Tomato Soup. 9.21.2021

With such a good Roma tomato crop, I made some tomato soup. Saute about 1/2 onion, chopped, 2 cloves of garlic, add a buillon cube, about 3 cups of sliced Roma tomatoes, a pepper. cook until soft. Add some Italian herbs, salt, pepper. Blend with an immersion blender. Top with some chopped croutons. That came out very good.

I won't describe the squash I cooked, maple syrup, butter, walnuts. Red Kuri squash. Dry and mushy, bland, not good at all.

Planting Forsythia Starts. 9.21.2021

These are the first of my forsythia starts to go into the ground. They are good sturdy healthy starts. I'm glad to have them in their new homes now.

Planting Garlic. 9.21.2021

Today I planted the first few batches of garlic. I bought two heads of a soft-neck Italian veriety, called "lorz". This is described as a good keeper, strong flavor, good grower, big heads and big cloves. I planted them in the half wine barrel planters that had the pickle cicumber plants until this week. I supplemented the soil with compost, wood ashes, coffee grounds, and eggshells. That made for an excelkent crop this year.

I also planted a batch of red skin garlic from plants that had survived from previous years. I don't know which variety. These are in circle planters basically in-ground. Same supplementation.

I also planted the largest of the little bulbs that I grew from tiny bulbils this year. Probably about 20 of those. These are the variety "Music", the best growing, largest and strongest so far.

The majority of the garlic crop remains to be planted, in one of the main raised beds.

First Rain since June 3.5". Freezing Sweetcorn. Canning Pears. 9.19.2021.

Today was the first rain since June. We measured 3.5 inches. I think it was needed. I picked more pears. I didn't plan to can more, but did after all. It took about 7 pounds for 4 one-pint jars. I ran out of commercial fruit-fresh and there was none in the store. With Covid Im only going to the store every other week, so I ordered vitamin C tablets and citric acid on Amazon. from what I read, 6 500-mg vitamin C tablets, crushed and dissolved jn one gallon of water, will prevent browning. So I used that, adjusted for just 4 cups. There was no browning. I also added 1/4 tsp citric acid to each jar, per an online recipe. Canned per Better Homes and Gardens Canning Guide recipe. I'm getting better at it.

I also harvested most of the rest of the sweetcorn, and blanched and froze 7 ears. Drop into boiling water, boil three minutes, transfer to ice water, chill, slice planks of kernels off the ear and freeze in freezer bags.

Red Peppers Harvest. 9.17.2021

I harvested the red peppers. There are still quite a few green ones. Most are serranos and Jalapenos, but there are also some cayennes. Ning grew Korean peppers. I started some hot sauce fermentation, one batch with Serranos and one batch with Korean peppers. After these ferment about 10 days, they'll be separated from the brine, pureed, some brine added for the right thickness, and kept in the fridge. The recipe: 2 cups water, boiled. While hot add 1 1/2 tbsp canning salt and 1/2 tbsp sugar. Cut up 2 1/2 pounds of the peppers, a small shallot, and 4 cloves of garlic. Place the garlic and shallot into fermentation jar, add the peppers, then pour on the brine. I also added 1 tbsp sauerkraut juice to the cooled brine before adding to the peppers, as a starter. I'm using water filled pplastic bags to seal the tops and exclude air until they are fermented.