Didn't Water

So, I got busy with summer, planning our homeschool year and taking the kids to camps and the pool, and I just  didn't water my garden.  Now my tomatoes are dead.  I feel like an idiot. 

I still have hope for my peppers and tomatillos, and I've harvested tons of basil that has made delicious pesto and herb rubs.  My other herbs aren't doing so well since my sweet husband accidentally mowed my herb garden down.  I think I'm going plant an herb garden in one of my beds.  I've decided that I really have too many beds(!) for my level of interest right now.  And to think that at one point I wanted to double my beds! 

The problem is that my motivation for things changes, and I can only concentrate on so many hobbies at a time.  Right now, I've been focusing on weight loss, learning Spanish, and getting ready for the upcoming homeschool year.  I vow to do better next year. 


I have five 2-cup containers of pesto stored away for the winter, which is pretty good.  If I get about 12, then I'll have enough to use 2 containers every month for six months.  I've also decided to repurpose small glass jars for my pesto and herb rubs, rather than freezing them in plastic containers. 

I have nothing against plastic containers; it's just that the glass ones are free, and the plastic ones wear out eventually.  I'd rather use them for putting snacks for my kids when we go out, than freezing food in them.  Also, it's more difficult to clean the oily sauces from the plastic. 

I'm going to start my fall crops!  Lettuce and spinach.  I'll also be starting some tomato seeds for container varieties, as I'm going to experiment with growing them in the cold months.  They'll be in pots, so they can be outside when the weather is nice and indoors in front of a sunny window when it's not. 

What to Do When You Break Your Tomato Plant

Yes, I broke a branch off of one of my tomato plants today.  I was very sad.  It was one of my tasty 4th of July tomatoes, and it had a number of delicious looking green tomatoes on them.  As the saying goes, when life hands you a broken tomato branch with green tomatoes on it, cook them. 

My husband broiled them, and we had them as a side dish to our hotdogs.  I made up a delicious basil-mayo sauce to go with them.  I use this recipe for the tomatoes and the sauce. 

There are few things more tasty than grilled/broiled green tomatoes.  I love them.  I love fried green tomatoes too, but grilled tomatoes are a whole easier to cook, and they are definitely lower in carbs/calories than the friend version. 


For lunch today, I made whole wheat pasta with my favorite pesto sauce from a book called Pasta Pizza Presto.  It really is the best pesto I have tasted, and it is especially good when it is made from fresh basil from the garden.  It has been a huge hit anytime I made the recipe for a potluck.  My children love it.  I mixed the pasta with some pre-cooked frozen grilled chicken from target for protein.  My husband and I each cut up a small 4th of July tomato to mix with our pasta, and our younger son ate some Sun Golds. 

For dinner last night, I harvested green beans and carrots.  I just cooked them in butter and salt and pepper.  Can't get much better than that.  This year, I grew some baby-type carrots.  Wow--I can't believe how much better they tasted than store-bought.  I definitely plan to grow more carrots in the cool seasons from now on.  They are worth the extra watering. 

I love planning meals around my garden's harvest.  I tend to find cooking boring in general, but the fresh vegetables from the backyard inspire me, and I find it more enjoyable than I usually do.  I enjoy the vegetables even more if my husband is the one doing the cooking. 

Stuffed Cherry Tomatoes

A couple of times this year, I've whipped up some stuffed cherry tomatoes.  I'll post a link to a couple of recipes, but one quick variation is this:  Mix goat cheese with basil, salt, and pepper, as much as you think you'll need for the amount of tomatoes that you want to make.  Spoon out the top and a little of the insides of each cherry tomato.  Put the goat cheese inside.  Easy and delicious.  

Recipes:

• Cherry Tomatoes Filled With Goat Cheese
• Stuffed Cherry Tomatoes Recipe

Harvesting Herbs

I harvested a cup each of parsley, basil, and cilantro, and blended it up with oils, salt and pepper, and dried herbs to make a delicious herb rub..  I use the recipe from George Stella's book Eating Stella Style.  I doubled the recipe and divided it into 4 small plastic containers, labeled them, and put them in the freezer. 

The herb rub is delicious, especially on chicken.  I like to put chicken thighs in the slow cooker, spread the herb rub on top, cook on high for about 4 hours.  I'll put the rest of the rub on some peppers and onions and broil them for a few minutes right before serving.  Add a little whole wheat cous cous, some yogurt, hummus, and/or chutney, and it becomes a delicious and very easy meal that even my picky children enjoy.  

I change the herb rub up, depending on what I have available.  The original recipe calls for parsley, cilantro, and basil, which is a delicious combination.  However, when I don't have those herbs available, I have successfully substituted arugula, spinach, oregano, sage, rosemary, and thyme, in various amounts.  It always turns out well. 

It's hard to remember to harvest herbs in time and to remember to make successive plantings all spring.  I went out tonight, and noticed that the 2 cilantro plants that I had bought at the garden center were just about to bolt!  I was not happy.  I picked a lot of leaves from those plants.  I do still have 3 or 4 cilantro plants that I grew from seed to pick from.  They are pretty far from harvest.  Unfortunately, when the days start to get hot, cilantro bolts quickly.

Basil does much better in the heat, but it needs to be picked aggressively, or it, too, will flower before I've got a chance to get a good use out of it.  I need to plant another row or so of it.  Tonight, I also planted a new variety of basil that I bought at the garden center, a variety called "basil boxwood" that looks like it will keep from bolting for a while. 

I have tons of parsely this year.  For some reason, I don't ever seem to be able to grow it well from seed, so I have given up and buy it at the garden center.  It's a lot cheaper than buying it at the grocery store, and it's easy to grow once it's stuck in the ground!  In my compost-rich raised beds, I don't bother adding additional fertilizer when I plant herbs. 

Hopefully, this weekend I can make up and freeze some pesto.  I think I'll try and alternate once a week between making pesto and herb rub and try and make a chimi churri as often as I can!

May tomatoes!

Here are my almost-ripe tomatoes:

They came from these plants, in my Earthboxes:

This has got to be the earlist I've harvested tomatoes before.  I bought them in late March at the local garden center.  They were already flowering a little.  I put them in the container on my front porch, which is the hottest place in my garden.  I wheeled them in on nights when there was danger of frost, and there were a couple of days where I just had to keep them inside all day.  I left them on my front ponch until about mid-April, when the afternoon sun got to be too much for them.  Then I wheeled them through the house into the back porch, where they get morning sun.  It's also nice back there because they get rain, so I have to water even less.

The tomatoes are a determinate variety called "Short 'n Sweet."  I haven't tasted them yet, but I'm optimistic that they'll be superior to our grocery store tomatoes.  I also have lots of larger indeterminate tomatoes growing out in my raised beds, but the first ones I planted (in late March) are just now starting to flower, so these will be all that we'll get for at least a month, I guess.

So happy that tomato season is back!  Depending on when our last frost is, we may have real homegrown tomatoes until Christmas! 

more spring stuff

• Another delicious lettuce, arugula, and radish salad today.
• I planted zinnias around my vegetable garden. Tiny seedlings and seeds. In two months or so, should have beautiful flowers.
  
• A bird is making a nest in a tree in our backyard--with my shredded paper mulch! I am so pleased.
  
• I put bush bean and cilantro seeds in the ground today.
  
• I noticed the bush beans I planted before are sprouting. Borage has also sprouted.
  
• The tomatoes and tomatillo are growing fast.
  
• The coneflower looks so comfortable, all tucked into its mulchy bed. I am really looking forward to seeing what they look like in a few months.
  
• I have tons of flower seeds to plant, so that the backyard is ablaze with blooms from early summer to frost.
  

garden update

A brief update:

• Lettuce, arugula, & radishes harvested yesterday. Isaac had so much fun cutting the leaves of the letture and arugula. Very tasty.
• Coneflower white swan bed prepped and planted with my precious little seedlings started all the way back in February. I am hoping for a very low-maintenance, cheerful little bed there. Read the description from Park.
  
• The arugula is growing so fast that I anticipate another harvest tomorrow, along with the lettuce on the front porch that has VERY quickly grown back! And some radishes too.
• I wonder if I'm picking my radishes a tad on the early side? They are very small but very tasty.
  
• I planted another small lettuce planting today (Burpee heatwave looseleaf type). I guess I will make one more small planting this spring, and after that, I think it will be too hot for even heat-resistent lettuce.
  
• I'm reading The New Victory Garden by Bob Thomson and am getting all kinds of good ideas from him. It's a very thorough book.
  
• I'll be planting melons and cucumbers soon. Starting gourds. Planting squash and pumpkins. And planting tons of low-maintenance annual flowers in the backyard.
  

It's very cool to look out the window and see so many plants out in my garden. I can't believe that this is real. It's been a dream of mine for so long.