Heirloom seeds:
Most of the garden turned out great. The heirloom seeds made it fun and different. We planted New Zealand spinach, which was great to have in the heat of the summer. The tomatillos were tasty in the salsa verde. The down side of the seeds was that somehow we ended up with around 12 plants of yellow cherry tomato plants, which I thought were going to be nice red tomatoes. I may have mixed up the labels, I don't know. The Manitoba tomatoes ended up having alot of vines with not many tomatoes. Although the actual tomato was pink and delicious when I found a good one! The Nova Red tomato was the best, with little vines and a nice size red tomato. You live and you learn.
Preserving for the winter:
We canned and froze a lot of spaghetti sauce, even with the yellow cherry tomatoes. My method this year was to just cut the stem area out and puree the tomatoes in the blender. Then, I simmered it in a pot of the stove with basil, garlic, olive oil, and salt and pepper. I added tomato paste to some of it. We also canned enchilada sauce, which a Mexican friend gave me the recipe for. The last batch of tomatoes, I just diced them, cooked them alittle, and froze them. I use a lot of diced tomatoes in the winter. When I had too much cabbage, I made green tomato relish, for the first time. From the line of basil, I made basil pesto for the first time, and froze it. Then we canned the usual, sauerkraut, pickled red beets, bread and butter pickles, and lots of jam. We also froze beans, red beets, corn, water cress, kale, and peppers. So where did my summer go? Well, there you have it, along with watching my busy boy.
No comments:
Post a Comment