Seed Time/Harvest Time

No one offered up any cheese with my whine about the lack of produce in my garden, so I've sucked it up and waited for something to happen. Shockingly, the tomatoes have produced 30 pounds of fruit already. The Zinnias that failed to show earlier are blossoming beautifully. The Buckwheat that volunteers has flowered and begun to turn seedy. I'm grateful for this turn of events!

I no longer can tomatoes because the frozen ones taste more like fresh when they are thawed.

I just 'chunk' them up for use in sauce and salsa later.

Yesterday morning in the cool 44 degree and breezy weather I pruned the tomatoes so that no more flowers are left, just the vines with tomatoes so that their energy can go to ripening.

And, last of all, these plums are amazing!

It is time to get stared on seeding some flats of lettuce to grow in the sunroom for winter.

Seed time/harvest time...is this my favorite time????? Hm, let me get back to you on that.

Greenhouse Gardening in Miniature

Again this year June has been renamed: Junuary we call it.

The temperature yesterday got UP to 43 with pouring rains off and on. The fog moves in sometimes in the early morning, and below was the scene greeting me from my studio as I drank my coffee and contemplated life and how it is unfolding this month. I'm leaving next Tuesday for nearly the rest of the month and have been concerned about putting out all my starts. The cover blew off the tomatoes twice, so I've set up these Walls 'O Water around each tomato, squash, cucumber and eggplant to keep the frigid temperates at bay for them while I'm gone. They act as miniature greenhouses for plants struggling to maintain their composure in cold, wet climates.
You can see how cozy these Boothby's Blonde Cucumbers are inside the 'Walls'.
I put a small tomato cage inside to keep the 'Walls' from collapsing onto the plants if they should be so inclinde in my absence.

Putting crushed eggshells in the hole before planting tomatoes provides a little extra calcium. And then I sprinkle more eggshells on top of the earth around each plant to prevent slugs from wandering around and nibbling/gobbling up such tender morsels.

Garlic is loving the cool, wet weather!

And the potatoes (Yukon Gold) are emerging and thriving!

Not much else is in or coming up except some volunteer cilantro, some lettuce and herbs.

I pray it will all be thriving when I return home on June 27th and that 'uary' part of June will have absconded with the rain and cold to parts unknown!

Straw Garden Girl

Here is Alina the Queena the Straw Garden today.

She is cooling off from the hard work of pulling the "straw train" that we worked together on this morning.
She pulled, and I pushed the train to the garden to make pathways for us to walk when the rains come and make mud.

Her job was to walk the paths when I finished laying them.

TA DA!!

We are finished with this one pathway.

You can see the squash plants to the left along the line of the soaker hose.

The tomato plants are barely visible in their cages to the right of Alina.

And you can see some wayward garlic to the far right.

Tastey Tomato 'Keepers'

My new measuring 'stick' is butter these days. We all know how big one is, so it is a perfect comparison tool. You may recall a few blogs ago I used butter to show the size of our plums, which are nearly finished.

You might also recall that I had a 'plant failure' in June because I'd forgotten to take the cover off the plants one day when it finally warmed up. The plants were 'baked', so to speak, and have taken their time in the recovery room. Today, in this Indian Summer weather, I have picked a bucket of luscious keepers.

I would love to be able to grow Brandywines and Principe Borghese, but they don't do well in the cool summers we endure here at 3000 feet near the mountains in Idaho.

The two favorite keepers in the bowl are the Amish Paste Tomatoes we jokingly call our footballs. They are meaty and flavorful. The Fedco catalog touts them as "prolific, good in drought and wet weather. They were also ranked as the 2nd best-tasting variety at the 2006 Heirloom Tomato Tasting at Decorah, IA." This year I was willing to give space for two plants, and will certainly do that again next year! The Cosmonaut Volkov is the other tomato in the bowl. It is "sweet, rich and fullbodied", says the Fedco Catalog, "always good and occasionally sublime." Both of these tomatoes have passed numerous tests here in the high mountain country where the days are short and cool. The heat of summer is short. We've already had one frost that I know of. And these just keep on tickin'!

You can see the plants have recovered quite well.


I am getting about 2 1/2 gallons each day right now. And you KNOW what I do with them if you read the last blog on Salsa!

Splendid Salsa ...Bon Apetit

This is the Splendid Salsa from the farmgirl kitchen where I've been acting like Julia Child is my best friend lately.

I know; I'm so fickle; MaryJane Butters was my best friend two weeks ago.

It is I doing my best Julia Child imitation.

After having seen the movie Julia and Julie I decided that my pearls had spent enough time in their beautiful box. I'm wearing them, along with the darling apron my sister Margy made for me. You KNOW I'm mad for aprons!

Here are the chopped tomatoes, which I usually put in quart freezer baggies and pop into the freezer. Our favorite use for these frozen tomatoes is salsa in the dead of winter. They act like they've never been frozen at all! I also pop limes (after cutting them in half) into the freezer for this recipe. They don't act like they've been frozen either! In fact, they are easier to juice.

Nygous tomatoes are the ones Connie has encouraged me to grow. And this is how I save the seeds of these and other favorites: I cut them on the cutting board and lay a napkin down on top to soak up the seeds. I label and date them, setting them in the sunroom to dry, then store them away for the winter. I've spelled the name wrong on the napkin, but you get the idea.

Anna's Salsa

1 quart of fresh or frozen tomatoes, chopped

1/2 sweet onion, chopped

1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped

1/2 lime squeezed

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 teaspoons salt

We don't like our salsa hot, but you can add hot stuff (cayenne, tobasco) if you like.

Also, below is the requested recipe for pesto. I just found it on the internet, and there are many variations. This is one I like:

Pesto Sauce for Amuse Bouche

2 cups fresh basil leaves, packed

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 cup Olive oil

3 tablespoons pine nuts

3 garlic cloves, finely minced

Place basil leaves in small batches in food processor and whip until well chopped (do about 3/4 cup at a time). Add about 1/3 the nuts and garlic, blend again. Add about 1/3 of the Parmesan cheese; blend while slowly adding about 1/3 of the olive oil, stopping to scrape down sides of container. Process until it forms a thick smooth paste. Repeat until all ingredients are added, mix all batchs together well.

Amuse Bouche

Amuse Bouche, (pronounced ah mooz' boosh), is French for something to amuse your mouth (bouche), a tastey treat before dinner, like an hors d'oeuvre. Finally I have tomatoes! I made pesto from fresh basil in the garden, and stuffed these tiny sweet tomatoes. No everyone likes pesto, so I've surrounded the amuse bouche with some wedges for my "Girls Night Out" get together.

This bee is having a little Amuse Bouche too! We inspected honey bees today for the home-school science project to see how much pollen they were carrying. This bee was one of many on the Gailardia today.

Then, one of my favorite plants in the garden, thanks to Connie,
is the tall Kiss Me Over the Garden Gate. I delight in its height and winsome waving of slender arms in a breeze. Hunter and Carson are peeking out to show the height. They are almost as tall as I (not quite 5 feet), so you can see how tall this KMOtGG is!

A new apron!

My friend Lisa gave me a card table size tablecloth from her mother's things. It is the most darling apron I've made. And I'm keepin' this one! I could eat it up...another little amuse bouche ;).