Eggplant

It might snow tonight! Had to harvest my crop of four eggplants.



Just enough for some eggplant parmesean.

Veggies starting

There are hints of activity in our veggies beds. Eggplant blossoms.

Lots of zucchini blossoms.

Some promising peppers.

Garden 2016 ready to go

In between rain showers we were able to get the garden beds ready for planting.

Turns out I have a crop of onions and shallots without even doing anything

We planted various tomatoes, and some zucchini and cucumbers that we grew in the greenhouse. also peppers and eggplant.

I had a lot of plants left over so they went into containers on the front patio. I will be interested to see which plants do better.

The call of the tomato

We didn't really need grape tomatoes but I can home with this little Tom Box of them. Why?

Because I couldn't resist trying out the grape tomato dispenser at Wegmans!

First Day of Spring seed planting

The temperatures may have dropped back down a bit but I couldn't be happier that the First Day of Spring is here.

To celebrate we planted some seeds to start growing indoors.

My mom found this vintage Better Homes & Garden "New Garden Book". The title makes me smile because it certainly isn't new anymore but it has some good info in it. They still offer this book by the way and each new release is called "new". I don't know why I find that so funny.

For more a local calendar of when to start seeds and when to transplant them, I use this guide.

Garden grown garlic

The garden was full of little cherry tomatoes and more cucumbers for making Seven Day Shake Pickles.

This year I got a pretty good garlic crop. Not only did I get some scapes for pickling earlier, but these bulbs are stored away for later this year.

Early summer garden

This year we planted peas in the garden. The vines grew taller than Aaron! I only planted a few so they were more for snacking than anything.

The lettuce and spinach did great. We got several salads out of those. There is some mint and basil photobombing the photo.

Our cukes are doing well too. I see pickles in our future.

I had so many tomato and zucchini plants earlier at the end of spring I put them out by the sidewalk for neighbors to take. I hope they are all doing well in their new homes.

Leafy green crops

I like trying new things with our gardening. This spring I planted some red leaf lettuce and spinach in a patio garden container.

It seemed like forever before the seeds sprouted but once they did the plants took off.

We had a nice spinach salad from my first cuttings.

I planted another container with kale and chinese cabbage. It might be getting too warm for the cabbage but we will see.

Radishes, butter and salt

The first thing out of our garden this summer is radishes. I have been waiting for this radishes ever since I read that the thing to do with radishes... is to eat them with butter and salt!

It sounds odd, but I love trying odd combos. (honey on pizza and ketchup on mac & cheese for instance) It sort of makes sense... the butter tames the bite of a radish. Salt enhances the flavor.

Really you can just serve them with butter, a dish of salt and slices of bread.

Or smear the butter on the radishes and dip them in salt.

I like this method of wedging a bit of butter into a slice cut into the radishes.

Or go all out and make a radish, butter and salt sandwich. That is what I did but with just regular bread. It really is tasty. A nice alternative for our garden radishes.

Garden weather & greenhouse floor

A bit of warm weather gave us a chance to get out in the garden. I cleaned out the square foot garden beds and admired the progress the rhubarb and garlic is making. Check out my new garden tools that were in my Easter basket. I have broken two garden shovels so let's hope this one hangs in there.

I was super excited because Aaron installed a stone paver floor in my greenhouse while I pulled weeds.

I think it looks great and it will help hold in heat at night as the pavers absorb the sunlight during the day. Now I just need to see some seedlings pop up!

Starting Seeds for Garden 2014

Today was wonderfully warm and I finally had a chance to plant my veggie and flower seeds!

I used strips of newspaper and my little wooden PotMaker to make newspaper pots for the flower seeds.

So handy.

Here they are... all ready to go.

I stashed them all away in the toasty warm greenhouse. I also planted some posts of herbs. The garlic is already coming up in my garlic planter. Big plans for Garden 2014!

Greenhouse ready!

Remember the greenhouse Aaron got me for my birthday? We put it together a few weeks ago and I love it!

We had an unseasonably warm day today and I started filling it with plants.

I moved my celery from the garden inside and also planted some garlic.

My potted herbs will stay in the greenhouse over winter too.

I think I will try some other plants also, maybe lettuce? I really need to read up more on greenhouses. I'm dreaming about eating fresh homegrown veggies all winter which may be a tad unrealistic but we shall see.

More small batch canning: dilly beans & pickled peppers

Since we keep getting smallish amounts of veggies from our CSA, I am really digging small batch canning. A few handfuls of green beans become dilly beans. I made them extra spicy.

This was for two jars of beans:

enough green beans for two pint jars
1 cups water
1 cups white vinegar
2 tablespoons pickling salt

and

2 medium cloves garlic
2 dill flowers
2 teaspoons hot pepper flakes

Boil water, vinegar, and salt in a pot. Add 1 garlic, 1 dill flower and 1 teaspoon of pepper flakes to each jar with green beans. Pour liquid into each jar.

We also got several handfuls of hot peppers too. Aaron got me this awesome book of home preserving that shows you how to can pretty much anything.

So I made some pickled hot peppers too. Those should be good in sammiches!

Soup Season

The comfort cooking really kicks into high gear at my house when fall hits. We have been getting big heads of broccoli from our CSA farm share, which I have saved up. I saved them up to make a big batch of broccoi cheese soup. I used Pioneer Woman's recipe... she has been my go-to recipe source lately. They just pop up first in my google searches and I go with my google gut on these things.

We also got a large supply of leeks in our farm share so that meant potato leek soup. I was hesitant to make this after the big scalding hot potato leep soup and burn of 2007. It doesn't look like I blogged about it, but after making a batch of potato leek soup for our soup swap in 2007, I was taking it out of the microwave at work and spilled it on my hand. It was a surprisingly bad burn... I still have the marks on my arm.

Anyhoo, I was ready to put that behind me and this time used the Wegman's recipe. A dollop (ok more than a dollop) of creme fraiche, and fried bacon ends (have you ever had those? AMAZING!) and I was ready to forgive the soup for scarring my arm six years ago.

Fall veggies

I love this time of year when we start harvesting veggies from our little backyard garden.

Rhubarb, tomatoes, eggplant, funny little thumbelina carrots, jalapeno peppers...

Especially tomatoes! Sooo many! I need to get canning!

Potatoes & Pugs

While we were home in PA we helped raise potatoes. It was a good crop this year.

I used some that we brought home with us to make comfort food. Hamburger patties and mashed potatoes smothered in mushroom gravy with corn.

Pugs LOVE mashed potatoes.

Dilly beans & Micro-canning

Last week in our CSA share we got green beans. One handful of green beans. I wasn't in the mood for green beans for supper so I canned ONE jar of dilly beans. I think the kids call this "microcanning".

There is even a cook book about it! Food in Jars: Preserving in Small Batches Year-Round Canning just one small batch at a time. I don't HAVE to make 20 jars of grape juice all at once. I can make just one jar. Better than letting a bowlful of fruits or veggies go bad.

When did cookbooks get so stinkin cute? I love these square ones they come out with these days. I can't keep up with them, I want them all. Like this canning cook book, Canning for a New Generation: Bold, Fresh Flavors for the Modern Pantry.