Showing posts with label local food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label local food. Show all posts

Friday, October 2, 2015

It's that time of year

Canning has been in full swing lately here at Monkey central.  I've been canning tomato sauce, tomatoes, jelly, and relishes.

I just bought a half bushel of concord grapes to can. I'll make some jelly out of them and can the juice of the rest, which we can drink or I can make into jelly later if I like.



I canned these tomatoes yesterday.  I also canned this pepper and onion relish yesterday as well.

Nothing tastes better than home canned food in the dead of winter and the cold of early spring.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Garden bounty

From our garden:From left to right: Scallions, zucchini, basil, carrots. And yes, there is such a thing as white carrots.

We've also been enjoying purple potatoes, cherry tomatoes, Yukon Gold's, redskin potatoes, green tomatoes, several varieties of basil, cherry bomb peppers, long green chilies, and yellow squash. And we'll have more of all that still to come, along with several varieties of tomatoes.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Saucy!

I made some roasted red pepper tomato sauce today from fresh local peppers and Roma tomatoes. I slow cooked it and canned it properly. It's fantastic. I almost wish it was the dead of winter now so I could open a jar and have it on some homemade pasta.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

The case of the disappearing front lawn

I know the excitement from the previous one was wearing off, so it's garden update time here on Monkey Muck! We made a space in the front yard to grow some watermelons and pumpkins. We did this by digging up some of the grass and laying a good thick layer of leaf mulch over it and then dumping a couple bags of topsoil over that. I transplanted some of the watermelon plants that were growing in one of the backyard beds, we moved them so we could plant corn in it's place, and I added some seeds in case the transplants don't make it. Watermelons are on the left and on the right I planted pumpkins. I also planted some Japanese egg plant seed around the front edge of the pumpkin mound.

The tomatoes and cukes that Sparky planted out front are looking good.

We've been enjoying the lettuce we planted but the spinach has been a disappointment. Sparky planted some onions in that bed and she's going to plant some lettuce seeds so that we can have more in a few weeks.
Potatoes, that's them in the right hand corner of the picture, are looking good.

My daikon radishes are growing like crazy. I pulled one today and it is delicious.
Our carrots are coming along nicely. We've almost gone through our first planting of onions, lucky for us we've replanted a slew of them. So we'll have many more to come in a few weeks.
I've had to stake all the tomatoes last week and I had to tie some of them again today because there has been so much growth in the past week. Our peas, squash, cabbage, and most everything else is taking off too.
Little soon to be tomatoes!
Squash blossoms!
And the potatoes and carrots that we're growing in containers are coming along swimmingly.

The herb garden is growing nicely and the two blueberry bushes that my friend Keith are coming along as well. Sparky is going to plant some red radish seeds, along with that lettuce I mentioned, and more cilantro.

And that's the way the garden grows, for now.

Friday, May 21, 2010

Amazing and true!

I bought 7 pints of fresh locally grown strawberries:
Cleaned them and cut out the rotten parts:
And I turned them into this:
Strawberry jelly!

Suck it corporate America and Monsanto, there's no high fructose corn syrup in my jelly you bitches.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Garden Update

Things are progressing nicely in Garden 2010.
Starting from the bottom left we've got strawberries in the first box, parsley and asparagus in the middle box, tomatoes and zucchini (which hasn't sprouted yet) in the third. In the center row we've got a different variety of tomato and cucumber in the first box, cauliflower and cabbage in the middle, and peas in the last box. On the back row we've got yet another variety of tomato and okra, in the middle box are eight varieties of peppers, and watermelon is in the last box.

I saved room in a few of the boxes for things like egg plant and whatever else might strike my fancy to plant. I've got Japanese eggplant seeds planted in little containers and if they sprout I'll plant them, if not I'll get some from the nursery.

In the former rose garden we've got onions coming up nicely, carrots, daikon radish, potatoes, lettuce, and spinach planted. We decided to plant in some of our containers as well so we planted carrots in the purple tub and two kinds of potatoes in the other two containers.

Sparky's herb garden is well stocked with things like basil, thyme, tarragon, and other herbs. And she also planted yet another variety of tomato up front next to our front porch. And tonight she tossed some sunflower seeds and some dill seed in out front as well.

We may yet plant some corn and beans behind the raised beds garden in the area we refer to as 'No man's land.' I'll let you know what we decide. I know you're dying to find out.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Garden update

This is what I've gotten out of our garden in the past couple of days:
For those keeping score at home, there's hot chilies, butternut squash, yellow squash, zucchini, jalapenos, egg plant, and cucumbers.

Currently the cucumbers are the MVP of the garden. They are coming in like hotcakes and they don't appear to be showing any signs of slowing. We've been eating them like crazy for the past few weeks. We've had sliced cucumbers, cucumber spears, shaved cucumbers, cucumber surprise, various cucumber sauces, and we've taken to making them into hats when we got tired of eating them.

The various peppers are coming in nicely as well as are the watermelon. The tomatoes are finally fruiting and by the end of the month we should be up to our butts in a different varieties of tomatoes. Our broccoli has done better than I ever expected it to, we've gotten one cutting off all our plants and a second one will need to be done soon. The various squashes pretty much took over the raised bed garden and they've got blooms all over them so hopefully we'll have a bunch more yellow squash, zucchini, and butternut squashes. Our potatoes would have done better if we hadn't dug most of them up so early but in our defense we really wanted to eat some homegrown potatoes. Most of the fingerling potatoes are still in the ground so we'll have those to look forward to in a few weeks.

Sparky's herb garden has done off the charts great. We've got tons of basil, thyme, sage, fennel, mint, and more in her little plot. I'm looking forward to having a lot of that basil torn up and laid down on fresh sliced tomatoes that's been drizzled with balsamic vinegar and dotted with fresh goat cheese. We've been getting fresh goat cheese from our local farmers market.

Garden disappointments include the onions (I think I planted them into a part of the garden with too much clay so this bust may be my fault.), the carrots that never came up, the tiny pea harvest, and the cantaloupes that I planted for Sparky and her parents. The cantaloupes may come in but the onions and the rest have been disappointments. But we're looking at what we did wrong this year with an eye to improve our methods and yield next year, so it's all a big learning curve.

I hope we end up with enough tomatoes to can and to make and can some salsa. If only the weather co-operates and the rains continue to fall we should do all right for a pair of garden rookies.