Tomatillo Salsa

I’ve had to slow down on canning a bit, since we have very little storage space in our apartment, but last night I canned some tomatillo salsa from the Complete Book of Home Preserving. I haven’t tried this recipe before, but I’m crossing my fingers it tastes good! There were local tomatillos for a great price at the co-op, along with local onions, and local jalapenos, so I couldn’t resist. The recipe was insanely easy (all the ingredients into the pot at once, boil for 10 minutes, then process for 15), but the chopping took a looong time.
note for those making this recipe: the photo looks more red than it is, because of my silly phone photo filter. Also, I used a few purple tomatillos thinking it would be pretty. It wasn’t. Mixed with the green, it looks swampy. Now you know!

While I was shopping for these ingredients, I snagged a bag of marked down red tomatoes, 5 lbs for $1.69!! Organic, of course. So tonight, it’ll be red salsa in the canning pot!

In the garden… June 2011

Summer has finally arrived and although we’re as busy as ever, we are really trying to enjoy it. Who knew you could have raspberries doing so well in containers? It’s been really exciting to see how bountiful they are. Have you ever had a golden raspberry? This is the first year our canes produced (we got them last year, and they leafed out but didn’t yield. This year- tons of berries!) They are sweet and so very fragile, very rewarding to grow since you’ll never see them in the supermarket! We’ve also really enjoyed growing peppers again, mini bells this time, and outside! Our little 3-shelf green house keeps it the perfect temperature for our little plant. I am completely thrilled that on a patio, in partial shade, in a foggy costal town (zone 9!) we have homegrown peppers. It’s thrilling. Oh, and that pretty pink blossom? That ivy geranium is one of the few flowers I keep in our container garden, and it’s actually one of my oldest plants, along with a lavender that I had while still living with my parents. I got the geranium at a plant sale years ago, and it always blooms beautifully despite my neglect.

Onward!

“The love of gardening is a seed that once sown never dies.” ~Gertrude Jekyll

I’m not going to lie; we had some discouraging moments in the garden this year. A lot of those moments where you look at the garden you weeded for hours, so thoroughly you’re convinced no weed will ever dare set its vile roots there again. . .and naturally, it’s covered in weeds again. But we keep going. And we keep learning. We’re doing some things differently this year, but we’re definitely sticking with it. Above are some tomato starts (stupice, which did well last year), and we’ve also got peas, rainbow chard, and a few other greens started. There is so much promise in a seed. No matter what form my garden takes (and it’s been everything from a huge bed & full greenhouse to a few 4″ pots), it’s a love affair I am damn committed to. So here we go again. I’m ready for ya, spring.

-Violet

PS- Kellen has been homebrewing beer all winter! And its awesome! Maybe he’ll share his thoughts on that here soon. He also just checked out a book on Tofu making from the library. The DIY adventures never stop in this apartment!

Kellen’s first post!

Well I have been a little absent from the blog scene, but trust me I have not been sitting on my laurels. I have been growing a lot of different plants: stevia, spinach, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries. The stevia and spinach are mostly my babies but I consider the berries as well. Here are just a few pictures i took today of the garden.

This is our first crookneck squash, sorry for the graphic nature of…nature!

Tomatoes? On the coast? In Humboldt? Hell Yes!

Just a quick picture of Violet checking out the neglected cucumber plants that were in the garden before we came, they are still very puny.

We had a little frog friend today! Sorry the image is a little blurry but he was very fast and did not want pictures taken!

And that is really all I have for this post; I just thought it was time to associate myself with the blog.

DIY Dairy!

This post might contain a lot of exclamation points because I made yogurt! And creme fraiche! And cheese! And it’s exciting!

Creme Fraiche

and no, it’s not canned (which isn’t safe to do with dairy) just stored in a jar.

I’ve read about how easy it is to make yogurt and cheese at home, but aside from butter, we hadn’t tried any dairy ourselves. But I took a class at the co-op (where I also learned to make jam, can tomatoes, and pickle) and now I might be hooked. It really is so simple, and doesn’t take much time at all, especially the yogurt and creme fraiche. The creme fraiche is just cream mixed with a little starter (buttermilk or sour cream) and left out on the counter for a few hours. I know it seems like it would be totally gross (and I could hear my mother warning about food borne illness, but the good bacteria is at work and I swear, it tastes delicious and I haven’t died!) The yogurt is just milk and starter (which can be live cultured yogurt). I love yogurt and I’ve been getting Nancy’s vanilla organic in a big tub because it’s cheaper, but this will be even better, fresher, and just as cheap! If not cheaper, even. It’s also great to have an option for local yogurt, butter, sour cream, and creme fraiche (not that we ate a lot of creme fraiche before, but it’s so good that might be changing. . . ) We are fortunate enough to have local milk, but no local source for these other products. We also made a delicious lemon cheese. But I ate all that. . .

Fresh, Tasty Yogurt!

The yogurt has to be kept warm over night. The instructions we had said it could be kept in a gas stove with the pilot light on, but our stove gets ice-cold (I think the pilot light doesn’t stay on in our model…who knows) so I put the jar on my hot water bottle, wrapped a towel around the two, placed it in a plastic bag, and put another towel on the outside, and went to bed. It kept it the perfect temperature and today I had perfectly set, delicious yogurt. It does have a bit of a tang, which I like, but mixed with berries or maple syrup (or ginger syrup, which I love!) and it would be sweet and delicious.

In other news, Kellen and I were offered an amazing garden space at a nice couple’s home! More on that soon!

Rained Out!

Sorry about our disappearance. I have no excuse other than the fact that it rained, and rained, and rained. And some (okay, most) of my plans for my mom’s garden didn’t work out. Which is to be expected. I mean, it’s gardening. Our dreams are always bigger than our bits of land, right? And with all the rain and busy schedules, well, let’s just say my mom’s garden isn’t thriving. We did clear out one of her flower beds and she put in some annuals, and I stuck a rosemary plant and some radishes in one corner of the garden, but mostly, that’s in. the 20+ tomato seedlings I had withered and died while her greenhouse stood, run down, empty and leaking.

And as bloggers, we don’t have a lot of imperfect role models, it seems. Even when online gardeners have disappointments, like the tomato blight last year, their gardens are still lush and beautiful. They aren’t dealing with plots that have been overgrown with invasive plants for 8ish years (like my mom’s garden) and often aren’t dealing with a 5×10, shady storage unit for a garden (like mine). I didn’t feel like posting about my disappointments. And it kept raining. And the snails were (and are) relentless. And somehow, these vegetarians who hardly have a use for sage ended up with nearly a dozen giant sage plants that we couldn’t even give to people! (Apparently, it does very well here.)

But you know what? We didn’t give up.

finally, gardening time!

The rain has finally let up and we’re back in the garden. Where we have ENORMOUS raspberry, blueberry, and boysenberry bushes, mint that will not give up, and more sage than anyone will ever need. Plus, some snail-devoured peas (that still yielded enough for me to snack on), a good amount of lettuce, basil, over a dozen strawberry plants, some stevia, echinacea, marigolds, feverfew, renegade chamomile, lavender, and a partridge in pear tree. Okay, not the last two. Yet.

So with the sun shining, hopefully you’ll see more from us. Stay tuned to hear about our new aerogarden (a gift from my brother), and our indoor peppers. And maybe, just maybe, even a post from Kellen!

Just a quick note…

Kellen and I have something exciting to share, but until then, I just wanted to share this link:
What Makes A Good Gardner by Gayla Trail.
I am absolutely guilty of being a perfectionist. Wanting to do things right. Judging harshly.This post was a nice reminder that anyway you garden is the right way (um, as long as it doesn’t harm the environment, in my opinion). It was good reassurance that when the seedlings get a little leggy or our “patio” (where we container garden. it’s really just a fenced outdoor storage area) is East facing and doesn’t get much light. The important thing is to get out there anyway, and keep that dirt under your fingernails.

Keep on digging,
Violet