Category: Urban Gardening

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Using your Harvest

Sugar Pickles

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Otherwise known as Cucumber Salad!

 

 

 

If you have a big cucumber glut like we do, this is a really tasty recipe to use some up. The flavor screams summer. I have memories of eating this stuff that goes way, way back. My Grandma Harber kept cucumber salad in her fridge all summer, and I remember how refreshing it was on a hot and sweaty day.

 

I enlisted Noah’s help in the peeling. Just a hint; if you decide to give a 4-year-old a vegetable peeler to ‘help’ you with a task, make sure to give him the least appealing cucumber possible. There is a very good chance that said cucumber will end up as a fun science experiment rather than edible food.

 

 

 

It’s all good, though…Noah was amazed when he kept peeling and peeling until he unearthed a stash of seeds. If that’s not hands-on learning, I don’t know what is! Promptly after discovering the seeds, the peeler became a sword and the cucumber a hapless monster needing killed. Ahh. At least the monster slayer had a taste for his kill; Noah began to pick up the peelings and cucumber guts and ate them, joyfully. Since these are home grown, organic cucumbers, I have no qualms about him eating all the peels he wants.

 

 

 

 

When we had finished with the peeling, I used a mandolin (quite possibly the most terrifying tool in the kitchen; adults only, please!) to slice them very thinly. We threw the rest of the ingredients together, and let the ‘pickles’ soak until the next day.

 

 

At lunch the next day, 4 out of 5 kids tried the cucumbers, and liked them enough for seconds and thirds! On a whim, I called them ‘sugar pickles’ for their subtle sweetness, and the name has stuck around here. I could eat the whole batch myself, they are that refreshing and delicious. You could leave the onions out if you want, but honestly, the kids didn’t even notice them.

 

Sugar Pickles AKA Cucumber Salad

 

3 large cucumbers

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup white sugar

1/8 cup water

1/4 cup distilled white vinegar

1/2 teaspoon celery seed (optional)

1/4 cup chopped onion

 

Peel the cucumbers and slice wafer thin. Sprinkle with salt. Let stand 30 minutes, then squeeze cucumbers to release moisture. In a medium size bowl mix sugar, water, vinegar, celery seed, and onion. Add cucumbers to mixture. Mix well. Refrigerate 1 hour.

 

 

Categories
Using your Harvest Vegetarian Recipes

Awesome Recipe for the Last Green Beans

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There’s a big kid in the garden! Even my almost 15-year-old gets involved with the garden, and though he finds it a bit uncool to get excited about anything, I think Patrick secretly likes the fact that we try to grow food. I’ve overheard him telling the neighbor kids “You should see all the stuff we have growing on the side of the house, it’s crazy.” I’ll take that as genuine interest. 😉

 

Neighbor kid watching in the background 🙂

 

He went out and harvested the very last of our green beans last night. The plants look awful, and we know there will be no more this year. We have so many delicious ways to use our green beans (if they make it into the house without being eaten raw). Here is one of our favorites!

 

Greek Potato Salad 

(so yummy! Goes perfectly with Green Chicken, found HERE)

 

1 1/4 pounds red potatoes, cut into 1″ cubes

3/4 pound green beans, trimmed and snapped into 1″ pieces

1/4 medium red onion, thinly sliced

1 rib celery, thinly sliced

3 T. olive oil

1 T. lemon juice

1 T. chopped fresh dill (or 1 t. dried)

1 garlic clove, minced

3/4 t. salt

1/4 t. pepper

 

1. Place the potatoes in a large saucepan with cold water to cover by 2″. Bring to a boil over medium hight heat and cook for 10 to 12 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender but still hold their shape. Drain and transfer to a large bowl.

 

2. Meanwhile, bring a large saucepan of lightly salted water to a boil. Add the green beans, return to a boil and cook for 3 minutes. Drain and rinse under cold water. Transfer to the bowl with the potatoes.

 

3. Add remaining ingredients and toss well. This can be served warm or at room temperature.

 

 

Categories
Urban Gardening

Critter On The Loose

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I’m not sure who the culprit is, but when Simon and I went out tonight to pick tomatoes, I found this.

 

 

There were five tomatoes like this, all near the bottoms of the vines. Otherwise beautiful and perfect, until we turned it over and found half of it eaten. Why do critters only eat half of things??? I remember during our first year of gardening, we were absolutely taunted to insanity by a gang of chipmunks that would take tomatoes from the vines, take a few tiny bites, and then leave the tomato carcasses all over the yard and driveway. I was endlessly frustrated, and may have even yelled out loud one day, “Just eat the whole darn thing!” I don’t know if the chipmunks have returned; the neighbors’ outdoor cats have been so good about patrolling the area and keeping critters away. Perhaps it’s time to meet with the cats and discuss a payraise? Two happy calls of praise instead of one per day?

 

I threw the 5 half eaten tomatoes into the compost, and felt a renewed appreciation for these particular tomato plants, which have produced like mad all summer long. I didn’t feel so terrible about losing a few, when we’ve been harvesting so, so many. I have been so happy with Baker Creek’s Amish Paste tomatoes; I’ll be saving seed this year, and I have some left from my original purchase. Plenty to share if you are interested in having some!

 

Simon and I set to work filling up our bowl, and as you will see in these pics, our tomato plants have become very heavy. Cages leaning, plants sprawled on the ground…I’ve got to take note that next spring we’ll need stronger tomato support. I’ve got plenty of ideas (some of which I’ve posted here on the blog), but cages are just so easy. It’s not until halfway through the summer, when the tomato plants are ginormous, that I always realize why those flimsy cages just don’t cut it.

 

 

 

 

Alien tomato! A worm or caterpillar had eaten right through to create ‘eyes’, and a crease on the tomato looked like a creepy smile. Spooky! I’ll spare you the grisly details of Simon’s decision to kill the alien. Shudder.

 

 

A mess! Cages bent over and the plant on the end is completely on its side. I’m letting them go so I don’t damage anything. I’ve been tying them up all summer long; now they can go crazy until summer’s end.

 

Just hang on a little while longer! There are about 6 big green tomatoes on this plant our neighbor gave us (still a mystery on the type. I’ll post a pic soon).

 

 
Categories
Urban Gardening Using your Harvest

Beefsteaks; Not Just for Slicing!

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This summer, I have mostly focused on our Amish Paste roma tomatoes, but I don’t want anyone to think they are the king of the garden. Though they make great sauce because they contain few seeds and juice–mostly meat–that doesn’t mean you have to disregard your other tomatoes when you are preserving your harvest.

 

Beefsteaks are known for their wonderful flavor and the way their copious juice dribble down your chin as you eat them, slice by slice. But how many beefsteaks can you really eat before they so bad?

 

 

 

I scored 15 pounds of beefsteaks from Uncle Loren (he is always so willing to share!). He also gave me 3 beefsteak tomato plants earlier in the spring that have been producing like crazy. I knew we wouldn’t eat them all. So, we got the food mill out again, much to the delight of Simon, who had missed the opportunity to use it during our other tomato-squishing sessions.

 

Simon figuring out all the pieces of the food mill

 

This is what 15 pounds of tomatoes looks like

 

 

The squishing and cranking never gets old

 

A great job for two brothers!

 

Preserving stuff does take time. After the boys milled the tomatoes, I put the whole bowl of sauce/juice in the fridge to deal with the next day. Nothing wrong with dividing the process up to make it manageable!

 

Even though you will get a lot of juice when milling beefsteaks, the juice will boil down, given enough time, into a luscious sauce. Which is what we did. I decided to finally pay homage to the spaghetti sauce recipe in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle–one of the books that got me started on my whole gardening journey. The recipe can be found HERE: we cut it in half since we were dealing with 15 pounds of tomatoes, not 30. (We also did not add dried lemon peel as the recipe asked for. Oh, and we also cut the basil in half…it seemed like so much!)

 

Love, juicy tomato puree, with a mountain of spices, pre-cooking

 

After hours of slowly cooking down-a delightful spaghetti sauce!

The flavor was great, but maybe a bit spicy. I think one of the reasons it turned out spicier than we expected is because we added all the ingredients prior to cooking the sauce down. Next time, we’ll cook the sauce down a bit to get rid of some of the juice, then add the rest of the ingredients as it finishes cooking to the perfect thickness.We will also experiment with more sauce recipes, but for now we have 3 meals worth of delicious homemade sauce waiting for us in the freezer, and that is such a satisfying feeling!

From Andi’s Garden at Little*Big*Harvest

Categories
Urban Gardening

We WILL Have Peas!

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We have never had very good luck with peas. Sadly, our much-anticipated straw-bale project has failed; the pea plants are dried and shriveled and it’s not looking good at all. The beauty of learning to grow things is that a small failure is just a speed bump. The kids and I can learn a lot more than we expected when we go about our garden projects: trying again after a disappointment is the key to a great life and a great garden!

 

Sad looking pea plants in our straw bale planter

We had half a packet of peas left and decided to give it one more go, hoping for a small fall crop. Our whiskey barrel planter in the back yard seemed like as good a place as any to throw the seeds in and try it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ella and Noah helped sow the seeds, and we’ve been watering them each day. We want some fresh peas, and we won’t give up until we have them!

Categories
Urban Gardening Using your Harvest

Let's Deal with the Tomatoes

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Well, I said I wanted tomatoes this year. I certainly got my wish! They’ve been coming in by the bucket-full. Not too shabby for the tiny little space they are growing in. Pictured above is the harvest from one morning! Here are our overgrown, gangly, but beautiful tomato kids:

 

9 plants here (Amish Paste, heirloom)

 



5 plants here (from left to right behind Rylee–1 early girl hybrid, 2 beefsteak hybrid, 2 mystery plants from neighbor)

 

 

The Amish Paste (purchased from Baker Creek Seeds) have produced beyond our wildest dreams. The variety of shapes that have come from them has been a little surprising…from slim, typical looking Roma tomatoes (what I expected) to huge red balloons that somewhat resemble Romas, to perfectly round, unRoma looking little guys. It’s okay, we will take them all, no matter what shape or size. Roma-type tomatoes are the very best tomatoes for preserving, because they contain much more flesh than they do seeds or juice.

 

 

 

We have had three tomato processing sessions, one per week in the month of August. While I have all the stuff for canning, I just don’t have the guts to set it all up yet. I feel confident that we would be able to, after last fall’s applesauce and this summer’s jam, but for now I just feel more comfortable with freezing. We have plenty of freezer space in the garage right now, so it works out well.

 

Following are the picture stories of our three separate tomato processing sessions! We are getting quite a stash for winter!

 

Note: The food mill you see in our saucing pictures is one of the best contraptions ever. We used it to make applesauce last fall. It is a magical little machine that screens all the seeds and skin off the fruit, leaving you with sauce. The kids LOVE turning the crank and watching the slurpy, squirty demise of the tomatoes! It is one of my favorite preservation tools at the moment, and though it set me back about 40.00, I won’t be without one from now on.


Week one: Sauce

 

 

Squish!! I can’t emphasize enough how enjoyable this food press is for little hands to operate!

 

 

Beautiful, fresh tomato sauce…yum

 

Bennet the Knight, with his conquest

 

Week two: Sauce

 

The always-goofy brother and sister pair, Rylee and Brady!

 

The leftover guts are spilling into our big white bowl. We send the guts through again, sometimes even yet again after that, to get all the juice we possibly can.

 

Maggie joined in, she could not resist

 

We simmered our juicy sauce down for quite some time, until it was reduced by half. We wanted a nice, thick sauce.

 

Can’t forget to feed the leftover seeds and skin to the compost!

 

 

 

Week three: Diced and Whole

 

Since I’ve skinned tomatoes before, I had a plan this time. It’s so much easier if everything is set up in order; your tomatoes, a boiling pot, a compost pot for the skins, a bowl of ice water, cutting board, and large bowl for newly skinned tomatoes. A knife and slotted spoon are essential.

 

Make an X with your knife on the bottom of the tomato.

 

Put into the boiling water. I am way too distracted to time it…but usually a minute or so will do. The skin will start to peel as it boils, usually.

 

Take the tomato from the boiling water, dunk it into ice water…

 

…and the skin will peel right off.

 

Rylee helped make this a very quick, efficient job! I HIGHLY recommend that two people work together on tomato peeling. It is much quicker and less messy if you both have designated jobs.

 

Some of the tomatoes we left whole, and some we diced.

 

Rylee assured me that her mother was ok with her using a knife!

 

Dividing our skinless tomatoes up; whole and diced.

 

Justin came to check out the fun!

 

We used a scale to get about 15 ounces in each freezer container; the size we use most in recipes.

 

 

 

Near the end, Rylee snuck a lot of bites. How awesome is it that she became famished for tomatoes while skinning and chopping them?!

 

 

I like to use scotch tape for a label, with one side folded over so it’s easy to remove later.

 

 

We will be enjoying these all winter! AND, we still are being bombarded by tomatoes, so we will be freezing even more–maybe even filling the whole top section of the freezer!

 
Categories
Urban Gardening

Local Spotlight: Young Urban Homesteaders

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I really admire how young these two food-growers are!  People in my city are becoming more and more interested in learning how to grow produce in their yards, or are seeking out food that has been grown organically within the city. It is so wonderful watching this growth and enthusiasm as it takes off!

Also spotlighted on Andi’s blog — LittleBigHarvest

 

Young Urban Homesteaders create ecosystem in their backyard in the Wells Street Corridor near downtown Fort Wayne

Urban gardeners sell goods at Fort Wayne area markets

By Jaclyn Goldsborough of The News-Sentinel

Friday, August 16, 2013 – 8:18 am

 

For 24-year-old Philippe Carroll and 23-year-old Samantha Arney, growing a large urban garden next to their home on their double lot in the Wells Street Corridor near downtown Fort Wayne is more than just a way to make extra money, it’s a way of life. It’s a way of feeling connected to the Earth and to their community.

Carroll and Arney are the owners of Young Urban Homesteaders and part of a growing trend of the farm-to-fork food movement and the grow-food-not-lawns agricultural movement. Status, titles and trends are not important to this young couple, however.

What is important is building a sustainable ecosystem and selling the best product to Fort Wayne market shoppers.

The Homesteaders offer everything from chard and kale to okra and kahlrabi. They also sell handmade herbal teas with herbs from the garden.

While prices vary for each different market item, the Homesteaders also offer a unique pricing system: prices are a suggested donation.

“We want to make it available to anyone,” Carroll said. “If you are used to paying for more your food at certian places then you are more than welcome to pay more and pay what you are used to. If you are used to paying less you are welcome to pay less to have access to food. But we also need to stay afloat,” he said.

When they first moved to their home in November, they noticed two apple trees and a peach tree. Carroll said they began to build their farm around the existing fruit trees.

In their garden, everything is connected and strategically placed. The sunflowers are planted above the lettuce to maximize space and protect each other from the elements to provide the ideal growing condition. The young two farmers have a wealth of knowledge. From planting to ways to reuse waste, most everything is considered.

The Homesteaders also develop their own black gold fertilizer, creating their own compost and even cultivating their own worms.

Everything that comes out of the soil or the beds goes back into it one way or another.

Arney said while they have only been selling for a few months, so far they are getting a lot of support from the community.

“Just for people to be able to see that we can grow food in a small place and actually get it to people – it’s inspiring to people. It’s a way to do what we love and make a living off of it. It’s also a way to show other people that this is possible. We have neighborhood kids that started coming around and they have taken to it and they love it,” Arney said.

Georgina Balestra, Carroll’s grandmother, grew up on a farm in Cuba. She said she is proud of what he is doing.

She said she was wondering about how much he could really grow in such a small area, but she said she is extremely impressed.

“He has always been interested in nature. I’m learning a lot from him,” she said. “It’s the satisfaction of not only doing something for yourself, but doing something for others.”

Carroll said he is on a mission to live with less impact in a high density environment.

“When it came down to it I was thinking, ‘What do I want to do with my day? What do I want to do with my daily energy?’ There’s something I really enjoy about putting my daily energy – I get my exercise – into growing food which then sustains me and it sustains my community,” Carroll said.

The Young Urban Homesteaders set up a stand at the Fort Wayne Farmers Market from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Wednesdays at One Summit Square. They also appear at the West Main Street Farmers Market from 3 to 8 p.m. on Friday’s at 1938 West Main St. They accept credit and debit card.

Categories
Urban Gardening

Straw Bale Planting

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Not too long ago I mentioned this straw bale that sits next to the garden, and that it was destined for a special purpose. Well, it has met it’s destiny—as a self-contained planter!

 

I only recently learned that you can directly grow plants in straw bales, with just a small layer of soil on top. The straw that begins to decay inside the bale becomes a great environment for the roots of your plants. Some people have whole gardens made of straw bales. If you take a minute and google for images of ‘straw bale gardens’, you’ll be totally amazed . This idea is especially nice if you have access to cheap or free straw.

 

I thought this was the perfect way to put our straw bale to use. I love to use straw as mulch around the garden plants, but a little bit goes a long way when you have small growing space like we do; the rest of the straw bale just sits there, slowly disintegrating. Last year, late in the fall, I ended up stuffing the whole thing in my compost ball, since the compost needed carbon anyway. Early this summer, after mulching, the bale sat again, and though I know it will end up in the compost in the late fall, I thought I’d give it a purpose in the meantime. (Note: the compost ball is becoming way too small for us. Knowing that the straw bale itself will fill that thing, plans are in the works for a new compost site, using cheap–or free–materials. Stay tuned!)

 

We planted peas in mid July. Is that a bit late to plant anything? Maybe. Don’t forget, I’m a newbie who likes to experiment. Perhaps we will get a fall harvest of delicious peas—they do like cooler weather. Using some leftover bagged potting soil, we made a nice little bed, and in went the peas. The kids LOVED doing this. But then, what kid doesn’t get a thrill when you tell them to grab some dirt with their bare hands?!

 

The pictures below tell the story. About a week after the initial seed sowing, we replanted in the areas where nothing came up, and pushed bamboo stakes down into the straw (so easy) for supports. If needed, we can thread some thick string around the stakes and give these peas a happy growing space.

 

 

Once all the peas have been harvested and we head into winter, we can put the spent plants, soil, and straw, all together, in our compost!

 

 

 

Handfuls of dirt-awesome!

 

 

 

 

Even the littlest helper gets into the dirt-piling

 

 

We may have been mashing that dirt down a little too hard!

 

Oh yeah. That’s what I like to see..

 

Muddy, dirty…

 

little hands– working hard!

 

 

 

Carefully placing peas

 

 

 

Water break!

 

 

The straw, newly planted, sitting nicely by the garden!

 

Several days later..we have green!:

 

 

 

 

 

Filling in where no sprouts seem to want to show up

 

 

Keeping the peas misted and happy!

 

Looking GOOD! 
Categories
Urban Gardening

Mulberry Joy

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I was told that mulberry season is over.

 

Apparently our backyard mulberry tree didn’t get the memo.

 

We are still gathering berries every day, though the peak occurred about 2 weeks ago. At that point the kids and I were picking cups full each day, and now it’s about one cup per day. Compared to last year, the harvest is enormous; you can read about last year’s pitiful mulberries HERE.

 

 

 

What do I enjoy most about having this mulberry tree, an accident planted into our landscape, presumably by a bird?

 

 

 

I’d like to say that a lot of the joy comes from nostalgia, since we had a mulberry tree when I was a kid. It was also a happy accident, born from actions completely unintended by either some bird or small animal. The tree grew in a somewhat inconvenient place, pushing its way into our gravel driveway, but dad refused to cut it down and he shaped a gravel extension–quickly named the ‘turn-around’– with the mulberry directly in the middle of it. My entire life that mulberry tree lived, so much a part of the driveway that it became difficult to imagine a tree-less drive leading to our house. I’m pretty sure one or all of us kids bumped it at least once while learning to drive.

 

While I’d like to say nostalgia is strong with that tree, I can’t honestly say I have any specific memories of eating the berries. This year when I proudly told my dad that I’d made mulberry jam, he gave me a look and said “Well, why would you do that? You can’t do anything with those berries to make them taste good. Mulberries are terrible!” Say, what? I quickly scratched him off my mental list of possible people to gift with mulberry jam. My dad always has a way of shocking me a bit with his strange juxtapositions; he was never willing to slay that inconvenient mulberry tree, yet he hated the berries! No wonder I don’t remember much about my childhood mulberries–apparently we didn’t consider them anything special. I’m touched that my dad cared so much for a tree, but surprised that he didn’t appreciate the simple goodness of the fruit.

The mulberry tree in my backyard has swiftly burrowed into my heart, and it’s not due to childhood memories. Though, the joy I feel when mulberry-picking has such a child-like feel to it! I have even climbed the tree to reach the tantalizing black-ripe gems. In my flip-flops. Luckily I gingerly got back down after common sense kicked in (and before any kids spied me and got the idea it was safe to climb trees while wearing flip-flops), and changed into shoes. Along with climbing the tree, we got the ladder out several times to reach some of the challenging branches.

 

 

I get a bit lost while picking mulberries. There’s the easy-going mental challenge of seeking the black blobs among the green leaves and berries of other shades, ranging from white to pink to ‘almost-there’ deep fuschia. The challenge is easy enough to let your mind wander to a million other things, but just tricky enough to keep your eyes sharp. There’s the satisfying pluck of a perfectly ripe berry, which gives almost no resistance to the tug of your fingers, as if just waiting for you. There’s also the miraculous way that, after you’ve canvassed a branch and think you’ve picked every current ripe berry, when you come back around from the other side of the tree to double check, there are one or two more. You are left to wonder; did I miss those berries the first time around, or did they actually ripen within 10 minutes? Though it’s vaguely frustrating to see tons of berries way up in the top branches, inaccessible without doing some tricky ladder work, that’s okay. Leaving some to the birds is gracious…as long as they leave the lower branches alone. Oddly, the birds have not seemed to take notice this year. We have a nest of cardinals actually living in the brush next to the mulberry tree, but someone told me cardinals don’t eat mulberries. I won’t name the someone, because I’m thinking the statement is totally false, but hey, these lovely cardinals haven’t seemed to touch a single berry, so I’m going with it.

What have we done with our generous harvest of mulberries? As I write this, a huge bowl of them sits in the fridge, the pile slowly growing with the daily berry contributions, waiting to make more jam. Our first harvest came inside with us for a cupcake party that was already in progress. We welcomed the berry bonus!

 

 

 

Second harvest went to jam, using store-bought pectin.

 

Third harvest went to THIS JAM, which although more runny and containing whole berries, is surprisingly wonderful on buttered toast, pancakes, biscuits, and even a sandwich if the roll is sturdy enough.

 

 

 

 

Licking the plate clean is a sure sign that the mulberries were delicious

I’m not quite sure what my dad doesn’t like about the taste of mulberries, since they are very mild. I’m thinking if he’d just give a mulberry jam sandwich a chance, he may change his mind. 😉 The simple mulberry flavor is becoming one of the treasured flavors of summer around here!

Originally Posted At Little*Big*Harvest

 

Categories
Garden Tips and Ideas Urban Gardening

Plant-in-a-Bag Garden

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Melon Tigger seeds. They are almost other-worldly!

 

So I’ve had this bag of potting soil sitting around for weeks. And I’ve had this package of adorable looking melons waiting patiently for their chance to come alive. Time kept ticking, and those melons wanted planted. Unfortunately time is also very short around here, and though each night before crashing to sleep I’d briefly try to brainstorm where I could put a container and fill it with the soil for the melons, the fact is, nothing was being done. And yet the soil waited. The seeds could be heard crying softly.

 

Today I took advice from a great little gardening book called Home Sweet Home Grown (I just posted a review of the book this yesterday; scroll down or click on the book reviews link) and I bypassed the container all together. The girls and I got those melon seeds planted (3 of them, to ensure germination, then we’ll cull all but one plant), and it took us literally 5 minutes. Voila. The laziest way to container garden! Crossing our fingers it works, and that by end of summer we’ll have some of these crazy-insane adorable tigger melons!

 

 

 

Bag of potting soil, in lower left hand corner. Doing nothing. Note the straw bale: stay tuned for  its destiny.

Three helpers ready to plant the other-worldly melons.

 

 

Bag after being dragged (with help from said three helpers) to the back yard. Holes being stabbed into the bottom for drainage. 

Bag flipped over, and hole cut from center of top.

 

Seed placed into hole. And now we wait!