Tomato Juice: Love your tomatoes, even the mushy ones.

Late summer.  I love it.  However, sometimes I feel like my garden gets a little haywire in September.  We end up pulling summer squash due to downy mildew, the last of the lettuces bolt to flower and no matter how hard I try to stay ahead of it, some of my tomatoes over ripen.

You know the ones I'm talking about - great taste, mushy texture.  I suggest you make tomato juice rather than just tossing them in the compost pile.  Just cut the tomatoes into inch size chunks and set into a a sauté pan.

Cook these until they just come to a simmer.  They will be soft and will have released lots of juice.

Pass these through a food mill on the finest setting or press through a fine sieve.

There you go.  Tomato Juice.  Bloody Mary anyone?

Labor Day Weekend, Let's work!

September already.  As you know, its harvest time.  Lets get to work.

We have transitioned from harvesting in pretty baskets to wheelbarrows and buckets.  Good thing I have man power.

I spent the better part of Saturday afternoon canning 22 lbs of tomatoes.

You might ask yourself, "why spend time on such an endeavor?  You know they sell pretty good canned tomatoes at this thing called a grocery store."  I think I might have been born in the wrong century, or maybe this is just my working mom guilt manifested in something homemaker-like, or maybe its just kind of fun to do.  In any case, its done and in mid winter this family will be really happy about it.

We harvested hops.  These are Nugget and you would need to ask Tyler what sort of beer they will end up in.  My vote is for a barley wine this year.

I couldn't help but include W in the photos.  He mostly looks cute and snacks while the rest of us work, but we sort of like him, so will keep him around.

Its not all work, we are also eating pretty well, as any gardener in September should be.

Fresh tomato pasta via Smitten Kitchen

Eggs poached in tomato sauce and grilled Haloumi

Stay happy and keep on working, my fellow gardeners and eaters of fresh seasonal produce.  The season isn't done yet.

#eatlocalutah Day 1

Eat Local Week!  This challenge is supposed to run 8/12-8-19.  Lets face it, as a working mom with little kids, for us it starts on Saturday.

South Salt Lake Succotash

Ingredients:

1/4 white onion chopped

2 cups diced sumer squash

2 cups sweet corn (about 3 ears depending on size)

1 cup chopped tomatoes, salted and drained

1/2 cup fava beans (this is the yield from 1 lb whole beans in pods)

Salt and chili powder to taste

Squeeze of lime juice.

Grape Seed oil

Instructions:

Chop your tomatoes, sprinkle about 1/8 tsp salt and toss.  Then place in colander to drain while you prep the rest of the ingredients.  This will concentrate your tomato flavor and make the recipe less watery.  

Heat sauté pan to medium and add about 1 tbsp grape seed oil,  Once hot, add onions and cook until almost brown.  Add summer squash and cook until tender and warmed through.  Add corn, tomatoes, fava beans.  Cook a few minutes, until heated through and then add salt and chili powder to taste and last thing add a squeeze of lime.  

Dig in.  I suggest having some crusty bread or biscuits on hand to mop up the juices.

We served our Succotash with bacon cheddar brats from Clifford Farm.  

For the Bees

Every good gardener needs bees.  However, more and more, we are hearing warnings about collapsing populations of wild and honeybees.  What is a gardener to do?  Given that I don't have any control over large scale use of pesticides, mites, or weather I have decided to control the one thing I can - my backyard.
After some reading and consultation with my local extension office I've modified my backyard bee habitat.

I've let 5 leeks that share a bed with my papers to go flower.  Bees love onion flowers and the hopeful byproduct will be some leek seeds.

Afghan sesame, while not a local plant, bees really like to hang out in these long white flowers.

Spearmint.  OK this isn't new to my garden, but I'm giving it a bit more irrigation love to promote flowers.  And you've got it, the bees are digging it.

I'm also allowing some of the border areas which I would normally be more finicky about mowing get tall and I have left a couple of old logs with holes in them around.  Mason and wild bumble bees have been hanging out in these areas and joining the pollination party.  They are pretty tough to photograph so I don't have any pics to share.

So far I'd say my yields are improving substantially.  This is awesome, but is keeping me busy.  Pics of fruit tomorrow.

JG

Flowers out of Chaos

The world can be a chaotic place, just listen to the news every day.  The chaos all around us can be very unsettling, paralyzing.  But sometimes random disorganized chaos can be good, even healing.  Meet chamomile.

2 years ago I grew 1 small German chamomile plant. I forgot to water it and it died.  Last summer I accidentally kicked over the pot where it had been and in my postpartum sleep deprived haze, just sort of swept what I thought was some spent potting soil to the edge of my garden beds.  

Then it rained this spring and I mean it really rained.  This is what rose out of the chaos - beautiful, fragrant, healing flowers.

The medicinal properties of chamomile include but are not limited to:

-calming anxiety

-soothing gastrointestinal upset

-decreasing inflammation

Did I mention its a pretty plant that also smells nice?

It has been a timely reminder that the good, beautiful bits of this world are all around us, if we will only let them germinate and grow.

-JG