It's Been A Little While...

There are going to be three distinct sections in this post.  I feel like I haven't been blogging very much lately, but a lot has been happening here, so this will be a big over-view.  The first section is the garden.  The picture above is a Rudbeckia flower.  It looks fake, but it's not!  Since the rain things have been doing well, and we have been harvesting a ton of produce and giving a lot away.

 

 

Daily harvests over the past week!

 

Companion planting with Soybeans, Dahlias and Black Eyed Susan's (left).  And Verbena, Russet Potatoes, Dill and Rudbeckia (right).

Second planting of beets getting big.

The second part of this post is going to be about our preserving projects.  I have been doing my best to preserve everything so that we don't waste any of our crops (or I give it away so other people can enjoy it).  This week we have done a lot of canning.  The main dilemma I have been having is finding room in our refrigerator to keep things until we use them.  It's gotten a little crazy in there...

(box on left shelf full of eggplant and squash)

Hot Garden Salsa.  We have tried this and it's delicious!

 

Baba Ghanoush

Spiced Peach Preserves...but I don't think this set.

 

Tomato Sauce

And finally the third update is on our dinners.  They have been amazing due to all the fresh produce picked minutes before they go into the pot.  I couldn't resist sharing these.

 

Eggplant Pomodoro with Homemade Ravioli

 

Steak Stir Fry

 

Steak and Homegrown Veggies

 

Homemade Ravioli, Veggies and Sausage

Home Grown Salad that went with pizza

Homemade Pizza with Fresh Tomatoes and Jalapenos

Pickling Cucumbers For Sale

I have moved onto other things with the abundance of cucumbers here.  No longer will I try and make every type of pickle possible, but instead I will attempt to make a little money on them...

 ...I just put these on Craigslist this morning.  Here's the listing. 

And if you want some good excuses to use these bad boys, here's some postings you might like.

How to Preserve 20 lbs of Cucumbers

Canning Continues

Canning Continues!

So we harvested another 23 lbs of pickling cucumbers.  I don't think we will have to buy pickles ever again!  We have made Kosher Dills, Sweet Relish, Sweet Pickles, Fresh Pack Sweet Relish, and yesterday we made Dill Relish.  (Check out this post for those recipes)

The Fresh Pack Sweet Relish which I made a couple days ago, looks good, but I won't officially know for 8 weeks.  And when I was finally done peeling and chopping all the cucumbers in the blue bucket, we had 6 pints and 17 half pints of Dill Relish.

 

We pulled our beets last week and had about 4 lbs.  So I canned some Beet Curry for this winter.

  

The main ingredient (obviously) is fresh beets, then beans and tomatoes along with onion.

 

All ingredients chopped and sauteed then beans added.

Simmering for 30 minutes.

Then canned in the pressure cooker for 1 hour 15 minutes.

It was a productive, hot day!

Weekly Update

A lot has gone on this week with harvesting!  Take a look:

"Chocolate Cherry" and "Fourth of July" Tomatoes

Garlic

Jalapenos, Cucumbers (another 23 lbs), Green Peppers and Benning's Summer Squash

Another box with some eggplant.

Pulled the "Finger" Carrots to make room for more. 

Sweet Onions (5 lbs)

Lots of green beans and some Dinosaur Kale

Curing Onions in braids for easier storage.

Cleaned Carrots, roughly 6 lbs total.

"Super Sweet Cherry" Tomatoes hanging from a pot on our porch.

Cantaloupe about the size of a baseball!

Gorgeous night sky thanks to some rain this past week.

Summer's Progress

Oriental Lilies thanks to my mom's Easter gift last year.

Peppers starting to turn red

Cauliflower

We've started with the green beans.

This is our tomato patch...I am 5'8 and the trellis is 6'.  They are huge!

Cherry Tomatoes in our hanging pots.

Cantaloupe!

Bennington's Green Tint summer squash.

Eggplants

The beginnings of a summer stir-fry.