We’ve had only TWO cherry tomatoes so far this year, but today we picked many cabbages, plus good quantities of cucumbers, peppers, beans, peas, and raspberries. Hooray for summer produce! Tonight in a bid to use up some of that produce I made my own tweak on shepherd’s pie: –a layer of shredded cabbage...
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…the precious grubby hands that picked these berries…
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Frost is coming. Yesterday it was time to get in the last of the tomatoes, green ones too. We wrap them in newspaper three or five at a time, box them up, and set them out in the cool garage. Within a couple of weeks they’ll begin to redden up, just as they would...
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12 large tomatoes, diced 2 large yellow onions, diced 4 large sweet peppers, diced 6 cloves garlic, minced Hot peppers, to taste 2 cups lemon or lime juice (or may substitute 1 cup vinegar) 1 tablespoon salt fresh basil, minced, to taste (optional) Start by chopping the tomatoes, onions, garlic, and sweet peppers. You...
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Counters are heaped with produce: corn, tomatoes, peppers, apples, plums. Every stove-burner has a pot: today it is applesauce and salsa and plum jam and the ever-present canning pot. Later in the day as jars fill and pots empty we’ll have two canning pots bubbling at once. The stereo blasts with the rowdiest music...
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The tail end of summer is roaring past me at ridiculous speed. We opted to skip the ‘big’ fair this year– it costs so much!– but had a great time going to a church carnival on Saturday. They had 50-cent hot dogs, corn dogs, burgers, ice cream, snow cones and cotton candy, if you...
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My lunch today. From the store: watermelon From the garden: tomatoes, cukes, canteloupe, and CORN! Also: this french bread - it has a secret!
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This morning we headed out the the garden to see what was going on: apparently a lot more than I realized. We spent probably an hour picking, and then came back into the house to do something with all of our bounty. First on the agenda was sweet relish. The kids diced about a...
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It’s begun already. Earlier it seems than most years. I’m awash in zucchini. I vowed to pick them tiny, I really did. It’s so much easier to pick/eat/give away 6-inch zucchinis than 18-inch monsters. But then we went camping and came back to plants that had gone berserk in our absence. John and I...
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When we first moved to our place in the country, the landscaping consisted of a hillside full of weeds, a good-sized rock pile, and a bedraggled wild rose that still today ekes out a living on our ditch bank. We dreamed of trees, huge ones, shady and rustling in the wind. So whenever we...
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