Harvest time

                                                                   Tomato Love

I hope you have your speakers turned on because I have a special song queued up to play in honor of home grown tomatoes.  We like to grow lots of tomatoes here, as in about 100 plants.  Chain saw man starts his plants in late winter, early spring, indoors under lights.  We have had ripe tomatoes as early as July.  Not this year.  With the cold sunless summer, our tomatoes didn't start to ripen until late September.  September!!  Luckily, our October had a lot of warm sunny days, even the nights were not cold.  We haven't had a killing frost yet.

We had plenty of tomatoes, they just wanted to stay green.  So in October, we began picking them and bringing them indoors to ripen.  We like the heirloom tomatoes.  These are  Brandywine and  Kellogs Breakfast are the orangy yellow ones.

We're talking a lot of tomatoes! The house is full of them.  Shelves and boxes everywhere!  But they are slowly ripening up.  We dry most of them, rather than canning.  Also there have been gallons of salsa made.  Chain saw man likes to give it away, he goes out and makes deliveries.  People say it is the best salsa they have ever had the pleasure of eating.

When we aren't dealing with tomatoes we have been dealing with the abundance of Chanterelle mushrooms that are growing wild out in the woods.  The weather has been very kind to mushroom growth this season.  I would advise no one to go out and pick these unless they have 100 percent confidence that they know what they are picking. 

We have confidence in our selection.  They need to be cooked before they are edible.  We like to cook up big batches in the cast iron skillet on the wood stove.  Once they are cooked to perfection and cooled we put them in zip lock bags into the freezer for winter consumption.  Delicious when added to stews.  Tastes like chicken.  

Just kidding.

Aside from harvesting the mushrooms and tomatoes, we have also been putting up other garden produce, such as green beans and picking the squash.  I like to make up big pots of dried beans, squash, mushrooms, corn and tomatoes.  That is a staple of our winter diet.  

That is why I haven't had time to blog lately.  Things are slowing down now.  I have more good things to come in future posts, thanks for hanging in there.

Be well.

 

green food

Have you ever eaten nettles?  Some parts are edible you know.  Above is what nettles look like growing in the spring.  Don't pick them without gloves on.  They aren't called Stinging Nettles for nothing!  Below is what they look like after picking and washing.  These have a note on them because my BF came in and looked at them and I could tell by the look on his face that he was getting ready to put his hands in there and fluff them up.  Just a little reminder.  I cook them just like spinach, kinda steam them with some garlic and olive oil and then a bit of balsamic vinegar.  Very nutritious and free!

Above you can see our new crop of tomato and chard plants.  We have since planted them out, the chard is planted all over the yard because it is such a beautiful plant.  The tomatoes are in the little makeshift greenhouse.  I'll show you more of those later in the season.

Be well.