Indoor Garden Upgrades

So this year I decided to ditch the old plastic trays you can buy at the garden center. You know? The kind that flats of flowers come in.  Holding eighteen 3" pots filled with soil and water was fine on the tables but move them an inch and they break.  

So as you can see I upgraded to something a little more indestructible.  They have a 10 year warranty but I don't really care.  What mattered was they were about the right depth and heights and width and all 3 of those containers fit between the ladder game. And I like the clear look.  

A look in the first one shows a little container of green onions.  1 pot of bok choy, a whole bunch of celery in peat pots, 2 bell peppers, many jalapenos, and Serranos too. I'm leaning towards Salsa this year. Last year it was all about the tomato sauce (I made homemade spaghetti with 2 quarts of tomato sauce tonight and it was delicious - lasagna will be made from the left over sauce later this week).

This tray is full of cold weather veggies and items for the covered square foot garden. Summertime Lettuce, Romaine Lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, kale, and swiss chard. 

I must admit that I've NEVER eaten chard or kale - I'm only growing them for my parrots.  Oh ya, PARROTS, with an S.  Yes.  And they are super fun! We've had Kiwi, a yellow sided green cheek, since last April.  Today we purchased Mambo, a green cheek. She is not quite a year old and was living with the cutest family but her owner is moving. Today we got Mambo to jump on command, step up when asked and without biting, and target train to learn the clicker and get a treat.  Someone held her all afternoon and Kiwi even showed off his basketball skills while she watched intently. The best part was the end of the day when she let me scratch her head and neck and fell asleep in my hands. 

And last of all I have the 5" peat pots with the heirloom tomatoes.  2 are early girls but the rest are either cherokee purple or pink brandywine. I saved the seeds from the pink brandywine and they grew well last year so I'm using them again.  Best flavor ever!

Garden Harvest and getting there...

These are some of the Cherokee Purple I've harvested.  They are delicious and are my second favorite for flavor and the plant produces a lot of tomatoes that are especially large.  This one weighed 1.2 lbs and the one to the right that you can sort of see was 1 lb.

I took photos tonight because it's Sunday and I don't work in my garden on Sunday.  I did walk around and look at it. 

Bell Peppers starting to get big.

 Cayenne Peppers

Cherokee Purple on the vine - splitting because I changed the water schedule again.

 Early Elberta peach tree

Small Early Girls

 Jalapeno

Melon

Big Daddy onions drying

Red Beef Steak

 My garden tonight

 Spirit Bush Pumpkin

Weekend Harvest

I harvested the tomatoes today.  I was craving something at about dinner time so I went to see if there were any tomatoes ready.  The early girls were looking good but as many were eaten by birds as I harvested.  I think I need netting.  And the Cherokee Purple were ready.  I ate 5 at dinner.  Don't worry, I offered to share but no one likes them.

These two bright red bumpy lumpy tomatoes are red beef steak tomatoes.  They are the smallest tomatoes on the vine. The rest are really big.

The cherokee purple really have a different color but are really tasty.  I loved them.

Some of the early girls are not quite ready but I brought them inside to get to them before the birds do. 

I picked a few carrots for snacks.  

And I roasted some crook neck squash seeds for Kiwi.  275 degrees for 15 minutes. Not what I expect but I added a little Emeril's seasoning and scarfed them down myself. I can't wait to roast some squash for dinner tomorrow.

Kiwi ate the squash guts for a little while.  Then I placed it outside for the wild birds.

Harvest Monday- Tilling up the Garden

It looks like the warmer temperatures this year mean that my drip line timer can go outside already.  It will crack if it freezes. I have it on every other day.  Best product I even purchased for my garden! I could attach another hose to it but that side is manual only and I mostly only use it to mix the fertilizer with water in a pail.

So as you can see I spent the morning tilling up my row garden.  I love my Honda mini-tiller.  A friend said she has a Mantis and can only use it part of the season and then it's too hard too use.  While I admit even my Honda has a hard time with rock hard soil baked by the sun, it has no problem with weeds or grass and when there is a little moisture in the soil.  The tines are bent inward in an L shape and this allows them to cut off the roots and dig down deeper.  Love that little tool.  

So last year I started doing these trenches around the drip line. The emitters are 12" apart.  And some plants don't have to be spaced that far apart.  This allows the water to get where it needs to be without watering everything.  And that helps control weeds.  The last thing I want is more to do than I have the strength for.  With the ground all tilled up it was super easy to rake in place.  Only a few drip lines are on right now thanks to the new ball valves.  Even more weed control! I'll be adding the rest of the seeds soon. It looks like tomorrow is the last cool day.  It's 87 today and tomorrow it will be 60 and windy.  After that I'll be able to plant anything I want.

I dumped the water out of the walls of water so they don't burn up my tomatoes.  After the wind tomorrow I will remove them all together.

I need 4 more tomato cages. 

I love how pretty and full they are starting to look.

This is the Cherokee Purple that I started from seed.

And I really must start my Early Girls earlier next year.  I don't know why I had such a hard time with them this year.  

The ball valve on OFF.

My garlic is looking good.  It will be ready the end of July. 

The green bunching onions on the side of the house are going to seed.  And there is a little ant visitor on it.  If you want some seeds in a few months, please let me know.  There will be plenty to share. 

My basil had a rough start but most of it survived and it will eventually be planted between the tomatoes.  I hear that it wards off tomato horn worms.  Last year I only had 1 surviving basil plant and it was right next to my heirloom tomatoes which had no pest problems while my romas on the other side of the yard with no basil plants had the biggest horn worm ever.  Yuck.

I need to get this square foot garden filled up.  My mom and dad gave it to me last year and it's 4x16 feet.  The voles have already been underneath the weed mat.  I may still put wire mesh down. Chicken wire isn't strong enough for voles. Hopefully this coming weekend will be a chance to get all that done.

The snow peas are looking okay.  I need to get the other trellis back over here but right now it's protecting my new Gala apple tree from the deer. I need about 8 feet of fence to finish it all off around that tree.

And this cattle panel piece is for my lemon cucumbers.  I'll be planting those seeds today and taking my kids to the lake.

My spirit bush pumpkins have all sprouted now.  I really need to get the rest of my pumpkin seeds planted out front.

And the strawberries are looking good.  We have a tiny patch.  And something has already eaten a few and left parts of them in the grass.  

And finally my grape vines are starting to grow.  I was seriously starting to wonder. I have 3 seedless red grapes next to my propane tank.  It looks like maybe this year we'll be able to trellis them. Which means I need to get two 8 foot 4x4s and watch this video again. They've been in the ground 3 years - this will be their 4th summer here.  They were bare root as well.  

Check out all the other garden links at Daphne's Dandelions!

Roasted Tomato Soup

I went visiting teaching to a lady at church and her husband was making salsa.  He told me his trick - he grills the tomatoes first.  It was unbelievably good.  So the next day I threw these tomatoes on the grill to try it myself.  Normally I don't rush into things I'm not quite sure about but I was tomato-ed out and didn't really mind if they didn't turn out.  

I also decided to grill some garlic cloves.  Uhm, yum!  Luckily none of them fell through and disappeared into the flames. 

I threw all of the roasted tomatoes into this bowl when I was done.  Use a hot pad while transporting them inside.  I ran them through my Roma Strainer. But then something interesting happened.  

I didn't make salsa.  I was out of cilantro (again).  I ended up with about 5 quarts of tomato sauce/juice so I grabbed the Canadian Steak Seasoning I get at Sam's Club -  I hear the new brand isn't as good as the Tone's Brand. Add 1 tsp per quart.  Anyway, I added 1 chopped onion (I even ran it through the food processor because I wanted the pieces smaller).  Add 1 chicken bullion cube per quart. Then it needed a few more tsp of salt - salt to taste.  It was amazing!  I ate 3 bowls worth.  I can't stand Campbell's tomato soup - it's too bland and I'm allergic to wheat.  This however was a delight for my taste buds.  Make some and you'll see. 

Differences in tomatoes

So what's the difference between these two tomatoes?  

The one on the left is an heirloom tomato - it's meatier and has fewer seeds spread throughout.  The pink Brandywine really is pink. The Red Beefsteak is more sour than the Brandywine. The one on the right is an Early Girl which is a hybrid tomato and the seeds are all in fancy little pockets and easy to scrape out.  I like the heirloom for slicing and for puree - the seeds can be saved and used next year but it's a little process.  A free process.  I like the Early Girl for salsa because I can get rid of the seeds so easily but it's a really juicy tomato but I prefer to not puree it if I can.  

And I've had some whoppers like this come out of the heirloom plants this year.  The skin is lumpy.  I think it's kinda cool looking. They are great on sandwiches - wish I could eat a sandwich but gluten free bread just isn't calling my name this year.

And this is a Hybrid tomato (Early Girl to be exact) - it's not terribly huge - it's more like the vine ripe tomatoes you see at the grocery store.  The skin is smooth too. My neighbor loves them for canning whole.  The skins slip off easily when tossed in boiling water for 60 seconds and then into icy cold water after that.

Harvest Monday - September 5th - Labor Day

So this has been an interesting week with its twists and turn.  Thankfully the grasshoppers are no more.  I got sick just looking outside my windows but not any longer.  I even walked outside once today without shoes on.  Life is so much better now that the hoppers are mostly gone. However they are still in my garden.  In fact they've eaten most of the ripe tomatoes on 3 plants.  Good thing there are 22.

About every 4 days I end up with a harvest like this:

On Thursday I decided I had better get to work on some more pico de gallo before they went bad.  I quarter them and then scoop the seeds out.  In the other three bowls are tomatoes that I ran through my Roma Strainer. 

I ended up with 5 quarts of tomato sauce after it boiled down for a while. 

And 32 cups pico de gallo.

See - 32 cups right here.  Now it's in the freezer.  Wish I could find more of those Ball canning jars locally.  I love them for freezing salsa.  

Two of the quarts of tomato sauce before going into the water bath canner.

Genovese Basil - next year I am going to plant it around every tomato plant.  

And jalapenos - just enough for all my pico and even some incase I get to put away more this week.

Today's tomato harvest.  Weird heirloom tomatoes - half green, half red.  Oh and today I ripped most of the leaves off the top part of the heirloom plants to get some more airflow and sunlight on them. It's apparently going to frost soon. We get about 3 to 4 months frost free and then it's over.

Here is my big harvest.  I pulled these this morning - all 108 of them.  Considering that a medium size onion sells for $1 each during the winter here I am pretty happy with this.  Thankfully we only have 1 car in a 3 car garage although car #2 will be here soon. And Daphne, thank you for sharing how to braid them.  As you can see I will be very busy soon.

This is my largest heirloom so far.  It's a Red Beefsteak. 

And this is me being cheesy.  My husband took the photos for me and I was being silly and did this just as he took a photo to make sure the camera settings were the way he liked them.  BUT I always say the gardener is missing in most garden photos so I included it even though I was covered with dirt and looking like I just woke up and I was being cheesy. Nice.  Forgive me. I think I even stuck my tongue out and rolled my eyes a second after this.  Aren't you so glad he caught this photo instead?

This is a Big Daddy onion.  What's cool about all of these onions is that I started them from seed.  All 108 onions cost me 99 cents total.  Of course I have no idea what it costs me to power the pump for the well to water everything in the high desert but we'll ignore that part ok.

And today with the help of both of my children and my wonderful husband I have 26 more cups of pico made.  So that's 32 on Thursday and 26 today.  Nice - freezer is STOCKED!

And Bell Peppers - I washed them and saved 2 for chicken fajitas this week.  The rest I put in the dehydrator that I received when I graduated from high school.  Nice graduation present huh?  It sat forever.  But I use it more often now. I've had it for a long time. A very long time.  I am way older than I look.  I got a kids menu when I was 6 month pregnant with my oldest - I was 26.

And here is that ancient dehydrator with the bell peppers I picked today.  

It does the job so I'm good with it.  

Hope you had a great Labor Day!