I love this time of year! The exploring the garden to see what can be found...
Managing to find my way through the many overgrown tomato plants. I think they were on steriods this year! I had quite a few of them in tomato cages but they grew about triple the size of the cages and then just collapsed them. So now I have around 40 plants sprawling all over the garden!
Picking and husking corn out in the garden.
The coolest things however is bringing fresh produce in and creating yummy meals for my family. I am so thankful to God for all the abundance He has blessed us with! We have enjoyed salads, corn on the cobb, beans fresh from the garden, mint tea, carrot sticks, many flaverful herbs and so much more.
Something else yummy that we had last week was homemade pizza. Homemade pizza is normal around here but this time I made the crust a little differently. I have my normal crust recipe posted here and normally I use part white flour and part whole wheat flour. Well I happened to be out of white flour so this time I used whole wheat flour and cornmeal and then I added an egg to the dough (and I kneaded in a little extra flour). I was very pleased because even though the crust was all whole grain and even a bit overbaked it was still nice and soft because of the egg. I am quite sold on this new additon!
Another yummy treat that we had lately was cooked, chunky applesauce thanks to Mom and Dad sharing some of their windfall apples! Oh how I love the smell of the apples and cinnamon cooking. It tastes so good too!
Even though I have been hardly shopping at all this month we have been eating some of the yummiest meals ever. God is so good!
How have your gardens been growing?
7 comments:
It all sounds wonderful. I also have a prolific mint patch. How do you make mint tea?
Sounds good! My tomatoes are also the biggest ever this year. Must be all the heat we had. Now it feels like fall. I've actually had a few vine ripen! That seldom happens!
Do your parents do anything to their apple tree? I have an apple tree in my yard but its very wormy. I did not plant it, but since its there, I'd like to make it not wormy...but without using chemicals. I do get a few good ones and pieces that are good, but probably 75% is totally bad.
Angie,
I just put a bunch of mint in a pot of water, bring it to a boil and then let it steep a while. Then I add honey to it. It isn't real strong flavored but we like it.
Nola, I do think it must be the heat (and rain) that have made the tomatos grow like crazy!
That is to bad about your apple tree! I don't think my parents do anything to keep the bugs off of theirs. I try to remember and ask for sure and if I learn anything I will try to let you know somehow.
Okay thanks Abbi. I comment often so if you find out something and remember you could just reply where I leave another comment. I'll see it then. But its okay if you don't remember. I'm just asking around but it seems lots of people don't do anything and have good apples...but not me! :)
Some of my tomatoes are up to my shoulders (I'm 5' 6"). Its crazy! But we've had very little rain. I do water though this year due to the little rain.
Oh I also wanted to add that I remember a while ago I asked you about if you made jam with less sugar. This year I used Pomona's universal pectin and you can use sugar, sucanat, honey, other sugars and also concentrated apple/grape juice. I was happy with it and I made freezer jam. Just thought you might want to know about it. I found out about it on a few other homemaker's blogs. I had to order mine online but some stores apparently carry it.
Nola, I am Abbi's mom....We do live in northern MN and maybe that is why we don't have so many bugs and worms on our apples. We always have a few. Also, in the spring we let our chickens run under the apple trees. They may eat a lot of the bad insects. You might be able to ask around and find out about some organic methods that are used in your area to control insects.
Thanks Bonnie...actually I live further north...but for some reason the bugs are bad. Perhaps its because the apple tree and garden surrounding it were really poorly kept for many years (by the previous owners). The chicken idea sounds great, maybe in the future! :) I'll keep asking around, thanks for responding!
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