Remember the giant amount of tomatoes that I picked the other day? Well, about half of them started to ripen already! So the counter was filled with red, orange, and green tomatoes; I decided to make some red, orange, and green salsas.

They are pretty simple; just tomatoes, onions, and chile peppers – also, I added xanthan gum which gave them a much better consistency than last year (this time they aren’t watery). I also made two green tomatoe pies for my dad, who was here today to install a new window in my house.

Like this post? Share it with your networks!

I drastically reduced the number of vegetables hanging out on the counter and in baskets in the basement by slicing them up and pickling them. I really, really hope that we like pickled green tomatoes! I found tons of recipes for them, so I know that someone likes them. Some of the pickles include cucumbers, carrots, onions, and hot peppers. I also made a few pints of sliced green tomato “chips,” which apparently are a delicious replacement for sliced pickled cucumbers.

I ditched the sugar in half of the things I canned this year and went with agave nectar instead. We’ll see how that turns out – most of the pickles aren’t ready to eat yet, but the agave-sweetened refrigerator pickles I made (more in the fridge from yesterday too!) turned out really well.

Like this post? Share it with your networks!

We woke up yesterday morning to a dusting of snow on the ground, which melted and returned throughout the day. The snowfall is pretty light, but it’s been steady since at least 7:00 last night, and doesn’t look like it’s going to let up any time soon!

Chris got all of the tomatoes out of the ground, along with the cucumbers and beans. The eggplants are slowly dying in the cold. The only thing left is the pumpkins, which are mostly orange now. The carrots are still in the ground, but they’ll stay there for a while longer. I’m not sure how the kale and lettuce Chris planted is doing – the newer bunch of carrots are coming up nicely, and Chris did put some storm windows over them to protect them from the snow. His plan for the weekend is making cold frames.

Like this post? Share it with your networks!

Niko checked out one of the multiple baskets full of tomatoes this afternoon. With snow in the forecast, it’s time to get these guys off the vines. Surprisingly, there were a lot more than I expected!

I made a green tomato and apple chutney earlier this year, which turned out really good! The next few days are going to be spent dealing with this lot. We have about a half paper grocery bag full of cherry and smaller-sized green tomatoes – I think I’ll try slicing them in half and pickling them. Should be interesting!

My guess would be somewhere around 60 pounds, but we didn’t actually weigh them. The basket handles started to break off on the last load, though!

Like this post? Share it with your networks!

I raided the tomato plants in the front yard, filling up my entire stovetop with green and pink tomatoes this afternoon. Tomorrow it’s the back yard. I smell indian dishes and green tomato pie in the forecast…

The weather man says that we may get snow on Tuesday night, and that Wednesday will be in the 30s. Alas, it’s time to start taking apart the garden. I pulled some tomato plants out today, and the eggplants, beans, cukes, etc. are still to come. Tip for next year: Wear gloves when pulling out tomato plants, as your hands turn yellow and stain everything you touch yellow as well!

Like this post? Share it with your networks!

The tomatoes are starting to come to the end of their season. The temperature has dropped below 40 a couple of times now, and all gardens must come to an end some time. Strangely, one of the volunteers at the food co-op told me the other day that her garden is still flourishing – she even said that the eggplants and okra are still doing well! Our okra never amounted to much, and the eggplants surely look like they’re done for the season.

Aside from the cooler weather, it has been very windy recently (in Morris, it’s always pretty windy, though). The bean trellis finally decided that it wasn’t going to take it any more, and landed on the cucumbers and tomatoes. It’s going to have to be repaired for next year; I think we’re going to use the taller two trellises for tomatoes, and think of something else for beans. I want to plant beans in front of the house and also in front of the garage, and tie twine from the ground to the eaves for the beans to grow up.

Now, soon, comes the task of pulling everything out of the ground. I’m going to find some good green tomato recipes (I made a green tomato/apple chutney a couple of weeks ago, and it is really, really good!), and eventually we will need to take care of the beets, carrots, and everything else that we haven’t pulled out yet.

Like this post? Share it with your networks!

Of all the things we grew this year, the chile peppers were definitely the best producing, and the most exciting. Especially the purira peppers – we will be saving seeds from these for next year. The peppers start green, and then turn yellow, then purple, then orange, and then red. I think they get hotter as they mature. This time of year, it’s a real Christmas-light show.

Hopefully the manure will add a lot to the garden for next year! I’m not sure yet where our winter gardening plans sit…

Like this post? Share it with your networks!

There’s a chance of the red dropping below zero tonight (I mean – 32ºF), so we raided the garden. Lots and lots and lots of cayennes! There were a bunch of eggplants that aren’t very big, but together they amount to something. We picked up a bunch of apples from various Farmers Markets, and I’m in the process of making a green tomato/apple chutney right now. I’m going to can it, and Chris and I will enjoy it all winter. I doubt that any of my family members will be interested in chutney – they’re the “milder” type.

I’m heading out of town this weekend to visit my family, and I hope to bring back a truck full of manure from my uncle’s hobby farm. He said that I’ll have to go and collect it (no compost pile, I guess), but I hope that will help out the garden a lot. Then, next spring we hope to hook up with a sheep farmer in town to get another giant supply. I think our main problem (aside from the lack of sun because we’re in town and have trees) is just that our soil doesn’t have enough nutrients in it – adding some manure should definitely help out.

Like this post? Share it with your networks!

We have a lot of cayenne peppers! We will probably dry most of them, and maybe pickle a few. Our Purira chiles are starting to turn rainbow colors (I would have posted a picture, but we picked all of the orange/red ones before I took pictures, and I’ve already put them in a spaghetti sauce!). Also, we learned that if the Czechoslovokian Black peppers just stay on the plant, they get red and spicier! I added a few of those to the sauce as well.

The chiles seem to have done fairly well this year, even planted so closely together. With our tendancy to eat spicy things (especially Chris), I think that next year we may need to add a couple more plants. Probably not the Czechs, but definitely the cayennes, puriras, and maybe some other neat varieties.

The tomatoes are starting to die off. We had a couple of cold nights, just under 40º F, which the tomatoes definitely did not like. We pulled off a bunch of yellowing leaves today, and some entire plants may need to go soon. I’m actually excited about making some fried green tomatoes with curry and possibly even a green tomato pie! (I’ve heard that my dad likes green tomato pies, so I better start looking for good recipes!)

Chris planted some kale in the front yard today. We have a lot of new little areas with seedlings – I hope they mature before it gets too cold! Chris said today that he is going to start building cold frames for this winter – maybe he will write about them soon!

Like this post? Share it with your networks!

I spent the better half of the evening grilling eggplants. Mostly ours, but we got a couple from Easy Bean this week, and then there were a few food shares left at the food co-op that didn’t get picked up by Thursday evening (they deliver Tuesdays), so after doling out vegetables to volunteers before they went bad, it seemed I had enough eggplants to preserve! (I guess people just don’t like eggplants. Actually, two volunteers told me that they had never even eaten them before and didn’t know what to do with them!!).

My new vacuum sealer is finally coming in handy. Just days after we pulled three-quarters of our green beans, we had over 2” of rain, and the beans still in the ground started producing like it was July again! So, we are freezing a bunch of beans as well (finally!).

Also, Chris is making tomato sauce tonight. He started cooking down most of our tomatoes (yes, we have a lot – but no where near as many as I had thought we would) the other day, and we ended up with a lot of extra tomatoes from the food shares that never got picked up. Our giant pot (five gallon?) is quite full with sauce (granted, there’s a bottle of zinfandel in there as well), and though it will cook down a lot tonight, it will definitely can six or eight quarts of sauce! Yay!

… There are still a lot of carrots in the ground, and beets that we need to take care of. As per my mother’s recommendation, I am going to make all of my Christmas presents for my great-aunt (the one who kept giving me the carrot seeds) this year out of carrots: frozen carrot bread, carrot soap, frozen and/or canned carrots… I’m sure she will enjoy the themed gift!

Like this post? Share it with your networks!