Jelly Time

Today we were up early trying to beat the rain. We picked numerous banana peppers, hot and sweet, Bell peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, the last of the green beans and eggplant.

These vegetables were processed into 18 jars of pepper jelly and 3 jars of pickled Jalapenos.

Yesterday we canned 5 quarts of whole tomatoes. We love fresh tomatoes in pasta, stews and other dishes all throughout the year.

Pickle time tomorrow! It's a great time of the year!

Squirrels

Squirrels and other animals are frequent visitors to the garden. We deal with this annoyance the best we can by trying to deter them with age tested remedies but this year they have been very persistent.

 

We are processing our first tomatoes today and tomorrow looks like canning pepper jelly and dill pickles.

Tomato, corn and cucumber time

After spending the weekend visiting with our son in Asheville, we returned today to a busy picking time.
We picked over 45 ears of corn.

15 cucumbers and 30 tomatoes

Tomato Time

In actuality it's only the beginning of tomato time but it's always nice when you pick 5-6 and one is ready for the bread!

Step 1- Cut with a sharp knife

Step 2- Admire the tomato

Step 3- Place tomato on bread, white bread recommended ( you can be healthy with whole wheat later in the season.)

Step 4- Spread the mayo

Step 5- ENJOY!!

 

Garden Pizza

Nothing better than a garden pizza for supper.
It starts with pizza dough made with chopped rosemary from the garden and pesto sauce made from basil from the garden. Toppings include sweet banana peppers, hot banana peppers and green bell peppers all picked today.
Another example of going from the backyard garden to the table!!

Pepper time

Today despite the rainy weather, the garden yielded  30 hot and sweet banana peppers, 30 jalapenos. 22 Bell peppers, 3 cucumbers and 2 zucchini.
We used the day inside to process 4 jars of mint jelly and 14 jars of pepper jelly.

Plus the corn is almost ready to harvest. I know this for a number of reasons:

1- We always plant the first week of April and that puts the harvest towards the end of June.
2- According to farmers, corn is ready when the silks turn brown.
But the real reason I know it's close to picking corn is- 
I chased a squirrel out of corn patch today and he was chowing down on one of the ears of corn.

Time to pick it before they get more than we do!!!

More Pickles

It was an excellent picking and processing day today. The school garden yielded banana peppers both hot and sweet, eggplant and Bell peppers.
In the backyard, we picked enough cucumbers to process 5 more quart jars of pickles. Tomorrow is jelly day, both mint and pepper jelly.

Early Bird Figs

We have 2 large fig trees which we have propagated increasing our fig tree population to 9 trees in different parts of the yard. We grow an abundance of figs, in fact, the strawberry fig jelly we make and sell:) is one of our favorites.
Figs are usually ready to be picked the end of July so we  were surprised Friday morning when we were treated to 4 early bird figs. They were larger and sweeter than normal too. Whets the appetite for later in the summer for sure.

We also picked green beans, eggplant, hot and sweet banana peppers and cucumbers.
Tomatoes are on the way and I can't wait for that first tomato sandwich!!

Here we go again: More beans part 3

Today was bean picking day number 3.
An early morning of picking followed by an afternoon of processing yielded 16 quart bags of beans. 
What's most exciting is there are still more beans to pick on Sunday, my guess is another 8-10 quart bags.
Time to share the harvest for sure!!



Getting closer to that first tomato sandwich too !!!

Recipes for the summer

A light cooking day today, only 9 jars of a new jelly we wanted to try- zucchini peach jam. First tastings were great, really sweet with tons of flavor.

Be sure and experiment with the summer recipes that are posted on the side. 

From canning jellies, made with mint, figs and peppers, to tasty sides and entrees with summer vegetables as the main focus, the skill required is minimal and it's much healthier than out of a can.

Beans, beans and more beans

Today was our 2nd day to pick beans.
This field of beans was planted in mid April, the seeds cost me all of $2.00. 
We picked for over an hour this morning and ended up with a sink full of green beans!

Last Friday we picked and processed 8 quart bags for the freezer.
Today we processed 19 quart bags for the freezer. That's a tremendous amount of green beans for $2.00.
Last year we did 38 quarts. We'll pick again Thursday and there's still an abundance left to pick.
Fresh green beans during the fall and winter are much healthier than what we used to buy in the store and much more cost effective.

Of course that's not all we did today, we also canned 5 quarts 
of Pickles :)
 

Fresh mint from the backyard

We made some Mint Jelly the other day!!

Here's a few things you can do with Mint Jelly:
PBJ Sandwich

Use it as a glaze for lamb, pork or chicken 

Cream cheese and mint jelly on a bagel

Serve over chocolate ice cream

Mint thumbprint cookies.

Also, Mint flavored tea and Mint flavored simple syrup.

Mint becomes------>>>>

Mint jelly

Welcome

Welcome to my blog.

The main focus of this blog will be to highlight what is growing in our backyard garden and how we are using the vegetables to eat healthy.
I also tend to our school garden which is growing fast this summer.

The blog will serve several purposes. 
One, it will provide an archive from year to year as to what we planted and what was successful. (funny how it's harder to remember that.)
Secondly, it will also alert you as to when we are overloaded and need to share what we have.
Thirdly, we will post recipes for different meals utilizing what we grow in the backyard.

Remember buy fresh, buy local.