The tomato crop is coming in and I’ve been so busy picking them, labeling them, and saving seeds. My entire dining room table is covered with cups, mugs, half pint canning jars, and bowls of various tomato seeds fermenting away for 3 days, 2 days, and today (when I strain them in a wire strainer under running water, then set the seeds out on paper plates to dry). Fortunately, my back is back to 100% of normal, my hip is nearly there, and the knee is much better too. I think that’s all due to switching from the four-wheeler to the golf cart. Hooray! Thank you, God!
I have to shoot you this picture granddaughter, Delilah’s other grandma took of her and Papa fishing. Boy, is she hooked for life! I think it’s so much fun to see that huge smile.
The garden is booming. Will and I had our first sweet corn, an ear each of Simonet and Seneca Sunrise. Although they were both a couple of days from being fully ready, they sure tasted great. Right now, we’re eating pretty much everything we grow on the farm; tomatoes, lettuce, summer squash, various beef cuts/burger, onions, and green beans, thanks to our wonderful Provider bush beans. As usual, we’ve trialed several new crops and were astounded by some of the tomatoes, like Orange Minsk and Moonlight Mile Variegated, which has multi-colored tomatoes and also leaves. Then the new zucchini, Costata Romanesco made us life-long fans! We’ve eaten it for two weeks now and can’t get enough. Last night I fried slices with crumbled bacon, in bacon grease, along with onions. Then I put some shredded cheese on top and let it melt. Probably not good for our arteries, but wow, was it good!
Then the Atlantic Giant pumpkins are knocking our socks off. I honestly have at least four that weigh more than 150 pounds already and we have (hopefully) another month of growing to go. They are said to gain 5 pounds a day in good soil. My oldest son, Bill, and his family were here yesterday to pick up their Lab, Buddy, who we’d been dog-sitting. All were wowed when we went to look at those pumpkins. Of course, I promised them one of the biggest ones, too. I was shocked when I looked at the cauliflower. I’d only been down there four days ago, and the heads were the size of a 50-cent piece. Now, they’re a bit over-ripe, with the beads on the head starting to separate. Guess who’s got to freeze cauliflower today! After seeding out a few more tomato varieties and picking the Provider green beans I haven’t been able to give away to enough friends yet. (They’re getting to the point where if I leave them longer, they might get tough.)
I didn’t blog yesterday as we had tons of company. All at once! I only expected one person, but a couple of fans and Seed Treasures customers dropped in, then Bill and his family came. Such a fun day, but it went so very fast! — Jackie
So glad to hear your back and hip and knee are improving! Those pumpkins look amazing!! This year I planted tomatillios as a lark and with our hot weather this year they have produced very well. Do you have recipes for salsa verde using them or green enchilada sauce you could share? I have your growing and canning books but dont seem to find one in there. I found some on the internet, but I’m a little uncertain about them for canning. I cannot believe Delilah has grown so fast! Time sure speeds by. We are still incredible hot and dry here. That seems to be the mantra this summer. We did have some rain a while back, but back to really dry again. Prayers for a blessed week.
Here’s a tested recipe for salsa verde:
5 cups tomatillos, husked & chopped
1 1/2 cups bell pepper or other sweet pepper, chopped
1/2 cup hot peppers, chopped (chile or jalapeno)
4 cups onion, diced
1 cup lime juice
1 whole garlic bulb, peeled and minced finely
1 Tbsp. ground cumin
3 Tbsp. dried oregano
1 Tbsp. salt
1 tsp pepper
Mix all ingredients in a large stockpot and bring to a simmer on the stove. Simmer for 20 minutes to an hour to allow the tomatillos to break down.
Ladle sauce into pint mason jars leaving 1/2-inch headspace, and process in a water bath canner for 15 minutes for pints. (Adjust for altitude)
This is very good and I hope you like it.
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you !!!
Grandbabies are amazing and grow up so fast,
Glad to see you are healing.
Pray the remaining growing season is prolific for y’all
Thanks Chris! Don’t they grow up so fast? Our youngest grandson, Mason, is now driving a car! Holy buckets.
That cannot be Delila??!! My how they grow up fast!
Yes, it is! Every time I see her she looks so much taller and OLDER.
Yes, the days are flying by but I am enjoying every minute of it. I tried some Providers that my Amish friend was selling. I will never eat another green bean but them. They are way better tasting than anything I have tried so far. And these were stringless. Bought a bushel and canned them up for winter. Go easy on the knee. You can “possibly” sit and work this winter and give everything a rest.
Ha ha ha. Yep, just sit and work….. Then there are seeds to package, mail out, labels to make, stuff to can, squash to seed out. But I will try to sit when I can. (But I’ve found that sitting also gets my knees singing. Not a nice song, either!
What beautiful cauliflower, I always struggled in growing this vegetable and this year didn’t even try. I am being overwhelmed in a good way with tomatoes which we are furiously canning up. I have also frozen several 2-gallon bags of beautiful tomatoes. I have 60-plus tomato plants and I can’t imagine how many you have the tomatoes produced. Your Anker Plum is outstanding and a great one to dehydrate. My granddaughters love the aperitif tomatoes and they are gone as soon as I pick them. The weather here is HOT and not good to be outside unless the early hrs of the morning. I’m ambulating without any assistive devices and physical therapy is still “cranking on my knee” 2 X a week with improvement. I am so glad you are better. I have been slow to learn to slow down. Now I welcome the family/friend visits and figure my work (and more) will still be there tomorrow. Whatever happen to the lots near you for sale (I hope they never sold)?
Yep, we’re busy. The good news is that I found out I could sit to pick/weed, on a 5 gallon bucket. I’m looking at it as physical therapy. Ha ha. The 80 acres between our land and the road sold in a sneaky way. We never knew it was even for sale! Of course, the guy who bought it divided it and cut timber off the 40 closest to us and also is digging gravel out of the hill. UGH!! The 20 on the road was sold by him to a family in Nevada, who we’ve never met nor seen yet. Oh well, you just have to accept what you can’t change.
So great your garden is doing well. Lost all my squash (including the Hopi Grey) a couple of months ago (grasshoppers) and trying to keep the rest of the garden alive with 114 degree temperatures was a fighting battle. Hoping on planting garlic in about 4 weeks and hoping on at least getting some greens in for the fall and winter garden. Amazing the different weather patterns we see within this country.
I totally agree, even in Minnesota, it’s been near 100 degrees F in the southern part, and we have 62 degrees at the same time. Crazy!! Not to mention droughts, hurricanes, etc. Wow! Hang in there. Hopefully the weather will change back to near normal. Sorry the grasshoppers got your squash. That’s so sad.
We’ve been eating BATs – probably too many but if one is active, that’s half the battle. I know you and Will are. Even though I work FT (thankfully from home), I have plenty of time to get things done before/after work hours and during lunch/break times.
Looks like you are escaping the heat dome. All I can say is it won’t last long given the time of the year and the days will start getting “shorter” here soon. I worry about the stray cat but he showed up after supper and ate (and more than I expected of wet and dry). He looked like he’d been sleeping the day away. And knew he’d get a timely meal before he went back to wherever he was.
Still getting zukes/summer squash but I think the zuke plant only has a few more to give. Tomatoes are doing fine but won’t have as many paste tomatoes as I did the past few years. Bought a different variety than I have the past few years. Some of the paste tomatoes were huge – bigger than I’ve ever seen and a few were close to slicer size! Taters all dug and garlic ordered for fall planting.
Hope to get the last small area weeded this weekend (heat is supposed to break) then should be able to keep the weeds at bay (or try to) going into fall/winter.
Always nice to see kids doing outdoor activities – so many never or can’t enjoy the great outdoors. Which I find rather sad. I remember how much time we spent outdoors during our youth.
Yep, when I was a kid in Detroit, all day and evening you could hear kids yelling and playing all through the neighborhood; tag, baseball, hide and seek, races and “fighting” from forts they had built. Now you hear silence when you listen in town. I don’t know how many miles I put on my bike and roller skates, but it was a lot. Of course, you didn’t have so much violence, drugs, alcohol and as many perverts as there are today, either. But I still wish more kids could experience the freedom of being outdoors.
Ours were outside whenever weather permitted. When inclement/cold weather, in the basement with non-electronic toys using their imaginations. Never watched TV on Saturday morning. Except for this heat dome weather, our temps have been excellent all winter yet I know some kids were barely outside – what the hades are the parents thinking? Can’t speak for anyone else’s Mom but when it was spring/summer/fall and nice outside, outside we went. Can’t tell you how many times we bundled up to play in the snow. No small wonder far too many kids today have high BP, not good blood sugar, and/or are overweight. I can sympathize with not safe to play outside but as a parent, I’d be doing everything I could to better my kids lives. And I think that is what part of the problem these days – parents don’t have that desire for their kids to have it better than they did. We always had family near by, including grandparent/great-grandparents, great-great/great aunts and uncles and cousins galore. And those not nearby we saw on a semi-regular basis.
I meant all excellent all SUMMER DOH – need an edit button (or not so fast fingers LOL)
Yep. In the winter, my kids played Duck Duck Goose, built igloos and snow caves, skied, sledded down hills and tracked wildlife, not to mention snowball fights and forts.
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