under fluorescent lights. Put a tablespoon in the pot on the right to show the relative size of the plant and tiny tomatoes.

Peppers, peppers everywhere.. Oct. 3, 2009

Took out the last of the pepper plants today - and harvested ten pounds of six varieties. The day was spent roasting Anchos, Round of Hungary and Corno di Toros, freezing chopped bell peppers and canning banana and jalapeno peppers. I tried a bread and butter jalapeno recipe and ended up with six pints- am hoping the sweet and hot flavors will be an interesting accent. We had two of the roasted Anchos with melted cheese with our tortilla pie dinner - their smoky hot flavor was fabulous!

Summer's last harvests ... Sept. 29, 2009

An Indian summer day... in the 80s, sunny, bluest of skies. Only downside was the wind - gusts up to 25 mph which actually toppled the last four tomato plants (6 ft. plus) in their cages. I staked the cages back up and worked to finish up some of the tasks and clean up for the summer garden and finish off the start of the fall plantings. Having more than one season of growing makes the end of summer much easier - just different harvests to look forward to! Pulled the last black beauty eggplant out - it only had one very small eggplant left after the large one picked yesterday and with night temps predicted to dip in the high 40s this week I don't think it was going to have a chance to grow up. I picked all the banana peppers and mystery Salsa peppers from three pots, picked 4 Round of Hungary from a wind broken plant and took those plants to the compost pile, refreshing the pots with organic potting mix, mushroom compost and organic Planttone. One was for another pot of mesclun lettuce, one for a mystery Thai Mixed Greens mix received free with an order from Baker Seeds, one for Tokyo Bunching Evergreen onions and one for another free packet of seeds, this time Red of Florence onion seeds - hoping for some fresh green onions late into fall. These will all stay on the deck along with the bin of spinach and the larger pot of mesclun lettuce for easy picking. Two more freebies, small cabbage starts from HD, were planted - one where the eggplant had been, now a collards bed, and one in the midst of the last pepper plants, which I have interplanted with a few collards. Those peppers will be coming out this week and the rest of that part of the bed will be filled with more radishes (French Breakfast and Chinese White Winter) and more greens.