Drying Herbs

Just before our first really hard frost I went out and cut what was left of the herbs I had planted in the garden. I had cut some a few weeks ago and hung them to dry in the garage the old fashioned way. I thought I'd put my dehydrator to use for this batch.

Lined up and ready to go...

Sage ............................. Rosemary ................................ Oregano

I cleaned them off and then layered the herbs in the dehydrator trays. I thought I'd just plug the dehydrator in in the laundry room to have it out of the way. If we smell like rosemary at all in the next few weeks you'll know why. Holy moly, that stuff was strong! As it dried it got better, but at one point I turned on the exhaust fan in there just to try and ease the smell. It wasn't a bad smell really, just really strong!

Tons of fresh rosemary... now dry... fills only one container!

It's amazing how much stuff "shrinks" in the dehydrator! I thought I was going to have lifetime supply of rosemary. Instead, I got one regular size spice container full. I can't wait to use it on our favorite Italian bread. For those of you who haven't tried rosemary on or in bread, I highly recommend it! It always reminds me of the delicious bread at Monti's La Casa Vieja which I thought closed but a quick google brought up a website?!

Hey and another quick google search just got me the recipe for Monti's bread and a video on how to make it with a real Monti's chef!! Have I ever mentioned that I LOVE the internet!!

How the Garden Grows: September

Things are winding down in the garden these days. We finally got tomatoes! I'm guessing the cool summer held the tomatoes back a bit. We were worried there for awhile that we weren't going to get any tomatoes at all, but they ended up doing okay. Who would have thought September would be warmer than August! The plants got so heavy with tomatoes the cages were bending. I turned several pounds of the tomatoes into a delicious marinara sauce and we have eaten them on salads and burgers and just sliced with salt as well.

The cucumbers are finally done. I still have several in the fridge that call out to me every time I open the door. I may have to find one last cucumber recipe to try.

Every time I pick what I think is the last of the jalapenos, I find a few more. They are the "Little Engine That Could" of the garden world. I don't think I'll have enough for another jar of pickled peppers (I've made 3 so far), but maybe another batch of poppers.

The celery is still growing. Not quite to what it looks like when you buy it in the grocery store though so I haven't cut any of it yet. I'll have to do a little research on harvesting, we might get our first frost soon and I don't know if it will survive that or not.

The onions are all harvested and braided together hanging in the garage. I was hoping to get some bigger ones, more like you see in the store. They are tasty though and actually a few times it's been nice to grab a small one and use the whole thing with no waste.

I have several of the herbs I planted harvested and hanging in the garage. Whether or not they are actually edible time will tell. I ended up letting the cilantro go to seed. My dreams of fresh salsa all summer long were lost when the tomatoes decided to take the slow road. Did you know that cilantro seeds are coriander? I didn't until this year! After the plant grew tall enough and had plenty of seeds, I cut it and let it dry a week or so before stripping the seeds off the stems. I got a nice little baggie of coriander for my efforts. Now I just need to find some recipes that call for coriander!This will be the last garden update for the year... unless the celery harvest gets really exciting. Overall, I have to say I am pretty happy with how the garden did. We got a good sized harvest out of a fairly small space. And except for the late tomatoes and the unknown outcome of the celery we didn't have any major vegetable deaths. What more could a beginning gardener ask for?

Come On Tomatoes

The garden has been giving us plenty green foods...
...jalapeños, green beans, broccoli, kohlrabi, and cucumbers. We have lots of tomatoes but they are all still green too. I need some red veggies!

I keep sticking cucumber in everything and I still have a ton. Everyone keeps asking me: "Is there cucumber in this?". Seriously, we're going to have to start giving them away. Last week I made Cucumber Tuna Boats and they were very good. The actual tuna salad part was delicious and best of all it used several cucumbers! Unfortunately, the type of cucumber we planted isn't really good for making pickles. But I might just give it a try anyway.

With our abundance of jalapeños I made easy jalapeño "poppers". They were delicious! I sliced and froze several batches for future batches of salsa. I also made one jar of pickled jalapeños (with carrots and onions). I wasn't sure how they were going to turn out so I decided to just toss them in the fridge instead of actually canning them. Jerry said they were really good so next year I'll have to make several batches and actually process them. I'm sure my dad would appreciate a jar! Just call me Peter Piper!

Jerry's Garden Shots

Jerry took these pictures to share on Facebook, but you know my new policy...they need to be shared here as well so they are better preserved. :) Seriously though, I thought these were some really great photos of the garden. Jerry did a good job working up close and getting individual veggie shots.

As the garden produces and finishes certain items it is starting to look empty in spots. Right now it doesn't make for very pretty shots as a whole, but individually is another story.

Cabbage

Green Beans

Onions

Kohlrabi---a new favorite

Tomatoes--huge plants but no fruit yet!

Cucumbers

Cucumber vine climbing over the garden wall
I'm so glad we planted them there...
they have plenty of room to spread

Celery

Jalapenos

How the Garden Grows: Early August

The garden is starting to really produce now! We have harvested all the radishes. The red did okay but the white were really fibrous and some of them bolted before they even made a good size radish.
Not sure what went wrong there. The lettuce is done too. We had to give a bunch away because it was ready all at once and was way more than we could eat. Next year we'll have to stagger the planting a bit to avoid that.

The peas are just about done now too. I don't remember what type of pea we got. I thought we got the kind that you could steam and eat in the pod. But we didn't. That didn't work. So I've been taking the peas out of the pod and cooking them. They are delicious, but a lot of work.
The banana peppers were the first ready of all our pepper plants. They are quite spicy. Too bad the tomatoes are still green or I could be making salsa. I'll freeze the early peppers and save them for later. Looks like the jalapenos will be ready with the tomatoes so that will work out perfect. The onions are doing great too. I have just been leaving them in the ground and grabbing them out when ever I need them.

We had coleslaw this past weekend with one of head of fresh cabbage. I am going to try another recipe tonight with another head. We also ate one of our kohlrabi plants. We need to plant more of those next year. They are so good! Three plants definitely wasn't enough.

The green beans are getting there. But we haven't harvested any yet. The broccoli finally has florets on it. The plant is HUGE and the florets small and they took forever to pop through. The cucumbers are looking good too. I planted them from seed and they seemed slow to grow at first. They are really going to town now though. We should have lots of cucumbers. I'm glad I planted them on the edge of the garden where they can grow over the wall and not take over.

I'm pretty pleased with our progress so far. If nothing else we are learning plenty so next years garden will be even better!

How the Garden Grows: Early July

Anyone need lettuce? We've got more lettuce than we know what to do with! The radishes are ready too, but we didn't plant too many of those.

Everything else is growing nicely but not ready to eat just yet. I am anxiously awaiting the snap peas (or "pea socks" as Justus calls them) that will be ready in the near future. The tomatoes and peppers are slow but I'm guessing that's because it's been so cool.

We, and by "we" I mean Jerry, have had to water quite a bit since it's been so dry. Despite that, the garden sure looks great. Looking at it you might even think we know what we are doing.

How the Garden Grows: Mid-June

Here is an updated shot of the garden. I didn't taken a picture of the strawberries. They are bigger but the change is not as dramatic as here in the main garden section:

(click to enlarge)

We planted the following...

From seeds:
snap peas, bush beans, lettuce, radishes (white and red)

From sets:
onions--planted some deep for green onions and some shallow for regular

From plants:
cabbage, kohlrabi, tomatoes (several varieties), peppers (several varieties), broccoli, and celery

We didn't plan on so much from larger plants but we got a coupon for a free flat of flowers/vegetables from a local nursery as a belated "housewarming" gift. So we got a nice headstart because of that. We still have some room off to the right where I want to get a few more tomato plants. The free flat didn't have any roma or cherry tomatoes which is what I really wanted.

Also not pictured is the little herb garden area where we have: chives, cilantro, oregano, rosemary, sage, and lavender. There are a few more herbs I'd like to get but I might just wait until next year at this point.

We haven't harvested anything yet but the lettuce will be ready soon. I really like having both little garden sections right outside the back door. Once things are ready, it will be very convenient.

The Garden

Hey guess what I found? A post I meant to publish several weeks ago! Like the middle of May!! Here it is anyway...the garden is already growing nicely, so use your imagination and take a short trip back in time!

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We decided make use of a few empty spots in our yard and plant some edibles. Each corner, for some unknown reason, was empty except for a bit of wood chips. So we decided to fill them in with grass, with one exception. The biggest corner was tilled and turned into the new strawberry patch. We won't get much this year but I am hoping for plentiful crops in the years ahead. I missed my patch last year. I hope the new residents of our old house enjoyed their strawberry crop.

This area was a wood chip/weed patch last year. Jerry has big plans for this spot, including: tomatoes, beans, lettuce, radishes, and a few other veggies. I thought I'd take a picture now before anything is growing and then update every once in awhile so you can see how we're doing. We aren't known for our green thumbs so it should be interesting!