Monthly Archives: August 2010

Garden Goodness

Now that the garden is in full swing we are in the process of deciding what to do with everything that we have grown.  This week we bottled peppers, and tomatoes.  It’s only our second time bottling and our first time with our own stuff.  It’s been an interesting learning process,  reading, buying items and reading some more.  I’m not sure if bottling is any cheaper than just buying can goods.  The initial investment it’s that bad but it does take time and energy to produce a bottle of tomatoes and big can of tomatoes at Costco is so cheap.  The real test will be it they taste any better than the can tomatoes.

Today I decided to use a bunch of the tomatoes to make what we call tomato cook down,  I also made jalapeno cheddar bread.  I just bought a new enamel dutch oven to try baking it in and it work out really well.  The only issue with the dutch oven is that I had to remove the handle to the lid.  The handle can only be heated to 350 degrees which is a problem when you are baking bread at 450.  I can understand having a plastic handle when cooking on the stove top way less likely to burn your hand but for me it doesn’t work.  After some research on the internet It appears that a lot of other people have had to same problem.  The dutch oven that I purchased was only $55,  prices for the oven range from 50-70 depending on the store that it is purchased at.

Cheddar Jalapeno Bread

Canning

Something must have happened that triggered the ripening of the tomatoes. They’re coming so fast and furious now that we have resorted to canning them. We also broke down and canned some Peperoncini peppers. I have no idea how they’ll turn out, but it was interesting learning how to do it.

Picked this week:
300 Roma Tomatoes
600 Cherry Tomatoes (I just can’t get myself to keep picking them)
300 Peperoncini Peppers
30 pounds of Red Potatoes
15 pounds of Blue Potatoes
8 pounds of Beans
30 Jalapeno Peppers
30 Banana Peppers
20 Green Peppers
10 Anaheim/Big Jim Peppers
10 Eggplant
6 Zucchini
6 Armenian Cucumbers
6 Onions

Canned this week:
5 quarts of Roma Tomatoes in water
9 pints of Peperoncini Peppers with Jalapenos and Onions

Peperoncinis and Romas

Bragging

It’s always hard for me to keep posting this around this time of year. There’s so much stuff coming in that it feels like bragging to say much about it. But I also feel guilty about not posting for such a long time, so eventually I wind up doing a post like this one.

Everything is doing well, with the exception of the corn. But let’s be honest, none of us really expected to get any corn this year, especially since we didn’t plant it until so late. But the tomatoes have gone insane. We’re picking more than a hundred roma tomatoes each week and somewhere between 500 and a thousand cherry tomatoes. I don’t waste time counting them anymore. We pick about two pounds of beans every other day, and an Armenian cucumber and a zucchini every day.

Last week we culled what seemed like a million peppers and had a big party with peppers in everything. Stuffed Poblanos, Jalapeno poppers, stuff bell peppers, salsa, guacamole, etc., etc. It was great. As luck would have it, we’re doing the same thing again this week. There’s really no other way to even pretend to come close to keeping up with the rate we’re picking them. It’s awesome.

There are a few things we still haven’t started picking yet:
– Brandywine Tomatoes
– Cherokee Purple Tomatoes
– Squash
– Grapes

Picked this week:
8 pounds of Beans
15 pounds of Blue Potatoes
10 pounds of Yukon Gold Potatoes
10 pounds of Red Potatoes
800 Cherry Tomatoes
150 Roma Tomatoes
50 Pear Tomatoes
120 Tomatillos
80 Jalapeno Peppers
80 Banana Peppers
40 Poblano Peppers
30 Peperoncini Peppers
20 Anaheim/Big Jim Peppers
20 Green Peppers
5 Hungarian Wax Peppers
2 Orange Sun Peppers
1 Habanero Pepper
10 Jack-Be-Little Pumpkins
10 Onions
15 Eggplants
50 Blackberries

It’s pretty insane.

Big Harvest

Despite all the craziness with the storm, this was a big week of harvesting things from the garden. We made a lot of salsa, had a lot of shish-kabobs on the grill, and enjoyed a lot of beans and potatoes. I haven’t been as meticulous about counting and recording what we pick this year, but it’s a lot. And the size of the peppers this year has been great. Our bell peppers have rivaled the size of the ones we buy at Costco.

Picked this week:
250+ Cherry Tomatoes
15 Roma Tomatoes
8 Eggplants
8 Zucchini
30 Tomatillos
25 Anaheim/Big-Jim Peppers
8 Poblano Peppers
15 Bell Peppers
50 Peperoncini Peppers
2 Habanero Peppers
30 Banana Peppers
12 Cascabella Peppers
5 Hungarian Hot Wax Peppers
30 Jalapeno Peppers
2 Onions
5 pounds of Yukon Gold Potatoes
3 pounds of Purple Potatoes
5 Red Potatoes
8 pounds Beans

The Storm

It seems every year we get one or two storms that do incredible damage to the garden. We experienced 3 or 4 of those this week. It wasn’t pretty. We had extreme wind that uprooted, bent, and snapped the leaves and stalks of several plants. Even the plants that were tied to bamboo rods went down (taking the bamboo rods with them). It was amazing. Then we had several hail storms, some producing hail stones as large as dimes. Then it continued to rain between 0.5 and 1.0 inches. That’s a lot of water for a desert. I had lakes in the lawn, corn, and blackberries for days.