An arrangement of annuals from the garden: dill flowers, spider flower, tobacco flowers, love-in-a-mist, zinnias, borage, and bachelor's buttons.
Some enormous killer tomatoes from the greenhouse. The fork and penny are for size comparison. But they just don't seem to convey how huge the tomato on the right is - about 3 baseballs combined.
The set-up for tomato sauce. Notice the food mill on the right. It was my grandparents', and it works extremely, almost amazingly well at separating the seeds and skin from the pulp and juice.
All of those tomatoes made only two quart bags of sauce!
The mozzarella cheese making kit.
The finished product!
I've had to adjust my schedule to allow for ample time every day for picking and then processing our veggies! I refuse to let them take over! Right now the zucchini has reached the point of "Oh boy, here's another one." (and has commandeered a whole shelf in the fridge.) But the tomatoes are still a pleasant addition to our diet. We're eating them sliced with salt and pepper, in salads, on sandwiches, and in pasta. Tonight we're having tomato and fresh mozzarella pasta salad. I approached the making of my fresh mozzarella with some trepidation. Homemade cheese? That can't be possible. Well, we don't have our own cow yet, but we do have homemade mozzarella cheese!! It worked! I've never been one to eat cheese plain, so I can't really tell yet how the taste compares to processed mozzarella. For that, I'll have to eat it on pizza, probably. But at least I can say something about my zucchini-tomato sauce and my mozzarella...I know and can identify all of the ingredients!! If I've learned anything this summer from our attempt to grow our own organic food, it's that you won't get it for cheaper than the generic brand at the supermarket. But try to buy organic food for your family at a Trader Joe's, and you'll appreciate the savings you get by doing it yourself. It's been a great year to grow organic. We planted 8 fruit trees, and haven't watered them once. Our soil is very fertile, so everything's growing like crazy! Not too many bugs, either. Just about 50 Japanese beetles a day that I knock into a bucket and feed to my happy chickens, and a gigantic caterpillar on one of my tomatoes (sorry, no picture was taken before it succumbed to the heat inside the leftover container I captured it in.) I can't help it, I'm already planning new beds for next year!! Oh, and we're busy putting our fall garden in right now. In Zone 5, the end of July and beginning of August are the perfect time to put in cabbages, leeks, kale, carrots, and beets for fall picking. Later in August we'll plant spinach, lettuce, and radishes. We'll be glad to get some home-grown lettuce again. People say home grown tomatoes are where it's at, but we think that home-grown lettuce is just as much better than store-bought.
Check back with me in August to see if I've been buried under the produce...two 20X20 plots of sweet corn are sneaking up on me!
An arrangement of annuals from the garden: dill flowers, spider flower, tobacco flowers, love-in-a-mist, zinnias, borage, and bachelor's buttons.
The set-up for tomato sauce. Notice the food mill on the right. It was my grandparents', and it works extremely, almost amazingly well at separating the seeds and skin from the pulp and juice.
The mozzarella cheese making kit.
The finished product!
I've had to adjust my schedule to allow for ample time every day for picking and then processing our veggies! I refuse to let them take over! Right now the zucchini has reached the point of "Oh boy, here's another one." (and has commandeered a whole shelf in the fridge.) But the tomatoes are still a pleasant addition to our diet. We're eating them sliced with salt and pepper, in salads, on sandwiches, and in pasta. Tonight we're having tomato and fresh mozzarella pasta salad. I approached the making of my fresh mozzarella with some trepidation. Homemade cheese? That can't be possible. Well, we don't have our own cow yet, but we do have homemade mozzarella cheese!! It worked! I've never been one to eat cheese plain, so I can't really tell yet how the taste compares to processed mozzarella. For that, I'll have to eat it on pizza, probably. But at least I can say something about my zucchini-tomato sauce and my mozzarella...I know and can identify all of the ingredients!! If I've learned anything this summer from our attempt to grow our own organic food, it's that you won't get it for cheaper than the generic brand at the supermarket. But try to buy organic food for your family at a Trader Joe's, and you'll appreciate the savings you get by doing it yourself. It's been a great year to grow organic. We planted 8 fruit trees, and haven't watered them once. Our soil is very fertile, so everything's growing like crazy! Not too many bugs, either. Just about 50 Japanese beetles a day that I knock into a bucket and feed to my happy chickens, and a gigantic caterpillar on one of my tomatoes (sorry, no picture was taken before it succumbed to the heat inside the leftover container I captured it in.) I can't help it, I'm already planning new beds for next year!! Oh, and we're busy putting our fall garden in right now. In Zone 5, the end of July and beginning of August are the perfect time to put in cabbages, leeks, kale, carrots, and beets for fall picking. Later in August we'll plant spinach, lettuce, and radishes. We'll be glad to get some home-grown lettuce again. People say home grown tomatoes are where it's at, but we think that home-grown lettuce is just as much better than store-bought.
Check back with me in August to see if I've been buried under the produce...two 20X20 plots of sweet corn are sneaking up on me!
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