Good Help Is Hard To Find

You might have noticed a new button on my sidebar. My little blog is a nominee for Philadelphia's Most Valuable Blog (MVB). If you would like to vote for me, I would much appreciate it. Voting is open through September 9.

It's a very good thing these are not pioneer times, and I am not farming for sustenance, because I'd be in big trouble. My garden is not doing well. Predators are getting the best of my tomatoes. The onions actually rotted from the soil being too wet (remember all that yapping I did about the wonders of the self-watering container? yeah, you're going to want to ignore all of that).

The good news is that I appear to be getting a second crop of tomatoes. A couple of weeks ago, I trimmed down my massive tomato plants, and, much to my surprise, baby green tomato buds started forming again. Last time I saw one of these, it was early in June.

Wanting to ensure this potential second harvest stands a better chance than the current one, I hired Sundae to guard the garden. She was supposed to stare at it from inside the back door, looking all ferocious, and alert me if she spotted any groundhogs. She chose to do this instead:

My garden is doomed.

Garden Marinara Sauce

I'm embroiled in a full-scale war with a very fat, very diabolical groundhog who's been snacking on my garden tomatoes. Because of this, I've been picking the tomatoes off the vine as soon as they turn a bit red and letting them ripen inside the house, where they are safe from overgrown, furry yard rats. This situation left me with a bunch of tomatoes that ripened at the same time and had to be used right away. So I decided to make marinara sauce with them. I read in a book that keeping the skin on the tomatoes adds nutrients to the sauce. I don't know if that's true, but it did save me the step of blanching and peeling the tomatoes. Instead, I threw them into the food processor and pulverized them. Easy, peasy. To preserve this sauce for later, I poured it into 1-quart freeze-safe jars. It will last for a year in the freezer, and it's so much easier than canning.


GARDEN MARINARA SAUCE

8 large garden tomatoes
2 tsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
15 leaves basil, torn
1/4 c. Italian leaf parsley, chopped
2 tsp white sugar
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

1. Wash tomatoes, scrubbing off any dirt, and pat dry. Core to remove stems and slice in half.

2. Place tomatoes in a food processor (or use a blender). Pulse until the consistency is what you desire. Depending on the size of your processor, this step might need to be done in batches. Also, don't worry if your tomato puree is on the pink side (mine looked like watermelon juice). The sauce will get red as it's cooked down.

3. Heat olive oil in a large stock pot over medium heat. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 3 minutes. Pour in tomato puree. Add basil, parsley, sugar, salt and pepper. Allow to simmer, uncovered, until sauce cooks down to desired thickness. I simmered mine for about 40 minutes. I left my sauce a bit watery, knowing I would cook it down further when I used it later. Turn off the heat and allow the sauce to cool down. When sauce is no longer hot, pour through a fine-mesh strainer to remove any seeds. Transfer sauce to freezer jars, leaving 1/2 inch of the jar empty to allow for expansion. Keep in freezer for up to 6 months. Makes about 2 quarts.

Source: Cats and Casseroles original recipe

Garden Update

My earth garden (as opposed to my container garden) is doing pretty well. There used to be a wooden swing set in our yard where the garden now sits. But we hacked that to pieces and used its base to make our raised bed.

I read a couple of gardening books before planting, and they were all pretty clear that tomato plants need only a square foot of space to themselves. Since our garden is six feet long, I felt confident planting three tomato plants and one pepper plant along the back row. Well, the books were wrong. So wrong. My tomato plants are growing faster and larger than expected and seem to be on a quest to conquer the entire garden for themselves. One of them grew forward and eclipsed my tiny, struggling basil plant, almost completely killing it. One of them looked like it was trying to fuse itself with my poor pepper plant.

My dad is a gardening expert. This is my first year, and I occasionally ring him up for some help. My dad wound up moving the pepper plant to the front row and trying up the tomato plants with some twine. The basil plant is happily sun bathing once again.

And what's this I spy? Could it be a tiny tomato?

The onions from my container garden are doing great. My dad planted his onions from the same batch of onion sets I did, but his aren't nearly this big. I think the self-watering containers are doing their job. I'll definitely be planting onions in this same fashion next year.

How's your garden growing today?

We Have Lift Off!

This is my first year gardening. I'm doing a combination of container and conventional gardening, trying to figure out what works best for our space, and what I can handle. My conventional garden is not ready yet, and hot weather is approaching, so I used my containers to get a head start on the season. I planted leaf lettuce and onions. Leaf lettuce is between 2 and 3 dollars per pound at the local grocery store. I got my lettuce seeds for 30 cents per packet. The math is pretty irresistible.

I'm experimenting with both self-watering and regular planters. I was worried the self-watering planters might be a gimmick, but I'm impressed with the results. The planter on the right is self-watering and the planter on the right is not. This is the lettuce. For the onions, I see almost no difference in performance between the two kinds of planters.

What kind of gardening adventures are you having today?