Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes...

 So far my 9 plants have produced 62 tomatoes and the plants are still loaded with green ones. They don't all ripen at once and a lot of them are still on the windowsill getting their last bit of red. I am picking them a little early this year because there is a caterpillar (or worm of some kind) making holes in the red ones. 
Now we have used several in salads (along with the garden lettuce and cucumbers) and on hamburgers but that still leaves a lot and I wait until I have a decent bunch and cook them up for Phil. We usually buy canned tomatoes because Phil likes them in his spaghetti and mac n' cheese and a few other things. Of course, the fresh ones are just so much better.

So you start by putting them in boiling water for a few minutes and getting the peel off. Peeling tomatoes such a messy job! 

Then I added a little salt and cooked them in the pan until they were nice and juicy but still had some form. Our tomatoes this year are mostly Roma with a few Homestead. The Roma's worked really well and I think we will stick with those from now on. 

That's pretty much all there is to it. Let them cool a bit, put them in containers and pop them in the fridge. 

Yes, just three containers this time but that is 3 cans of tomatoes that I didn't have to buy at the store and those tomatoes sitting on my island didn't go to waste. I imagine by this weekend I will have so many tomatoes that I will have to do it all again. I love putting up things from the garden even if it is just three containers of tomatoes.

Remember make the most of what you have. 

What's Growing?

 So you would think that we wouldn't be able to grow as much here in town as we did out in the country but that hasn't turned out to be the case. We have a nice sized corner lot with yard area on all sides of the house. The raised beds are in the back yard and so far there are just the three. The two big ones that we made out of the railroad beams that were here and then a small metal one. Our backyard, although surrounded by trees gets a LOT more sun than our yard in the country did and it is more of a sandy soil so no red clay to deal with. Things just grow so much better. Last year there was summer squash, tomatoes and peppers and this year there are tons of tomatoes, cucumbers,

a few cabbage, lettuce and hopefully there will be squash (I got is started later because I had a rather major surgery to deal with this year). There are also two metal tub planters that I am keeping herbs in. he oregano has gone to flower but the sage is looking great 

 

and there is some lemon grass and the huge rosemary has taken over one corner of one of the raised beds. Basil came up on its own from where it had seeded last year. 

My metal raised bed started out with just two strawberry plants in it but is quickly growing runner after runner and I expect the bed will be full in no time. Now I just have to figure out how to keep the strawberries from the ants. There is also a little raspberry plant in there that my daughter gave me an I didn't know what to do with so it is in there for now. 

My daughter gave me a pomegranate bush and I myself bought two small blueberry bushes. 

I also just bought another Meyer lemon. I read my post from before about buying one but I have no idea what happened to that one. I do know that I never got any lemons from it that I can remember. Hopefully this one will do better. 

So I think that is most of what is growing food-wise here. I have lots of flowers and houseplants has turned into a little business but I'll leave that for another post. Here are pictures of my tomatoes. I have two windowsills full already. There are just 9 plants out there, mostly Roma but a few Homestead. 

Sauerkraut Day

 I haven't made sauerkraut in a very long time but my little garden produced four cabbages this year and while we LOVE cabbage, my digestion doesn't love it as much so I eat it on Saturday because I don't go back to work until Monday. This week I had a nice big cabbage harvested but we had a lot to do Saturday and we just didn't get around working it into our meal. So today it started its journey into becoming sauerkraut. 
The recipe link is there on the right under No Crock Sauerkraut or you can just click here. Making sauerkraut in a jar is simple and easy. There were no pictures of me making it on that link so I decided to take some this time. 
So here is our cabbage fresh from the garden with the outside leaves stripped off. 

Here it is all cut up. I, for some reason, could not find my grater anywhere so ended up having to use my old Oster meat slicer. Seriously it worked great and I probably would do the same next time. 



This is where the salt is added and the cabbage is allowed to rest for about an hour. Then it is just put in the jars add cold water and put on the lids and leave it for 6-8 weeks before you can it. I got 8 jars from just one cabbage. 

I was going to can some carrots I had as well (leftovers from a barbeque we had) but I am out of jars at the moment. Maybe I'll run to the store. Never can have too many jars.