Any gardeners out there...Just learning

[chellej]

So last year DH put in a raised bed for me and I did great with tomatoes and herbs. Everything else got run over by the Zucchini.

So this year, he built more raised beds and I planted herbs, corn, green beans, broccoli, kale, lettuce, carrots, 4 or 5 types of peppers, radishes, beets, and cucumbers.

So the kale did fantastic..DH won't eat it. Today I picked it all, blanched it, cut it off the stem and froze it. Figure I can throw it in soups.

Skipped the zucchini this year. I have to figure out what to do with all the peppers. I grew some salsa peppers, the problem is the peppers are ready and the tomatoes are not.

Last year I made tomato jam and freezer salsa. The green chilis I will roast and peel and freeze. The jalapenos and other peppers I am not sure what to do with.

I have never tried traditional canning but DH retired in July and said he would like to try it.

So what does everyone grow and what do you do with the stuff you can't use as it ripens.

 

[Ralph Sir Edward]

Be very careful about canning hot peppers. They will HURT you! Heavy gloves and goggles, maybe a resprirator. . .

 

[marmite]

Hi, I am in your climate zone! I am growing tomatoes, fresh for salsa and what I can't use ends up being part of a bolognese (which freezes fantastically). Rhubarb ends up frozen for pies. Blackberries (which really grow themselves) end up frozen for crumbles or pies. My apple trees are still small so I'm not having a problem finishing them off. I have tried growing the usual suspects (carrots, peas, radishes) but it seems that the things that grow well I really don't enjoy eating (zucchini, kale, chard etc.) Now, I definitely don't eat them but flowers are fantastic to grow. Even when they aren't perfect they still look amazing and people are always happy to receive them. No canning required. It's not that canning is hard, but it is time-consuming and takes over your whole kitchen while you're doing it, so I have to love what the end result is for it to be worth it. So pretty much I can jam and that's it! Canned tomatoes are so inexpensive I don't even bother doing my own.

I'm not growing them this year, but fingerling potatoes are so easy to grow and delicious. They keep long enough but everyone loves them so they get eaten quite quickly.

Love having an acreage, but have a love-hate relationship with caring for it -- the weeds often do better than what I'm growing.

 

[moonstone]

We used to have a big garden at our first house. We had 2 varieties of tomatoes, beans, cabbage, peppers, broccoli and a bunch of raspberries. I froze a lot of our haul. Peppers would get cut in 4 or 8 and the stem/seeds removed. They were packed in small batches in freezer bags for use in any dish that will be cooked. They wont be appetizing thawed and put into anything that isn't cooked. Our DS grows jalapenos, Scotch Bonnet and other hot peppers and also freezes them. He washes them, removes the stem and cuts them up. They are placed on a baking tray in the freezer. After they're frozen he bags them up. This way they don't stick together and he can pull out what he needs for cooking. Tomatoes from our garden were also frozen for use later in making spaghetti sauce or other dishes. I didn't even skin them, but pulled the skin out after they were thawed and cooked. Many of our vegetables were ready at once so I often gave some away to friends and family when I didn't have time to blanch and freeze them. The berries were washed, patted dry and frozen on a baking sheet. After they were frozen I bagged them up in 2 cup batches for baking and jam when the weather turned cooler.

We gave up trying to have a garden when we moved to the country as the animals always beat us to our vegetables. DH even sunk a 4 foot fine mesh wire fence a foot into the ground around the garden but that didn't stop them. The extent of my vegetable gardening now is a cherry tomato plant in a big pot on my deck!


~Diane

 

[Ralph Sir Edward]

My father was a frustrated farmer, and had a BIG garden. We canned lots of stuff. Homemade pickles were a favorite, summer squash, tomatoes. green beans, purple hull peas, okra, onions, sometimes lettuce as a winter crop, Pecan Trees, Peach trees and Plum trees, and a few apple tree (for me).

This was in San Antonio, Texas. You can two crop a garden in San Antonio, and my father did. (I wasn't amused later in life. Get home from work at a bank, and had to help cover tomatoes (which i don't like), wearing a three piece suit, in the dusk, at 40 F (and dropping) and a strong wind. . . )

Texas is totally unlike the Pacific Northwest. We have the same cold zone (Zone 8) but not the same heat zone. S.A. get to 95 F by May 1 and stays there (and get hotter) until October 1st. There are lots of plants you can't even try to grow here. . . .

 

[chellej]

My father was a frustrated farmer, and had a BIG garden. We canned lots of stuff. Homemade pickles were a favorite, summer squash, tomatoes. green beans, purple hull peas, okra, onions, sometimes lettuce as a winter crop, Pecan Trees, Peach trees and Plum trees, and a few apple tree (for me).

This was in San Antonio, Texas. You can two crop a garden in San Antonio, and my father did. (I wasn't amused later in life. Get home from work at a bank, and had to help cover tomatoes (which i don't like), wearing a three piece suit, in the dusk, at 40 F (and dropping) and a strong wind. . . )

Texas is totally unlike the Pacific Northwest. We have the same cold zone (Zone 8) but not the same heat zone. S.A. get to 95 F by May 1 and stays there (and get hotter) until October 1st. There are lots of plants you can't even try to grow here. . . .

I lived in Houston for 22 years and after the first few, I got tired of feeding the bugs and quit. So far doing much better here

 

[Ralph Sir Edward]

I didn't say Texas was better - just hotter . ..

 

[vacationhopeful]

My father had a BIG backyard garden ... almost 3 acres. He also had 5 children. And we EACH had a hoe with our name on it and my Dad brought a RED Farmall tractor (not as big as a John Deer, but it was a miniture big tractor).

I found leaving home each summer a GOOD idea to avoid most of the garden work AND the freezing of the 2 varities of garden produce (zucinni or stewed tomatoes).

My mother found a job which required her to work every Saturdays. I worked 2 summers at a residental camp for 8+ weeks during high school. And brought my own house 10 months after college.

My other siblings all moved away.. first to attended college and then for jobs after graduating college .... as far a 3000 miles. None of us have gardens.

My brother took the tractor after he passed away .. .to Nebraska. He is a lawyer.

 

[Patri]

You are ambitious, that's all I can say. I only plant tomatoes and am having an abundant crop. I canned ketchup, and have to figure out what to do with the rest coming in. It's a wonderful problem.

 

[DaveNV]

This book may provide you some excellent help. Works awesome. https://www.amazon.com/Square-Foot-...ocphy=9031303&hvtargid=pla-746044223672&psc=1

Dave

 

[magmue]

A lot of folks like dilly beans - good & safe way to preserve green beans. High acid foods; eg, pickled or tomatoes can be safely canned in a hot water bath. Low acid foods, like regular green beans, or corn, have to be pressure canned to make sure you've eliminated botulism spores.

It would be worth checking with your local county extension service - they frequently offer Master Preserver and/or Master Gardener programs. Classes are usually free, and graduates donate time to help disseminate knowledge.

If you end up with extra tomatoes, and aren't up for canning, try oven roasting at very low temperatures with a sprinkle of Italian herbs and a drizzle of EVOO. Over hours, they dehydrate to the point where you can put a lot of them in a freezer bag and use similarly to sun dried tomatoes.

And I like to freeze basil after pulverizing it with garlic and EVOO flattened in a small ziplock baggie. It's an easy format for breaking off a chuck to add flavor to a recipe, or a big chunk to combine with more EVOO and parmesan for pesto.

 

[AnnaS]

My dad was a big gardner with a very limited dirt/yard.

Hubby caught the bug. He now plants on our limited yard and pots, tomatoes, eggplants, skinny/long string beans, Italian cucuzza, (I think it's Italian ), cucumber, parsley and lot's and lot's of basil. Besides using the fresh basil for sauce, salads, various meals, we make pesto. We freeze some.

We give out some cucuzzas since my siblings ask for one. If we have an extra one or two left, we might freeze in a ziplock (blanch first and cut into pieces) for future use once or twice when we crave it in the winter. We don't have enough tomato plants to make any extra sauce.

We also have two fig trees. Hubby has been tempted to buy a persimmon tree. We really don't have much space for it.