That’s the story of my life right now; I returned to a garden on the cusp of bursting forth with produce. Most plants have begun their bursting, most notably the tomatoes. MAL and I have been eating tomatoes in just about every way I can think of, and we still can’t keep up with the tomato explosion! So today—despite my head being nearly full to bursting with essays and book reviews that really want to be written—today has been decreed by the tomatoes and peppers to be Canning Day. I’ll be making salsa out of them, mostly; I also plan to make and can some Italian vegetable stock; and our lovely landlady gifted me with about six pounds of blueberries and lots of delectable peaches. Some of the blueberries will be frozen, for making into fruit leather later; I’ll be making some blueberry-lime jam with the rest. MAL and I have been eating the peaches as they ripen, so I don’t think there’s enough left to make jam or preserves ... so I’ll make a pie with some, and freeze the rest for turning into fruit leather too.
Anyway, I know several of you are awaiting emails from me, and others have business items pending. Satlink daemons permitting, I will get back to that ASAP ... if I survive the tomatoes. At this point I’d lay even odds on my chances.
Ruled by the Garden
Garden experimentation ...
Hey, lewlew, great to hear from you!
We have roma-type tomatoes coming on too; I made a quick sauce with them last night for pork cutlets and rice, and it turned out pretty well. I’ll probably dehydrate a lot of them for use in sauces over the winter.
Other than the flat-leaf Italian parsley, my herbs didn’t fare so well this year. Part of that was the tomatoes growing over them and stealing their sunlight, and part of it was simply the hot, dry weather. I didn’t get any cilantro leaves, but will be collecting the seeds for grinding—there will be a lot of seed, from the looks of things. The basil tried hard, and many plants did struggle along, but they don’t have the deep green color and bushy appearance that identify a healthy, flourishing plant. I did make some pesto the other day, and it was better than storebought, but so-so overall. All the other herbs I planted (including peppermint, thyme, and I forget what else) didn’t make it to seedlings.
Count your blessings!
My next in line to bear tomato plant only has about 7 fruit and I'm still not certain my late season watermelon and cantaloupe won't peter out or croak in the heat. This hydroponic stuff isn't as easy as it looks. :-)
Never played with it
Hydroponics, that is. It never looked all that easy to me.
I hope your plants hang in there! While I’ve been grumbling about all the time and attention the garden is taking from other things, I am enjoying it, else the stuff would be unpicked and rotting. Preserving the produce has to happen on its own schedule, though, and that part I’m not so good with. But it’ll be well worth it this winter.
Garden-ie goodness
I’ll be making some blueberry-lime jam with the rest. Yum!!
Our italian plums are close to being ripe. We have some basil that's doing well, and some new cilantro starts that will be ready to harvet in the next couple weeks (I let our other cilantro go to seed). The rest didn't do so well =(.