Thinking out loud

Ok, the square foot garden is moving along nicely. DD fixed it up with some new shit and peat and vermiculite a month or two ago and started planting. We've decided to leave the tomatoes out of the old garden and build a purpose built tomato garden. 1.5 feet by 12 feet, or maybe 16 feet. The rhubarb is coming up gangbusters and we've planted a strawberry bed. Oddly enough the corner where I suggested DD dump all the extra strawberries looks as good, if not better, than the planned garden. Leftover Bed. Planned Strawberry Bed. Peas, and onions, and radishes, and stuff Anyway, she got on a plane this morning and jetted off to Virginia, for a business meeting on Monday and Tuesday..... and a nice relaxing day or two at my Nana's place near Marshall Virginia. Something I noticed while mowing today is that whenever she leaves she leaves me this wish list of chores that I haven't been able to get done in the last few weeks with her here to help, but now somehow...

My wife just asked me why the dog is in the last post..... Can anyone really look at that picture and wonder why I put the dog in these? Anyway, I have a container garden of peppers, used to have some tomatoes but they all died. Indiana is experiencing it's second year of blight since 1994, so almost all of my maters and about half of DD's are gone. No Green Zebras, no Mr. Stripeys, no Pineapple Tomatoes, just Black Plums, Rinaldos, German Johnsons, Whoppers, a few Pink Brandywines, and Golden Cherries. My peppers were doing quite well, I lost my habanero peppers a while back, bad soil and I think not enough water. My California Goldens are doing really well, my scotch bonnets are doing well. But, my hottest peppers are my Bulgarian Carrot Peppers, which fell victim to a evil caterpillar 5 hours and the whole thing was gone. I have three leaves and 4 peppers left, so I'll hope to get at least the last ones out. Oddest thing I realized, all our surviving peppers th...

While I do not have a glut of tomatoes, I am overfilled with peppers so what to do?  My family would never forgive me if I did not can lots of salsa!  They LOVE it.  My 17 year old even has her best friend bringing me tomatoes so I can "can" her some for when she is over there.  Seriously, this is some fantastic salsa and since there is concern over my Dried Tomatoes in Oil, I thought I would post this as well.  I have only canned two batches so far but I know this weekend the expectation is for much more! Sassy Salsa 10 cups tomatoes peeled and chopped 3/4 cup green pepper, chopped 3/4 cup banana pepper, chopped 3/4 cup onion, chopped 2 cloves garlic minced 1 tablespoon salt Mix all items in a heavy pot and bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer until desired thickness (about 1/2 to 1 hour).  Pour into hot, sterilized jars, add 1 teaspoon of lemon juice per jar, seal.  Hot water bath can 10 minutes .Apparently this is not safe either f...

Tomatoes are a beautiful thing.  Are they veggies?  Are they fruit?  No matter they are delicious and can be used everywhere - in salad, sauce, salsa or simply sliced with fresh mozz cheese, basil and a little balsamic vinegar.  So again, we are faced with a choice, what to can for the can jam?  After much thought I settled on Dried Tomatoes in Oil, From Sensational Preserves (Hilaire Walden) 4 1/2 pounds fleshy, ripe tomatoes sea salt virgin olive oil Preheat the oven to the lowest setting.  Line the bottom of the oven with foil to protect it from drips from the tomatoes. Halve the tomatoes lengthwise and scoop out the seeds using a teaspoon.  As each tomato half is ready, place it, cut side down, on a wire rack, spacing them slightly apart. Sprinkle salt very lightly on each tomato half, then place them, cut side down, on a wire rack, spacing them slightly apart. Put the racks in the oven and prop the door very slightly ajar with a skew...

Ok, for those of you who have a blog you know how this goes. You are driving down the road and you think to your self, "Oh yeah, I need to post about this!!!" This is the garden back in May. And then you get home and life happens to you. So, as you get ready to go to sleep something else hits you... This is the Rhubarb cordial, syrup, stuff. It's all gone now, mostly in Rhubaritas, but some in Rhubarb Iced Tea. A few days pass, maybe a week or two, or three, and you realize that you are way behind on anything you meant to talk about, and some things don't even make sense any more. Some people get on planes and go to foreign places... Some things show up and start eating shoes. And sometimes, even when you post the most recent picture of something, it's still three weeks old.

Ok, let's set the scene. Three weeks ago DD and I are at Lowes buying two for one plants. Some tomatoes, peppers, and other stuff. It's early for our zone but we can keep them in the house until it's time. I was wanting to plan right away, and I was told I was silly. Then we talked about the people at the plan shop in the parking lot at the mall that were saying you should plant now and that is totally safe to do so. DD laughed about them a lot. On our way out of Lowes with a cart full of plants a gentleman walked up to us and asked if it was ok to plant now. DD explains that no, not at all, there is still a strong chance of frost, in fact there is a strong possibility of frost just three days from now. We talked about the garden shop that was so silly as to tell us to plant now, and my wife talked about how she was going to wait to plant our plants. We get home and someone picks up the plants, walks out side, and plants them.... All of them. Three days later, we did ...

DD is doing a raised bed garden this year. Our dirt is crap, nothing has done well the last couple years. So, I got her some horse poop, and peat, and vermiculite... and a pulled groin later we had a raised bed garden. In square foot gardening by some magic method you are able to put a million or so plants in each square foot. In some of the squares there are upwards of a couple dozen things growing. 24 carrots, 24 radishes... I have no idea how that works. The cages are for peas and tomatoes, we can't plant the maters outside yet since we live in some of the most random weather in the US. Edit: Ok, peas and cucumbers, not tomatoes. I put the string in, and she puts the plants in. And then the plants come up. The close up is Asian radish things. The site she gets a lot from is http://www.squarefootgardening.com/ I'm looking forward to more things like what we made for the can jam, which I'll talk about tomorrow.