Garden Blogger's Death Day - June Edition

Summer has really just about killed everything. The boy's lavender plant is history, the cucumbers are about to be pulled because they have only produced woppy cucumbers and I'm getting irritated, and I'm pulling zucchini and squash plants at the rate of one every two to three days. In two weeks I'm going to put in another round of cucumbers and beans which will have time to mature before the first frost.

The saddest death seems to be the boy's blueberry bushes that were thriving at the start of the season. I'm not sure if they've caught some sort of blight, which seems possible, or if they've just fried in their containers. I'm going to wait it out for the summer and then prune the fool out of them next spring and see what happens. I've got my fingers crossed.

Thanks, Kate, for hosting GBDD! It helps to know others are having trouble as well. As you say, Mother Nature sure is a fickle...mother.

Ketchup Recap

Last night we decided to make ketchup which worked pretty well until it got to 11:00 and we had to reduce the recipe by half, which meant I'd be up pretty much half the night. I started out bemoaning the timing, but quickly realized it was for the best as it was the only time I was guaranteed to be undisturbed. Here's how the night went, starting with the onset of the reduction at 11:00. That's a full pot!

12:00 AM and you think you see some reduction, but it's really just messing with your head.

1:00 AM and progress can certainly be seen.

2:00 and it's half way reduced. It could honestly use another 30-40 minutes, but I was ready to call it quits.

I canned everything and walah! I had 10 and a half pints. The recipe called for 9, so I wasn't too far off, but it did prove to me that I could have reduced it further.

I tried it this morning and it wasn't so bad. VERY sweet, but not so bad. I bet it's going to make a mean meatloaf. I don't think it's anything I could put on a burger or fries or anything since it's not spreadable and still a bit chunky since I only had a blender and not a food mill, but for a first attempt it isn't so bad. Again, sweet, but not so bad. I used some apple cider vinegar since this is what I use in my salsa and love it, but I think it may have made it too sweet.

Will I do it again....most likely not. We'll see.

The morning comes early, and I'm going to bed now. Sweet gardening dreams.

Lessons Learned...The Ketchup Edition

Ever since last year, I've had a hankering to make ketchup. My obstacles kept me from it. I don't have a food mill and I don't grow enough tomatoes to make 24 pounds of tomatoes at once, so no ketchup. Today, things changed. My girlfriend noticed an amazing price on tomatoes at the store and I found a blender ketchup recipe from the National Center for Home Food Preservation and we stocked up and set out to make ketchup.

We waited until we got the children to bed like we always do with anything else we can and so we set out coring, chopping and blending the tomatoes and now everything is reducing. It's 11:30 PM and it's reducing. It needs to reduce by half. That's not happening any time in the near future. Actually, the foreseeable future seems dim as well. But, it sure does smell like ketchup which has us both pretty tickled. I promised her I'd take photos every hour until it's done and post them tomorrow. I'm thinking it will be at least 3 hours and maybe more for it to reduce by half and then add canning time on top of it. If nothing else, it's quiet and honestly, it's pretty darn cool, although I don't think I'll start making ketchup in the evening again.

Hopefully it will work. Cross your fingers!

June 28 - Harvest Monday

Harvests have pretty much slown down this week because of the heat. It's just gotten too oppressive for things to flower and pollinate successfully. Heat seems to make the eggplant incredibly spongy, so my hopes now are to keep those plants alive for the next two months and maybe they'll start flowering again when it cools off in September. Zucchini is coming to an end as I rip out about a plant every other day or so because of SVB damage. The tomatoes aren't putting out many new flowers, but those that are there are ripening fast, which is nice. I'm taking a couple of Cherokee Purple tomatoes to my parent's house with me today. I hope they'll like them as much as I do. They're more of true tomato lovers than I am, so this should be a real treat for them.

The real odd factor comes in with the cucumbers. Last year I had over 40 pounds of cucumbers by this point and I've not yet gotten a cucumber that's not woppy. I can only guess it's the heat of this June in comparison to last. I've been dwelling on how to approach the garden now. Here in GA, I can get almost two rounds of summer crops in if I put some in the ground in July, but it also limits my fall crops. I need to decide what to baby in order to keep producing, where to cut my losses, what to replant and what space to save for the fall. Ah, decisions, decisions. Here are some pictures of this week's harvests. The girl was in here a minute ago demanding why there were pickles in her basket. I instructed her that they were not pickles and if you leave your basket in the living room it's fair game. Not pictured are four zucchini, two tomatoes, two squash and a cucumber.



Happy harvesting everyone and make sure to stop by Daphne's to see what everyone else is up to this week.

Timeless

Sights like this never get old.

Farmer's Market? Not Quite.

Yesterday my girlfriend and I were as close to pregnant women as we could possibly be. All of a sudden, we had a zipper pea craving that wouldn't budge. Usually her mother-in-law grows fields of zipper peas/cream crowder peas and we get them from her, but not this year. Yesterday we had to have peas and we had to have them right then.

This is round about the time the peas are picked and we looked everywhere on the Internet for farms or farmer's markets in our area. We found one less than 15 miles away and woke up early to get there when they opened. What an amazing disappointment. There was no farmer's market as advertised, but the farm was running a pick-your-own, so we thought there would be some hope there, but when we started walking around we were in shock. There were weeds higher than the crops. The woman pointed out some cucumbers and I actually said, "Where?" She pulled aside the grass and I said, "Oh."

They still had broccoli in the ground (keep in mind that this is GA and we've had 80-90+ degree heat since April, that had bolted beyond recognition and was host to an amazing number of cabbage worms. I asked about some dead, dark brown stalks and were told they were potatoes that would be ready in 2-4 more weeks. I was under the impression you took out potatoes before they died back completely.

I didn't know whether to be crestfallen or proud that my little garden would most likely out produce them in a heartbeat. I was a little surprised at how unkempt the place was.

We went to a grocery on our way back and found packages of frozen zipper peas which we bought and are cooking up for dinner tonight. They don't have snaps in them, but I'm going to infiltrate some beans as snaps. Overall, the day wasn't a total loss since the end result was the same. I suppose I also certainly feel pretty good about my garden. I would, however, like to find a good farmer's market in the area at which to find items that I can't grow in my own garden. Anyone know of any good ones in the Atlanta/North GA area?

Zucchini Days Are Here Again...and Again!

Yesterday was known as zucchini day. I posted yesterday on the zucchini chocolate cupcakes and then the most magnificent zucchini casserole ever which was even better tonight as left overs. I even made zucchini relish that morning. I started the day with 9 zucchini, but then during the day I went out and harvested several more. I had to use it all up as I already have bags upon bags in the freezer. So, this is where I started.

I don't know why I decided to make relish. I don't honestly think I've ever eaten relish on anything in my life. I suppose it was because 12 cups of chopped zucchini seemed like it would take up a lot of the veggies and it did. Just look at this bowl! However I still had zucchini left overs for the other two recipes.

So, I mixed in the onions and peppers and let it sit in salt overnight.

In the morning I cooked it down and then processed and canned it. It stunk something horrific, but that's most likely because I don't like peppers or pepper smells. It canned nicely and everything sealed.

Now it says to wait two weeks to try it. It's supposed to be good with bratwursts, but does anyone have any other ideas of what to do with all this? Now, I also harvested four more zucchini today, but I honestly think the plants are down for the count. I culled two more today because of SVB damage. They weren't putting out any more viable fruit. there are still a few more plants that have some hope. I'll most likely pull them at the end of next week if they are not producing anymore. It was a great run!!!