Canned Stewed Tomatoes

These are the best stewed tomatoes I've ever tasted. (sorry grandma)  If you don't have enough tomatoes from your garden to can, the recipe can easily be scaled down for dinner tonight!

4 quarts chopped, peeled and cored tomatoes
1 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped green pepper
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons of salt

Combine all ingredients in a large pot and cook 10 minutes. Stir to prevent sticking.

Ladle hot tomatoes into hot jars.

Process pints 15 minutes/quarts 20 minutes at 10 pounds pressure in a pressure canner.

Yields approximately 7 pints/3 quarts.
The recipe with canning instructions can be found on Cooks.com.

Stewed tomatoes can be used in so many different ways, they are a great staple to have on the shelf any time of year, but will taste wonderful this winter!

Harvest time again

I've done a lot of weeding in the last week! Will they every quit? And don't forget the picking of the hookworms.....gross!

The okra is still blooming!

The garden salsa pepper has been the best growing pepper for us this year.  Hope to find them again next  year.  Hubby likes their flavor and amount of heat.  They are too hot for me!

Loaded with garden salsa peppers.

Jalapenos have done ok.  Nothing out of this world though.  I even grew three different varieties.

The tomatoes are still chugging along.  The bigger regular tomatoes are slowing down but the paste tomatoes seem to still be doing good as well as though 4th of July plants.

Need to get pickin!

A colander full of salsa and jalapeno peppers just picked. 

More okra, 2 cucumbers and a few jalapenos.

One of the jalapeno plants produced a few nice size jalapenos. 

Two garden salsa pepper plants produced a huge harvest of peppers this year.  They grew a nice size as well as quanity.

Small jalapenos.

And for the finale, 25 more pounds of tomatoes! 

I planted Contender bush beans yesterday, and will get the Roma II beans planted today.  I'm anxious to try the fall beans since everyone swears they are much better than beans planted in the spring.  What's your opinion? 

I refuse to touch them...

They poop on you!  I found six of them on two of my tomatoe plants.  I thought I was done with them for the year... no such luck!

Saturday we took a trip north to Planters Seed Company.  The store is like stepping back into time.  All hard wood floors, that have to be over 100 years old.   The bulk garden seed is in wood drawers that cover one entire wall.  The majority (if not all) of the seed is heirloom.  AND they sell it year round, something that is not easy to find unless you order from a catalog. 

I wanted to get a fall planting of green beans planted and couldn't find any seed left in any of the nearby stores. 

I purchased three different heirloom varieties of green beans and some mammoth dill.  They have the coolest garden stick ruler on the counter free with a purchase.  It has a reference chart on how deep and spacing on planting your seeds.  The beans were $1.50 for a quarter pound.  That makes it $6 a pound, not cheap, but they are quality seeds.

They also carry spices.  I bought several, but pictured here are their meatloaf and poulty seasoning that I've heard a lot about.  I also picked up basil, ginger, and Bourbon Street Steak Rub.  Their spices are reasonably priced.  They carry anything you can imagine.

With all the seed and spices I spent $22.

The store carries bird feeders of all kinds, bird seed, teas, any type of flower pot you could ever want from teeny tiny to absolutely huge.  If you are ever in the Kansas City Area be sure to visit them. 

Summer harvest

I'm hanging in there. We are in survival mode around here, trying to survive the heat.

It's still hot and dry around here, although we have gotten a couple VERY small rain showers in the last week. Any little bit helps.

My "old" apple tree isn't looking good at all. I was so excited that it was full of apples this year, but with the drought, the apples have not grown and they are small and hard. I am wondering what to do with them. The dwarf apple tree has received at least a once a week watering and the apples, though not abundant, are growing nicely.

The okra is doing ok. Nothing outstanding. The heat makes the pods "woody" even when picked young. We have enjoyed a few dinners with okra. I'm thinking it is also the type of okra I grew.

The cucumbers are slowly growing but very bitter right now due to the heat even though I have been watering the garden.

The jalapeno peppers and garden salsa peppers are doing great as well as the tomatoes. Oh the tomatoes could be doing better, but I'm still getting a good harvest. Sunday I harvested another approximately 20lbs. I need to get them weighed today when I process them. There were several that had BER and had to be thrown away.

The new strawberry plants and grape vines are doing good. We do water them since they are new plants this year.

The three new fruit trees also get watered and are hanging in there.

The heat this year has really affected my husband and I. One of the medications they have me on makes it hard for me to handle the high temps. I have to get out early in the morning to get anything accomplished which isn't for very long before I have to come in. Between working the long hours and keeping up with the things that must be done inside, it leaves me drained!

I was able to get the tomatoes weeded and some much needed staking done this weekend. I'm just trying to hold on for cooler weather and a vacation!

How To Save Tomato Seeds

It's that time of year to begin saving your tomato seeds for next year.  It's very simple.  For me it's harder to actually get my seedlings growing than saving the seeds!

Homegrown has this awesome "How To" printable card for saving tomato seeds.  Visit their site to print you one off.

Also linked on the card is this seed packet template:

Monday Harvest- Tomato Edition

This past week was over 100 degrees everyday. I really hope the watering I did will help see my tomatoes through. Here is the ones that I harvested this week. I'm keeping my fingers crossed the romas will continue to bloom and set.

The above tomatoe and the one below I'm sure came off our Better Boy plant. If I'm wrong then it came off the Big Beef plant. The Big Beef plant has really sprawled and it made it hard to tell for sure which plant they were picked off of.

Parks Whopper and what a WHOPPER it is! This is the first year we have ever grown the Parks Whopper and we will be growing it again.

Parks Whopper

Parks Whopper

The romas are ripening. Although I did have to through away just as many as I picked that were effected with blossom end rot. I checked all the green ones and culled those that were effected as well.

The 4th of July plants are still doing quite well. The grape tomato is called Sugar Daddy. It is very prolific, but the tomatoes fall off the vines when they are yellow. I'm not sure if it is a characteristic of this plant or due to our 105 degree days.

The above picture and below picture are more from the big beef or better boy.

Over 11 pounds of tomatoes for the week. I finally got my harvest totals on my sidebar. It's hard to believe that we have harvested over 100 pounds from our small garden this year. And that is just what has been weighed. Hubby likes to pick and eat without weighing and we have given some away that wasn't weighed.

With the heat, we only harvested one cucumber this week. The okra is still coming on and the peppers should start picking up some.

With the heat being so bad and no rain for weeks, I'm wondering if I'm going to be able to do any fall planting.

I hope everyone else's gardens are producing by the bushels full!

Be sure to check out everyone's harvest over at Daphne's Dandelions

A Garden Harvest Surprise

I went out to the garden to harvest tomatoes and found this:

2 1/2 pounds of Okra! I hadn't been paying much attention to the okra because the plants are only about knee high and I've only seen a couple blooms. This is a new type of okra that I've never grown before. The feed store closed where I've always bought "Dwarf Okra" seed in bulk. This okra was a pre-packaged seed that said organic dwarf okra seed. The plants are definetly dward but the pods are not. I hope we like the taste of them!

I'm out of here, back to the garden to pick those tomatoes! It is supposed to get up to 106 degrees today. The upcoming week is supposed to be much much cooler, down in the 80's with 60's at night. I'm praying my garden will hold on till some much needed cooler weather. We even have a great chance of rain in the next couple of days. Keep your fingers crossed!

How To Harvest Onions

I'm sure everyone can figure out how to pull onions. The best time to do this is when
the leaves have flopped over. This is when the plants stop growing and start preparing for winter.

You can lay the plants on top of the soil where you pulled them up if the weather is going to be dry. The necks will begin to tighten and the foliage yellows. Let them dry for a week or two. If your weather is wet or frost is possible, harvest your onions and move them where they will stay dry.

Spread the onions out in a single layer and let them “cure” for two weeks. During this time the necks will wither and turn brown, and the papery skins will tighten around the bulbs. Once the necks have dried and there’s no more moisture in the stem or leaves, you can bring your onions indoors and store them in mesh bags or bushel baskets. Keep them cool (35 to 45 degrees F.) and away from light.

I pulled mine and hung them on a piece of fencing to cure.

Now I have to figure out what to do with all my potatoes. My basement stays cool but not 50-60 degrees cool.

Monday Harvest

I've harvested all my bunching onions, sweet candy onions, yukon gold and red potatoes. The potatoes were a decent harvest but not as good as it should have been. It just got too hot & dry way to early this year.

The sweet candy onions grew to a wonderful size!

This is a 5 gallon bucket full of red potatoes.

The yukon golds are in a banana box. This is the third harvest from them. The first harvest was a 5 gallon bucket full. Although the yield could have been a lot better, I'm still pleased we got as many as we did.

The tomatoes, mainly 4th of July's are needing picked daily. We did pick two romas. The plants are full and just need to ripen!

I didn't have time to weigh any thing this morning. But it was a great harvest day!

Check out other's Monday Harvest over at Daphnes Dandelions.

What's keeping you busy?

Tomatoes! We are getting lots of tomatoes around here. This weekend will be spent preserving the harvest into tomatoe sauce and salsa sauce. I will be trying some lacto fermented salsa as well.

Be sure to check out this great podcast on Lacto Fermenting your fresh garden vegetables.
It has a lot of great information!

What is keeping you busy this week?

Garden Fresh Kachumber

I made some garden fresh Kachumber yesterday for my hubby for Father's Day. He loves my Pico de Gallo so I was sure he would like this as well.

He had picked 6 cucumbers fresh from the garden and several small tomatoes. I had some onions drying on the table from our garden and ran out and picked two serrano peppers. The cilanatro and limes came from our local grocery store. I used the lime since I had no lemons on hand.

Here is the original recipe from Chef In You that I changed up a little:

1 onion, thinly sliced
1 cucumber, peeled and chopped
1-2 jalapeno chillies (optional, as per taste)
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
1/2-1tsp roasted cumin powder (as per taste)
juice of 1 lemon along with zest, as per taste
some cane sugar for sprinkling
salt to taste
few sprigs of cilantro for garnish

I chopped my onion and lime for the juice and zest. I also chopped up about 2 tablespoons of cilantro and added no sugar.

It was very good and spicy! The cumin and cucumber gave it a little different taste from my regular Pico de Gallo.

Don't be afraid to substitute and change things up on your recipes to use your fresh produce from your garden. Hope everyone's gardens are doing great.

Have you tried any new recipes to use your produce from your gardens?