Vegetable Garden. 5.4.21

 The vegetable garden is coming together nicely.  I did a lot of work over the past few months, building the new raised beds, removing the old ones, filling the soil, changing the in-ground beds around.  Now, most of that is done.  There is always something, but now I can relax a little more.

The second raised bed.  Everything is taking off now.

This winter I was excited to find Lemon Boy tomato seeds after years of looking.  The I planted the plant out early with the water cone for protection, and the leaves burned.  It's making a come back, yay.  That's also good news because I wondered if they were planted out too early.  It looks like they are just fine.

Mostly the third raised bed.  It's quite a mix.  The radishes are ready to eat.  That will happen with the lettuce and spinach, too, before the peppers need the space.

These are the hybrid Roma tomatoes.  They will need a sort of trellis before they flop over.

So far Extreme Bush tomato is looking nice in its container.

These thornless red raspberries are descended from some that grew under the fence into my yard from a neighbor, which I moved from the Vancouver place last year.  There were some good raspberries then.  This looks like a much better year.

 

Most of the vegetable garden.  There are more tomatoes than I will grow next year.  This is my tomato test garden year.

Tomato Seedling Update. 5.1.2021

 The Romas are mostly planted now.  That included the hybrid, determinate Romas, and the indeterminates.

These are Amish Paste and Tiren, both indeterminate but Amish Paste is open pollinated and Tiren is a hybrid.

These are mostly the slicing tomatoes.  They are the second group that I planted out, so they didn't get cooked in the Wall-o-Waters.

Some of these did get cooked.  However, I think they might be starting to grow anyway.  That would be nice.

These are the hybrid Romas.  They are determinate.  I hope they do well.  The nonhybrid Romas are only two plants, and not yet ready to plant in the garden bed.

Then there are the first of the Dwarf tomatoes.  This was a large plastic container that was originally a water feature filter.  I drilled nine 4-inch holes in the bottom, filled with a mix of home soil and home compost.  Also some left over peat moss.  This container should be large enough for these two dwarf tomatoes.  I read that they can be grown in 5 gallon buckets, and this container holds about 5 of those buckets of soil.  They do seem close together.

Planting More Seeds for Kitchen Garden. 3.24.2021

 This morning I planted more seeds for the kitchen garden.  With so many seedlings already, it can be a challenge to give them space under the plant lights.  Most of the early ones are tropicals, like tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, but some should be able to go outside soon.  Like lettuce, cilantro, celery, chive seeds.

What I planted:

Two six-packs of Chinese chives.  We use a lot of those for dumplings.  Home-saved seeds from last fall.  We've been growing Chinese chives from our saved seeds for about 20 years.   They are perennial so I don't save and plant every year, or even every other year.  The seem to fail to thrive after four or five years, so it's good to regenerate them now and them.

Two containers of cilantro.  One from new seeds, one from seeds saved last fall. 

Paste tomatoes, experiment.  One batch is Roma II hybrid, one is Amish paste tomato.  One six-pack of each.  I have not tried either.  The best are Ranger hybrid from Territorial Seeds but they are WAY more expensive and their shipping and handling is horrendous.  If the Amish turn out OK, I can save seeds from those for future growing.  If not, there is the Roma II hybrid.  My main challenge with paste tomatoes has been blossom end rot.  I read that calcium spray will prevent that, so ordering that now.  Flavor-wise, it's possible that either the Roma or Amish will be better than Ranger, anyway.

I planted some old parsley seeds.  About 5 years old.

The last batch of cilantro seeds was interesting.  I thought the home saved seeds always did well.  This time, germination has been spotty.  Maybe I'm just too impatient.  Still, there is some.  Today, to do a side-by-side comparison, I planted a pot of new Ferry Morse cilantro seeds, and another pot of home saved seeds.  We can use a bunch of cilantro each week, so they can be planted every week or two.

Photo is cilantro seedlings.  I think this is about 2 weeks old.  It does look like more are germinating.

Baked Pasta Sauce. 9.23.2020

 My friend Rich gave me this recipe.  It turned out to be really, really good.  The recipe made use of sauce tomatoes, onion, garlic, and Jalapeños from my garden, which is something I liked about it.

Cut about 10 sauce tomatoes and layer on bottom of oiled casserole dish.

Add one big minced garlic clove.

Add 1/2 chopped medium onion.

Add 3 sliced Jalapeños.

Dust with salt and pepper and some pepper flakes.

Drizzle with 1/4 cup olive oil.

Repeat with another layer of sliced tomatoes, minced garlic, chopped onion, sliced Jalapeños, and the salt, pepper, pepper flakes and olive oil.

Bake at 350 without covering, 50 min.

Here's how it looked before baking.

Here's how it looked after baking.

Here's how it looked on some spaghetti.

There was about 1/2 remaining as a bonus amount (say bonus amount, not left over.  It really is a bonus).  I kept that in the fridge overnight.  Then I air-fried a summer squash, sliced into French fry size slices and some disks, dusted with season salt, garlic powder, pepper, drizzled with olive oil.  Air fried 9 minutes at 400, mix, air fry another 9 minutes at 400.  Then cover with the pasta sauce, which is heated in microwave for a couple minutes.

Here's how that looked.

 Both meals were delicious.  This is one of the best recipes I've made, ever.

Edit:  24 Sept 2020.  This sauce is also delicious on rice. 

 

 

Sauce Tomatoes. Tomato sauce. Great year in 2018. 9.7.18

Despite other challenges, the sauce tomatoes have been a start crop this year.  Until 2016, I thought that growing sauce tomatoes wasn't worth the effort, but had never tried.  Then I grew some, and made my own sauce, and I was amazed at how good it was.   Far better than any commercial sauce.  I also thought it would be a lot of trouble to make tomato sauce, or very complicated.  It's not.

The challenges of growing sauce tomatoes, in my yard:
1.  Deer.  So I grew them in a fenced bed this year.
2.  Lack of experience.  Now I have it.
3.  Blossom end rot.  This was a big challenge during previous years.  I read it was insufficient calcium, or too much watering, or too much nitrogen.  I added lime to the soil, watered less, and gave less nitrogen, but did not have an improvement.  This year, I grew 3 varieties:  Ranger (From Territorial Seeds), Big Mamma (From Burpee), and traditional Roma (I forget where ).

As it turned out, the Ranger and Big Momma had not blossom end rot at all.  The Romas, in the same bed, had a fair amount.  So I think the hybrids are better.  As for flavor, I didn't test side by side, but the sauce is excellent.  As for productivity, the Big Mamma tomatoes are huge!  And meaty.  But the Ranger tomatoes are a good size and meaty, and I think pounds per plant is more with the Rangers.  I didn't measure, but I got a lot more tomatoes on the Ranger plants.

The photos show how I make the sauce.  No added salt or sugar or anything, just tomatoes.  Additives go in when I make something using the sauce.  It's very simple.

1.   Wash the tomatoes.  Remove stems.  Cut each into big chunks - halves or quarters.  No water is added.  No salt, no sugar.

2.  Heat on low/medium until they release their juices and start to boil.  Stir with wooden spoon to prevent sticking to the bottom, about once
every 10 or 15 minutes. Then reduce to the lowest setting.
I change to a mesh colander for lid.

3.   Simmer for about 90 minutes.  I've seen shorter and longer times.  This works for me.  Volume reduces by about 1/3.  I think more watery tomatoes would need longer.

4.   Replace lid and let them cool off.  A few hours or overnight.

5.  Use food processor to puree, skins, seeds, and all.  I don't remove anything.

6.  Portion 1 cup per labeled 1-qt freezer bag.  Freeze flat, then arrange in plastic box in freezer like cards in a file.  I use these about one per week, for a year or more.

I think most sites say they will keep for a year.   I think that by the end of the season, I'll have about 50 pouches, which gives me about 1 per week, which is about perfect.

Starting Seeds. 3.15.18

 Now the seeds are tucked away into a seed starting tray.  I like to start peppers now or a little earlier, and tomatoes a little later, but there is flexibility and you never know what the weather will do.

This time I tried 3 different types of sauce tomatoes, which I process and freeze in the summer and freeze for winter use.  I go through a lot of those.  "Roma" and "San Marzano" always seems to have a lot of blossom end rot, which none of the others have.  Last year I added more lime, but there was still blossom end rot.  So this year I'm trying 3 other types of paste tomatoes: "Big Mama" hybrid from Burpee, and "Ranger F1" and "Heinz 2653" from Territorial seeds.  I'm holding on cherry tomatoes, because there are always lots of started plants of those in the Spring anyway.  There are also my favorite, "Better Boy", and some others for early crop ("Beaver Lodge 6808 and Glacier") which did seem earlier last year, and some experiments.

 For peppers, my favorites last year were the Jalapenos, which were productive and earlier than some of the other chilis. I'm trying a different one, sold as "Early Jalapeno",  I had too many cayennes, so just one cell of those, and Sweet Banana, Bird Thai, Mini Bells, King of the North, Peter Pepper, and Tabasco.  I think the Tabascos are later but would like to make Tabasco sauce this year if they do produce.

I also threw in some hybrid Collards (Hi Crop F1) and Brussels Sprouts (Franklin F1).  I've never grown Brussels Sprouts before, and I don't know when they are best planted, but it wont hurt to experiment.

Sourdough Cast Iron Skillet Pizzas. 3.13.18

Pizza Pizza! Not about gardening, except for the Roma tomato sauce.  Back on track with sourdough crust, cast-iron skillet pizzas with home grown Roma tomato sauce. These crusts take a long time to rise, starting in the morning for an evening pizza. I might experiment with a faster yeast crust, or a hybrid for more sourdough flavor, but they are worth it. Time to start Roma tomato seeds today, too.

Using Tomato Surplus - Skinning for Freezing. 9.28.16

Skinned Tomatoes, Ready to Use or Freeze.  9.28.16

Yet another way to use surplus tomatoes.  Preparing Romas to freeze as whole tomatoes is easy - just wash them off, cut off any bad spots.  Bring pot of water to boil.  Boil one minute - I timed it.  Then plunge them into ice water.  The ice water stops the cooking and prevents the inside from turning into tomato paste.  The skins slide off easily.  Some need a nick with a knife to get started, but other than that the process couldn't be easier.

I froze two freezer bags for future soups or tamales or other use.  I also sliced a bunch for tamales today.