Well, it’s almost spring and it’s time to start planting those cabbages and broccoli if you haven’t already gotten them started! For any avid gardener, this can be the roughest part of the year. With Spring looming just around the corner, it is hard to resist starting those frost sensitive tomatoes, beans, and other garden delights. Be patient, though, and consider some interesting alternatives to satisfy your itchy green thumb.
About a month ago I decided to look on ebay to see if I couldn’t find a goji berry plant for my home office. I found seller who offered plants of varying growths and decided on one that was three years old. Goji berries are a powerhouse in the whole health food movement currently, but they have been highly valued for their nutritional and anti-oxidant properties for thousands of years. After a month I’ve already got two small berries growing. (I manually pollinated the flowers with my fingertip to see if I could stimulate growth.) The biggest difference I see is just how much the greenery changes the atmosphere in the room. It’s nice to have a plant growing nearby and I like to observe how it slowly changes as it grows, following the light as it crosses the window.
Since we’ve already started the seeds for the cabbage and broccoli, there isn’t much left to do with those plants but wait. For someone with a gardening itch, that just won’t do. Surprisingly enough, I found myself digging up some of the excess bulbs from the flowerbed in the front of the house and relocating them to a spot in the backyard. Sure, it was something to do and the spreading flowers were becoming cramped, but the real reason I did it was to get a little more color into the backyard for Tara. We always get so excited about our garden and the things we will be able to eat freshly picked from the vines, but for the most part we’ve viewed our lawn as a burdensome plot with required maintenance but no real gift of joy. We’re not kids anymore and while our kids do enjoy playing on the grass, the most fun we have always seems to stem from the garden. I figured this year I would try to brighten it up a bit. Me of all people, buying flower bulbs…. who would have thought it would come to this. Yet, there I was after work standing in line at the checkout with bulbs in hand. It wasn’t enough to move some of our existing flowers, no… this year would have to be special!
Tara tried to convince me tonight, after we’d braved the cold rain to get the flowers planted, that it was still technically gardening. It was a hard sell. “Haven’t you ever heard of flower gardening?” she’d asked. The only thing that came to mind were the edible flowers from Willy Wonka. Still, I am sure we will be just as excited to see the new colors as they start to grow and bloom.
How about you, what have you got going on during these cooler months before gardening goes into full swing?
We decided this year that we wanted to heavily mulch our garden area with leaves over the winter. Our trees are all too small to give us any substantial amount of leaves, so we are left to get them from other sources. Brady mentioned this plan to his mom, and she has wonderfully brought us many loads of bagged leaves. Not just a few either. When we came home from the library yesterday there was a huge pile of leaves sitting in front of our garage. I was amazed. It honestly was more leaves than I thought we would be able to get. But that is not all… Today she brought us not one, but two, truck loads full of leaves. I lost count, but there are over 30 large bags full of leaves currently in our garden. Many of the leaves are from Brady’s grandmother’s house, but others are rescued from the curb of homes that have set them out for trash day. We have joked that we will have to start calling Grandma Brenda the Leaf Bandit, and perhaps give her a costume to match. What could be better than getting leaves that were headed to the trash and bringing them to us so that they can help us grow more wonderful veggies next summer? Not much, I think. Thank you, Grandma Brenda! While all of the leaves were in the backyard we moved them all into the garden this evening. The kids must have sensed that me and Brady were up to something, because shortly after we started, they all were out helping. Now they are anxious to get to empty all the bags so that they can play in the leaf piles. I am sure there will be plenty!
If you want to put a frown on my face, it’s as simple as bringing up the topic of growing your own fresh, organic peaches. Blast it all! I’ve planted three peach trees in my yard and they’ve all died. That’s three years of straight disappointment. Well, until this year that is.
Pettingill Fruits Fresh Peaches
While we weren’t able to get our own delicious peaches to grow successfully, Pettingill Fruits was there to save the day. We bought 100 pounds of delicious peaches this year and I am so glad we did. Tara slaved away day and night to preserve the fruit in time, and she really saved us from a huge batch of waste. You see, the thing about getting fruit that has been picked ripe is that it is incredibly juicy, usually larger than store-bought produce, and doesn’t last as long on the counter. So that 100 pounds of peaches had to be canned, dried, or frozen and Tara did it all.
Canned Peaches
This, of course, was just a sampling of all the preserves Tara made. She put together some peach jelly, spiced peaches, and peach pie filling. I imagine it will make for some delicious cobbler! The dried peach sliced were a huge hit with the little one. She kept calling them candy and any bag of them left within visibility was demolished in short order. I just couldn’t help but smile.
Sure, it would have been a bit better if we’d have gotten the peaches from our very own tree, but this was definitely the next best thing! I don’t think I could ever eat another Walmart peach, it would feel like I was soiling a fine memory. Fortunately, we can buy more next year and we have several months to savor the exquisite flavor of those delicious summer peaches thanks to all of Tara’s work. Thanks sweetie!
I was thinking about the last post I made about our heirloom tomato success and I realized that the picture I included just couldn’t cut it when it comes to describing our success this year. And while the pictures I have for you today still can’t do it justice, they will better illustrate what I mean when I say that we got far more tomatoes than we expected!
But folks, before I unleash the pictures on you, let me say this: my wife is awesome. Even in the face of countless batches of tomatoes, she processed them like a champ. Orange, yellow, and red flesh of the fresh sun-ripened fruit was no match for her skinning and canning prowess! (I might have to post again showing some of the fruits of her labors, you will be truly amazed!) These canned and stewed tomatoes make for a great addition to winter stews to help bring the flavor of summer back into those cold, frigid days.
So now, without further adieu, I present The Tomatoes! (Some of them, at least…) Click on the pictures for a slightly larger, and more detailed, view.
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- Slices of a freshly picked tomato.
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- Some of our garden produce.
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- A bowl of tomatoes.
We had a big problem with blossom end rot last year on our nursery-bought Romas, but the three or four plants we got this year did far better. Tara read up on it and ran some of our eggshells through the food processor and then poured the gloop near the trunk-base of the plants. It definitely seemed to help. Still, the Amish Paste heirloom variety did seem to fair much better and was not as susceptible to the problem though they are very similar to, if not slightly smaller than, mass-marketed Roma hybrids.
I also snapped some pictures of our heirloom seed saving efforts and I will post them here soon. Stay tuned, though, I’ve got posts coming on the local peaches we bought, homemade soda, and I’m trying to convince Tara to make some time to post about her homemade yogurt she’s been enjoying for the last few months!
We decided to change things up in the garden this year by moving away from many of the hybrid varieties we normally plant. The biggest section of our garden to feel the impact was the numerous tomatoes we include in our plantings. New to the garden were several heirloom varieties: Hawaiian Pineapple, Amish Paste, Black Cherry, and Mr. Stripey, to name a few. Many of these varieties were obtained from the Eco-Festival we attended in Salt Lake City.
All told, growing heirloom tomatoes was no more difficult than growing the standard hybrid varieties that have saturated the market over the years. There were a few issues, of course, but nothing drastic. On some of the larger varieties, there was a small problem of not catching the tomatoes before their skin split, but after a few misses, we were able to determine the best time to pick by gently squeezing the fruit for tenderness.
The Amish Paste were much like Romas, though slightly more petite and less prone to blossom end rot. When allowed to grow in tight clusters on our biggest plant, they actually looked quite a bit like strawberries. Of course, this doesn’t make for very fun canning, more small fruit makes for more work, but they were great to feed to the little red head. She loves eating fresh food out of the garden!
The Hawaiian Pineapple was a huge hit with its sweet yellow flesh. Sliced and topped with salt and pepper, they were a perfect afternoon snack on hot summer days. Even Tara, who doesn’t eat tomatoes in such a manner, loved them. Don’t get me started on BLT sandwiches… Yum!!!
The Bear Creek tomato was a fun one. With its dark purple skin and beautiful flesh, it was definitely an eye-catcher. I gave my mom a few of the different varieties to take home and she came back asking for more of “that purple one”.
Mr. Stripey actually came from Home Depot, believe it or not. We planted one right before a late frost at the beginning of the season and he was looking very sad for a while there. So we ended up picking up another and planting them side by side. It wasn’t long before the original recovered and both plants produced some very large fruits all summer long. Some of these things were huge!
In the interest of preserving the heirloom tradition, we did a little research into how to keep tomato seeds from our harvest so we’ll have a chance to grow these wonderful varieties for years to come without depending on vendors or catalogs.
Verdict: Growing Heirlooms = Success!
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