Putting Up Our Harvest

Years ago, when we lived on the mountain, we had to buy a chest freezer to store all the extra produce from our garden. We have no plans on plugging that freezer in this year but we still have more vegetables from the garden than we can eat fresh. So, here are some of the things we did with the extra veggies.

So many tomatoes!

I intended to make a big batch of cucumber pickles when it wasn’t too hot out. Unfortunately, we had a very dry spell after a very wet spell and that stressed out the plants enough that the cucumbers went bitter. I felt really bad throwing dozens of cucumbers into the compost but they just weren’t edible. I did have a small heap of cucumbers from before the plants turned. There weren’t enough to warrant pulling out the water-bath canner so I made a small batch of freezer pickles instead.

I used the recipe for Freezer Dills in the book Farm Anatomy by Julia Rothman. (This is a great little book, by the way, with lots of basic information and beautiful illustrations.) The recipe is also available on Grit magazine’s website.  I have yet to try them but I’m sure they will be a wonderful treat when the snow starts flying.

Pickles in the freezer

I also decided to pickle turnips. I had not heard of pickled turnips before but the power of Google showed me that they were, indeed, a thing. So, I decided to give them a try. There are a bunch of recipes available online. I ended up using one from Eating Well. I filled two quart jars and look forward to trying them.

Turnip pickles

Back in June I made two jars of pak choi refrigerator pickles. We got into them last week. They are very vinegary (maybe a bit too vinegary for some people’s tastes) but they are really good on hotdogs. The white stem parts are nice and crunchy. I’m definitely going to plant more pak choi next year.

During the winter, I bring soup to work every day for lunch. During the summer, it feels odd to make soup but with all the wonderful fresh vegetables coming out of the garden I had to make a batch of minestrone soup. There are a lot of recipes out there for summer minestrone. The August issue of Cooking Light magazine has a good recipe and it happened into my mailbox just as I was wondering what to do with all my veggies. Homegrown carrots, green onions, tomatoes, squash, green beans and chard all went into my massive soup pot along with cannellini beans and ditalini pasta to make a wonderfully hearty soup. We ate some for dinner and I put the rest (three quart-bags full) into the freezer for later.

Bags of summer minestrone in the freezer

We are currently being inundated with tomatoes. I love fresh tomatoes on sandwiches and salads but it’s beginning to get out of hand. I don’t want to throw out any because I didn’t get to use them in time. So, today I made some tomato juice. I was going for tomato sauce but we didn’t grow sauce tomatoes so it was a bit more watery. No problem. The juice will be a great base for soups and sauces. All I did was cut up the tomatoes and simmer then for about 45 minutes. Then I pushed them through a sieve with a wooden spoon to get rid of the skins and seeds. (This is one time when I really miss my mom’s old food mill.) I then put the juice into zip-top sandwich bags in 1-cup servings. I laid them flat on a cookie sheet and put them in the freezer. Once they are frozen, I will transfer them to a gallon size freezer bag.

From tomatoes...

...to tomato juice ready for the freezer.

And since I was heating up the house to process the tomatoes anyway, I decided to make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. And yes, I did put two dozen of them up in the freezer so we wouldn’t just eat them all!

Mmm...cookies!

And a cardinal, just because.

Overdue Updates

It’s only the middle of August but it feels like things are starting to wind down in the garden. Powdery mildew has settled on the pumpkin leaves but the pumpkin itself has already turned orange so I’m not worrying about it too much. I’ve started pulling out plants that have finished up for the season. The kale is gone as are the snap pea plants, the green onions (they never amounted to much), and the remaining arugula. I salvaged what I could of the chard and pulled the rest of the plants out. The garden peas are finished but the rattlesnake beans are woven into the vines so I’ll leave the plants for now. I still need to pull out the kohlrabi. Most of the plants decided not to bulb so there’s no reason to keep watering and feeding them. I’m also thinking about pulling out the green beans though they are starting to put on a second, spotty batch of blossoms.

Some things in the garden seem to just be starting up. The basil is finally about six inches tall with enough leaves to spare a few at a time. The egg plants are just putting on blossoms. I don’t think I’ll see any of their fruit this season. The peppers are also quite slow growers. There are only three or four peppers total on the half-dozen plants. The cantaloupes are taking their time, too, and the few, tiny melons that have set are oddly oblong in shape. I’ll just have to give all those late bloomers some time and hope for the best. 

Eggplant blossom...no fruit yet

This green pepper should be turning red soon

Tiny cantaloupe

 The zucchini plants have almost given up. The two or three small squash still in the garden are probably the last I will see this summer. I did get a half-dozen or so zucchini, though, so I’m content. The tomatoes are still going like gang-busters and look like they will be for some time. The Early Girls are a good all-around tomato; Juliets are great for salads, mixed with pasta or sliced on pizza; the beef steaks are fantastic sliced on sandwiches or atop fried eggs; and the pear tomatoes are tasty snacks by the handful. I’m glad we’re getting a good amount of each variety.

Beef steak tomatoes on the vine...

...and Juliet and pear tomatoes on the windowsill.

Since foiling the rabbits’ attempts at grazing the garden this spring, we haven’t had any mammalian problems in the garden (knock on wood). Bunny sightings have dropped of late but I still see one every once in a while. The deer are still enjoying the back yard, especially the apples that have started to fall from the tree. A couple of hummingbirds have re-discovered the feeder and butterflies have been enjoying our blossoming butterfly bush. I was raised in the county (mountain country, not farm country) and it’s so nice to have such a plethora of wildlife right out in my suburban backyard.

Oh deer!

Hummingbird

Butterfly on the butterfly bush. Makes sense.

What the?!? It's a baby cardinal!