Saturday, July 13, 2013

Canning Green Tomatoes



I used the larger green tomatoes for canning. I found a recipe on this website:
http://www.5acresandadream.com/2011/11/canned-green-tomatoes-for-frying.html

It is a very simple process. First wash the tomatoes. Then core and slice about 1/4" thick. Pack them very tightly in quart size wide mouth jars. Add 1 tsp canning salt and 1 tsp citric acid. Pour boiling water into each jar. Leave about 1/4" space at top. Put lids on and then process in hot bath for approximately 7 minutes.

I'm going to use these for frying or for other recipes I found such as green tomato chili.



Spiced Green Tomato Pickles

 

We had so many green tomatoes from our garden, I had to figure out what to do with them. The small ones were little green pear shaped tomatoes, so I decided to find out if they could be canned. I found a recipe for spiced green tomato pickles. This is the website:  http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/t62s12ny/spiced-green-tomato-pickle.html.

Spiced Green Tomato Pickles:
2 gallons green tomatoes, sliced
12 onions, sliced
2 TBSP mustard seed
2 TBSP canning salt
2 TBSP whole peppercorns
1 TBSP whole allspice
1 TBSP whole cloves
1 pint sugar
1 quart white vinegar

Combine spices with vinegar, bring to a rapid boil for 5 minutes. Stir in sugar, stirring until dissolved. Reduce heat to a simmer and stir in tomatoes and onions, simmer until nearly tender - about 5 minutes. Ladle into clean hot jars leaving 1/4" headspace. Wipe rims of jars clean. Put on lids and tighten. Process in boiling water
bath for 10 minutes. 

First I had to wash the tomatoes carefully and inspect them thoroughly.
Then I started sterilizing the jars and lids.

Next Tommy sliced the tomatoes and I sliced the onions. Then I started the pickle process.


















Put the tomato and onion mixture in jars and then in the hot water bath.

















This is the finished product:
They sure look pretty.


Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Raised bed for vegetable garden

Update 7/21/14
 
I have added another raised bed to my little garden. So now I have 3 raised beds. I have one bed for tomatoes, one bed has squash, peppers, and watermelon. And the third has okra and pumpkins.

 
I love gardening but it is a work in progress. I learn something new every year. We had to put a fence around the garden last week because my dog kept eating my little watermelons. LOL!
 
This is one of the baby watermelons my dog ate!


 





 


Ya'll, this little garden is so easy to do. It's not expensive, it doesn't take a lot of space and it is super easy to maintain. I am so happy with my little garden. I hope some of you will try it and have great success with growing vegetables.




I have wanted to build a raised bed for a vegetable garden for quiet some time. Our soil is very sandy and seems to grow weeds very well, but not much else. So I finally convinced my husband that we should have a raised garden. We decided to use concrete block for the bed walls. We put landscape fabric down first.


It was recommended that we put down hardware cloth to keep the moles from digging up into the raised bed. But hardware cloth is pretty expensive, so we found a plastic garden fence that had very small holes and decided it would work just as well.


Over that we set the concrete block. We bought 20 block for the 4 x 8 bed.

We got 1 cubic yard of garden soil from the local nursery and filled the bed.

I don't know yet how many of these beds we will have this year. But once we start buying our plants and I can see how many will fit in the bed, then we will be able to decide how many more beds we might need. I will post pictures of the beds once we have the plants put in.

 Phase 1: We planted cucumbers, squash, bell pepper, okra, basil, parsley, lavender and catnip. In phase 2, we are going to add the tomato plants once they get a little bigger.

 This is my tub of sweet potato plants.

 These are my three tubs of Georgia sweet onions.

 Phase 2: We planted some of the tomatoes to fill the bed and built the fence for the cucumbers to climb.

Phase 3 will be building another bed for the rest of our tomatoes.


Phase 3
This is the second bed for the tomatoes.  It has 8 rows 4 plants wide. I think we will have plenty of tomatoes!

 This is a picture of both of our little garden beds.

We already have squash blooms.

And okra buds.


And little tiny lavender blooms
Onions

Sweet potatoes.

Sunflower bed. I will be sure to post a picture of these once they get bigger and start to bloom.

 And my 2 fig trees that I am trying to take special care of so that they don't die. I have tried to plant fig trees before and have never had any luck with keeping them alive. So I am babying these two so that maybe one day I will have some figs.
 

 UPDATE ON MY GARDEN 5/31/13 - Everything is growing and growing!


 
This is the bed with cucumbers, squash, okra, bell peppers, tomatoes and some herbs.

This bed has 32 tomato plants

Little tomatoes

This tomato is just starting to turn.



Little squash
Little bell pepper


Little okra
Sunflowers



Update:  June 30, 2013

I have been fighting bugs in my little garden. First they tried to devour the leaves from my tomato plants. In just one day, they managed to do considerable damage. I panicked and immediately bought Sevin dust. I hated using something like Sevin dust, but I was afraid my tomatoes would be damaged beyond repair if I didn't act quickly. So I dusted everything and it seemed to help for awhile.  Now something seems to be eating my okra plants. But this time I am trying to find an organic solution to the problem.

So I have been doing research on organic pest control. I have found a few good websites. This is one of them: http://www.tomatocasual.com/2008/08/04/organic-tomato-pest-control-101/
It lists a few recipes for getting rid of bugs. I am going to try the soap and oil water combination.


This website has lots of good information for organic gardening:  http://wellnessmama.com/2524/organic-gardening-natural-pest-prevention-and-control/

This website has a few other recipes for organic pest control:  http://www.ehow.com/way_5244853_homemade-organic-pesticides-tomatoes.html

Ever heard of using epsom salts for fertilizer? Someone told me about it so I had to look it up. I found this very good website. http://www.garden.org/articles/articles.php?q=show&id=68

Now some updated pictures to show the progress of the garden. First, I have many sunflower blooms and one has already opened up! YAY! This is the little cutie:
My very first sunflower
Sunflower patch
Tomatoes

Okra, bell pepper, squash

sweet potatoes
July 13, 2013
We harvested all of the tomatoes even though most of them were green. We had to pull the plants up because all the rain was making the tomatoes rot before they turned red. This is how many we picked:



 We are going to try growing pumpkins in the old tomato bed. I will post the progress.


This is one of the pumpkins I had last year. (2013)


















Sunday, January 6, 2013

Clam Chowder

Clam chowder is so good on a cold rainy day. And that is exactly how today turned out. So I made this wonderful clam chowder and brought in a little warmth for the day. I found this recipe in the relish insert that comes in the paper once a month. It is really easy and so very good.

Ingredients: 

1/2 cup butter 
1/2 onion, diced 
2 stalks celery, diced 
1/2 cup flour 
1 teaspoon dried thyme 
1 teaspoon minced garlic 
8 (6 1/2-ounce) cans clams, with juice 
2 cups cooked diced potatoes 
1 quart half-and-half 
3 slices bacon, cooked until crisp and crumbled 
1 teaspoon salt 
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 
3 dashes Tabasco

Instructions:
  1. Melt butter. Add onions, garlic, thyme and celery. Sauté until onions are translucent. Add flour; cook, stirring, 5 minutes.
  2. Add clams and clam juice. Cook over medium-low heat 20 to 30 minutes. Do not boil.
  3. Add potatoes and half-and-half. Heat to 170 degrees. Do not boil.
  4. Add bacon, salt, pepper and Tabasco. Makes 2 quarts.
Recipe by Chef Will Leroux.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Ultimate nachos



For New Year's Eve I wanted something different. I thought about a few things I could make but I settled on nachos. At first, the nachos were just going to be a snack, then I decided to make them a meal. And they turned out great!

Ingredients:
1 lb hamburger
1 small onion, diced
1 bell pepper, diced
1 jar salsa
1 bag shredded cheese
1 bag tortilla chips

green onion, cut in small pieces (optional)

Garnish with sour cream and guacamole.

Brown the hamburger and let drain very well. Saute the onion and bell pepper and let drain.Cover a pizza pan or cookie sheet with aluminum foil. Layer the tortillas on the pizza pan or cookie sheet. Spread the hamburger over the tortillas. Next, add the onion and bell pepper over the hamburger. Then, the salsa and cheese. Garnish with the green onion, if desired. Put in the oven on 350 until the cheese is melted.

These nachos were excellent, but I think I'm going to add mushrooms when I make them again.