managing the produce

My vegetable garden is in full production this time of year, and I’ve come up with some strategies to not waste a bit of it.Tomato pie is a favorite. It gets a layer of goo over it before I cook it, but that wasn’t a pretty picture.Green beans, daikon, and cucumbers all get thrown into the same brine. I don’t trust my canning skills, so I just put them into the fridge. I also toss hot peppers into an empty jar of pepperoncini (save the brine). This preserves them until we get around to eating them.I make pesto out of the basil and freeze what I don’t use.

I keep a big bowl of salsa in the fridge all season long. We eat it with pizza, eggs, pasta AND Mexican food.Lastly, I just chop it all up to add to salads, sandwiches & cooking. Whatever’s left over gets frozen and added to soup in the fall. What do you do to manage the produce?

Tomato Harvest

I’m picking all kinds of tomatoes daily now, and have found lots of yummy ways to use them.Grape and cherry tomatoes retain their shape well, so I use them with onions and green peppers and lots of herbs in Tomato Salad. I pretty much always have a bowl of this in the fridge.I also keep a bowl of fresh Salsa at all times. I take it easy on the jalapenos, because not everyone likes it as spicy as I do.On the days when I don’t pick many tomatoes, I’ll make an Herb and Tomato Quiche.If I pick a lot, I’ll make Tomato Pie.If I am overwhelmed with tomatoes, I’ll chop them up, saute with onion & garlic, and add anything I have in the vegetable drawers. This has cabbage, mushrooms, corn, and, of course, lots of fresh herbs. I don’t fuss much with it now, I just freeze it all for later. Some cold December evening I’ll thaw a container and add some cooked chicken or beef or lentils. I’ll adjust the seasoning then, and think back on the days when my garden was bursting and it was too hot for soup.

grilled salmon wraps

I’m getting lovely cabbages now, and I’m still getting Heirloom French Breakfast Radishes (those French people must have sturdy stomachs first thing in the morning.)To the radishes and cabbage, I added dill (still thrilled) and Swiss Chard (nearing the end).I used the large cabbage leaves and Swiss Chard as a wrap, topped it with cooked rice mixed with a bit of sour cream. I topped that with thinly sliced radishes, a 3 ounce salmon steak, and lots of dill. I used 2 skewers  to hold things together and grilled until it was firm to the touch.Grilled Salmon Wraps : even the leftovers were amazing.

free heirloom seeds

So, not only do my local libraries supply me with all the books I can read (no small task), the Woodbury and Pitman branches here in Gloucester County, NJ also lend out seeds.

a selection of seeds at the Woodbury, NJ seed bank

They give me free heirloom seeds; I plant them, enjoy the bounty, and give them back some seeds at the end of the season. (And no fines if it doesn’t work out.) Sweet deal!

Below are just a few of the flower, vegetable and herb seeds I picked up. All it takes is a library card.

Watermelon radish, Traveler jalapeno pepper, Monarda bergamot, Callipe blend carrots, White sage

I’m hoping my backyard looks like this in a couple of months.

companion gardening

I just finished an organic heirloom gardening class, and I am wildly excited about companion gardening. That’s the art/science/voodoo of grouping plants that are beneficial to one another. I am planning small clusters of companion plants instead of one large plot with everything lumped together.

I can feel a full garden re-do coming on . . .

tomatoes

Every year around this time, I start to run out of ways to use up all the tomatoes. Here’s a list of my current favorites:

1) tomato & pesto sandwich
2) tomato pie
3) tomato salad with green beans & black olives
4) pizza topping
5) salsa (always)
6) halve cherry tomatoes, chop green pepper & onions & sprinkle with oregano. Keep in the fridge ready to add to: pasta, omelets, salad, soup, quiche, or pizza

Cherry tomatoes, chopped green pepper & onions with fresh oregano

How do you use tomatoes?

goodbye summer

I’m going to miss you, my little vegetable garden.

What I picked

What I ate: Pizza with Pesto and Cherry Tomatoes

summer eats

What I picked

Cherry Tomato and Green Bean Salad

What I ate

eating the garden

My garden is only 8 feet by 16 feet, but every summer is changes the way I eat.

What I picked

What I ate: Tomato Pie

gardening

I can’t keep myself out of the garden. The laundry is piling up and my desk is a mess because I am spending way too much time checking on the progress of the sweet peas and planting flowers around the herb garden.

There’s something so compelling about planting a seed and watching it sprout, nurturing the plant and then picking and eating the produce. It feels like a little bit of magic, and it makes me see vegetables in a whole new way.