Winter Clean Up

Well, the garden is officially closed for the season. We pulled the brussels, didn't get any, the tomatoes, and the rest of the beets, and we pulled up all the black weed cloth stuff.Then we spread the compost and tilled. For next year I'm going to use a new program, which will probably be where I place all my notes.

Attept to be organized didn't fail too miserably

I swear I really tried to keep a binder and a blog about the awesome garden I some how managed to have. But I do think it could be better, more productive and less maintenance. So, I am trying a 30 day trial and after a day or two of playing around with it, I think I'm going to pay he $25 a year and do it. GrowVeg.com has an awesome garden planner. You enter the size and what you want and plan it out. It tells you how far to space things and how to rotate, when to plant, when to harvest....etc. Everything you need when you are a new gardener like myself. I haven't looked deeply enough to see if it will tell me how to do the organic gardening, but I'm sure I can find everything I need on line somewhere. I'm so excited though. Next year will be better and easier!!

Clean Up

Took all day long, but it's weeded. Pulled the carrots because they were starting to rot or bugs were eating them, don't know which. Not too many are actually edible. It's pretty cleared out. The pumpkins didn't make it to Halloween. Oh well. We probably planted them too early. We decided not to do pumpkins next year. They took over and other plants didn't have a chance. I started cooking butternut squash. It's delicious. Tomatoes are still coming in. Raspberries are doing their second round. Overall I think it was a success. Next year, we'll work out some kinks and do a little better! I'll take some pictures soon!

Out of Control

The upper section of the garden is a mess; pumpkins, sweet potatoes, last of the cantaloupe, lots and lost of butternut, some acorn squash and some zucchini, all mixed together with some weeds!
Tomotos- note to self, next year spread them out and don't plant as many. Anyone need some tomoatos?
The sandy section, left to right; asparagus, 3 rows of carrots and 2 rows of bug eaten brussels sprouts.
peppers, and the butternut squash sneaking up from behind
raspberries are also growing like wild fire!
strawberries filling out

Too many tomatoes

I asked Gram to teach me to can food since we have a crazy surplus of tomatoes. Evan made marinara, and we made salsa, Shell and I made tomato basil soup, but the kitchen was soooo hot that we decided to freeze that, we just couldn't keep boiling water on anymore. I do not know exactly how Evan made the marinara, I was busy doing dishes and cleaning up the mess, but as for the salsa and soup here you go:

Salsa
Lots of chopped tomatoes
Chopped onion
Chopped jalapeno
chopped green pepper
either fresh or frozen corn
chopped cucmber
minced garlic
dash of extra virgin olive oil
sea salt (to taste)
black pepper (to taste)

Mix it all together and taste, adjust accordingly! Sorry it's vague, but every batch it a little different.

Roasted Tomato Basil Soup (from the Vegan Lunch Box By: Jennifer McCann
Makes 4 servings (of course we did 4 times that)

6-6 ½ lbs plum tomatoes, cut in half lengthwise (about 35)

¼ c. plus 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tbsp kosher salt

½ medium onion chopped

1 large garlic clove, minced

1 tsp red pepper flakes

2 c. fresh whole basil leaves (2 oz bag)

½ tsp dried thyme

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Arrange the cut tomatoes on a large (10x16 inch) baking sheet. Drizzle the tomatoes with ¼ c. olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Toss with your hands until the tomatoes are evenly coated with oil, then arrange them cut side up; they should fill the pan completely. Place in oven and roast the tomatoes for 50 minutes. Remove pan from the oven and set aside.

Warm the rest of the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté until soft and slightly golden, about 10 minutes. Add garlic and pepper flakes and sauté for one more minute. Carefully pour in all the tomatoes and their juices. Add the basil, thyme and 1 c water (you may need an extra cup if the tomatoes are on the dry side). Simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from hear and allow to cool slightly.

Blend the soup in batches in the blender, pouring finished soup into a clean saucepan or soup tureen (you may wish to stain the soup as you do this to remove any remaining skin or seeds, depending on the strength of you blender).

All recipes were delicious, and I hope they stay that way because we will be eating them all year!

Quick Update

No new pictures, but I will get out there this week to take some. Constant ridiculous weeding. I'm really thinking I need some chemicals. I can't keep up. We are producing a boat ton of tomatoes. Made a big batch of salsa and canned it (Gram canned, but showed me how). Evan will be making tomato sauce and I'll attempt to can that. I never would have thought I'd can things, that's always been a "grandmom" thing to me, but here we go. I also realized that it is about time to plant more spinach! Yay! I really do love having my own fresh veggies.

It's Exploded!! No fertilizer, only compost!

tomatoes

sweet potatoes
strawberries
rhubarb
small pumpkins
raspberries
pumpkin patch
oregano
lavender
pumpkin about 12 inches accross
too many tomatoes

the "new" composter
carrots
cantaloupe
butternut squash
eaten by bugs brussels sprouts
broken path into garden
blueberry hut
beets
basil
asparagus
zucchini, acorn squash, butternut squash and cantaloupe, just a big mess of vines!

Not only has the herb garden taken off, but the vegetables are awesome. Delicious. Emma is a good weed puller, not so efficient, but she's good at it anyway. She takes her shoes off at the gate and runs around the garden barefoot. Helping where she can. She is a really great tomato picker. The plants are apparently a little close together and she can squeeze right in there and get the ripe ones out! She knows what almost everything is and already assumes she isn't going to like them, before trying them. Someday she'll eat them, promise.

It is so close to being an organic garden. The brussels sprouts were getting eaten, so I gave in and bought a bug spray, I really want brussels. We brought in a ton of tomatoes, I think we're going to can some salsa, jalapeno peppers, green peppers, carrots, the one and only lonely watermelon, an acorn squash, some beets, the rest of the onions and scallions. Oh, and those possible beans, probably weeds, were definitely weeds. I tried to plant beans 3 times and nothing. For August, I'm going to plant peas, lettuce and spinach. I also want to start an indoor herb garden!

Been So Busy July 12th, 2010

Who has time to write all these blogs when they’re busy gardening. These pics are for a couple of weeks ago. I’ll get some more this week because it’s totally bloomed since the pics were taken.

In order: Radishes, Scallions, Raspberries,

Jalapeno peppers, asparagus, carrots

Brussel s sprouts, new raspberries, pumpkin

Zucchini, zucchini, spinach

Sweet potato, butternut squash, tomato

Possible beans (probably weeds), rhubarb, tomato

Strawberries, rooster, overview of garden

Blueberries, blueberries, emma

Upclose blueberries and em picking blues!