What did you do in the garden today?

[Sueby]

I have like 8 million yellow squash sprinkled with salt draining a bit in the sink for more chips!! I got smart & got out the food processor to slice them & I think I'll put the dehydrator outside to do it's thing today so I don't heat up the house.

 

[littledog]

I am so happy - the city came Monday morning to cut up their tree that fell in our yard, and after all was said and done, only one of our new trees was destroyed! The others in that area were a bit squashed, but only by the tree's small branches and leaves, so it looks like they will survive.
The city did a great job, cleared up all the mess, maintained the fence and didn't tear up our field too much.
I got my chip-drop at almost the same time, which is so funny because it was a total coincidence. Right after the city quit their chainsawing, here comes a truck to dump chips. I naturally assumed the chips were from that tree, but it turns out they were from the actual chip-drop I signed up for, completely unrelated!
I got quite a few wheelbarrow loads of chips into the new chicken pen before work on Monday, then Mr. Dog and I tag-teamed with two wheelbarrows today, and got the new run filled up with chips. It looks so great! And smells awesome, because there's a lot of cedar in it - so it's just as well that the pop-door from the old coop will not be complete before this weekend, and the cedar fumes have time to dissipate before the chickens go in there.

 

[Sueby]

I love chipdrop - we have had such good luck with them. I also got a drop yesterday from the guys that came to cut up my neighbors mess left over from the hurricane. I went out there begging them to give me the chips.

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Good morning gardeners. I'm enjoying another cool morning after a hot, muggy day yesterday. Fortunately the only rain we got was a few spits here and there. Picked another colander full of blushing tomatoes a few green beans and another jalapeno. I have a large bowl of tomatoes that needs to go into the freezer for canning later. My garage cleaning is nearly complete, Just need to sweep. I also need to get to the orchard and pick up peaches for making peach preserves and frozen peach slices. I got more incentive to can apples this morning when I was peeling the little label off a grocery store apple - product of Chile. I usually cook the apples before putting them in my yogurt or oatmeal so I'll be purchasing local apples and canning them up for the year. I need to look up my recipe for green tomato salsa verde. I canned that last year, but apparently not enough. It is so good I'm hoarding the last two 1/2 pints. I think the recipe came from my Ball Canning cookbook. This is just a suggestion for those of us unable to grow such perfect looking tomatillos, yes @karenerwin I'm talking about you. Your harvest of tomatillos was so yummy looking. So I have to ration my carbs too @Sueby to keep my A1C under 7 so the strategy I have is to make a batch of cookies, brownies or amazing chocolate zucchini muffins then freeze them. I get one piece per day. That and not going crazy with pasta and potatoes is working for me. I'm glad you enjoyed the squash fritters @littledog. I searched for a recipe last year when I had another bumper crop of squash and wanted to preserve them. The squash fritter is great for freezing. Also glad to hear your tree situation turned out more positive. We don't have chip drop here. I'm a little jealous. They had free compost in the little city I used to live in. You had to go there with your own containers and pick it up. I'm in a more rural area now and it's more like do your own thing or pick up some black gold from the few farmers that sell it. Wishing the fall gardeners luck with their plantings. I'm actually participating this year. Not a huge amount, just one small bed for now and still looking for a good spot to plant kale. Have a great day everyone.

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

I looked up the recipe for the green tomato salsa. This is much better than fried green tomatoes.

Salsa Prep Time 45 minutes Cook Time 50 minutes Total Time 1 hour 35 minutes Yield 6 quarter-litre (1/2 US pint) jars

Ingredients
3 1/4 lbs green tomatoes (measured after peeling and chopping coarsely. About 7 cups / 12 medium
1/2 lb. peppers (mixed, such as jalapeno, Habañero or Scotch bonnet peppers. About 5 to 10.)
3/4 lb. onion (peeled and chopped. 2 cups / About 2 large.
2 cloves garlic (finely chopped)
1/2 cup / 4 oz lime juice (bottled. )
1/2 cup loosely packed. 1 oz coriander (aka cilantro. Fresh, finely chopped.
2 teaspoons cumin (ground)
1 teaspoons oregano (dried)
1 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoons ground black pepper

Instructions
1. Wash the tomatoes. Blanch the tomatoes for about 60 seconds in boiling water, then plunge immediately into very cold water. Cut off and discard the peel. Add tomato to a large pot. Wash and prep the pepper, onion and garlic, and add to same pot.

2. Add the lime juice.

3. Bring to a boil.

4. Add in the remaining ingredients.

5. Lower heat and simmer for 3 minutes. 6. Spoon into 1/2 US pint or pint jars.

7. Leave 1/2 inch headspace.

8. Debubble, adjust headspace.

9. Wipe jar rims.

10. Put lids on.

11. Process in a water bath or steam canner.

12. Process either size jar for 20 minutes; increase time as needed for your altitude.

13. Best after at least a month of jar time.

 

[Sueby]

That looks delish, I remember you making it last year. I didn't get the chance because I brought in all my green tomatoes to ripen in the house. I didn't think they would, but they all ripened! Maybe this year I'll save some specifically for this.

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

That looks delish, I remember you making it last year. I didn't get the chance because I brought in all my green tomatoes to ripen in the house. I didn't think they would, but they all ripened! Maybe this year I'll save some specifically for this.

I’m planning on holding back some tomatoes. My harvest isn’t all that great this year so I may actually have to buy tomatillos and use them in place of the tomatoes. It’s really yummy. I’ve made salsa verde before but I think this is the best recipe I’ve used.

 

[Acre4Me]

I’m planning on holding back some tomatoes. My harvest isn’t all that great this year so I may actually have to buy tomatillos and use them in place of the tomatoes. It’s really yummy. I’ve made salsa verde before but I think this is the best recipe I’ve used.

Yum! So, you can use either green tomatoes or tomatillos in that recipe?

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Yum! So, you can use either green tomatoes or tomatillos in that recipe?

I’m sure you can. I’ve used green tomatoes in place of tomatillos for years. So I’m sure the recipe would work with tomatillos. The tomatoes are not quite as acidic as the tomatillos so you may want to adjust for that.

 

[Acre4Me]

Big Day for the Chicks! We put them into he larger pen we just finished!

They look so tiny!

3 rows of newly planted seeds: The top row sprouted in 2 days!
Top and middle row are 2 kinds of turnip, bottom row is a radish ("Watermelon"). All rows have sprouted! bottom row had darker leaves, so harder to see.

This "Green Nutmeg" melon is producing very well! We have 12 on the vine in various stages. We got bugs in a couple, so propped all up on some cut branches.

"Moon ans Stars melons have grown a lot in 7 days. Here are the comparisons of the 7 day growth!

A few weeks ago, planted more yellow squash - and it is looking pretty happy and is producing some squash already. 2 types, a crookneck and a straight neck.

I planted pumpkins, but they ALL died - I think some sort of bug/vine borer. However, we had a volunteer grow and produce, so we just let it alone. Well, turns out we much have 2 volunteers grow, bc now there are some very light pumpkins growing! Here are the two varieties:

On a "fail" note: I over-fertilized my glorious looking and healthy strawberry plants. They are shriveling up. They might make it.... I hope. I've been watering and cutting off the really bad leaves to hopefully open up the plant to get sun to hopefully growing centers. <sigh>

I did talk to her this evening which is good

Glad to hear! Hopefully you begin to feel better soon!