Category: Uncategorized

Posted on

Hot!!!

A week of record-breaking temperatures (pushing 100 F) is ripening vegatables at a record pace. Ripe tomatoes in the garden now include Koralik, New Hampshire SureCrop, Alicante, Besser, Slava and First Pick. Here is Alicante.
Hot evenings call for cold soups. Last night I made a fantastic Gazpacho.
——————————————–
Gazpacho – Andalusian cold soup.
Quarter 2 lb of tomatoes (I used Alicante).
Dice one green pepper. I used an Italian frying pepper from the garden.
Dice one small cucumber.
Slice one small onion. (I used a fresh onion from the garden, and included the greens).
Quarter one clove of garlic.
Tear two slices of stale bread into pieces (soak in water if bread is too dry).
Add these incredients to a food processor, along with one half cup of extra virgin olive oil and a dash of salt.
Process a few seconds, stopping when it still has a little bit of a chunky texture.
Refrigerate until well-chilled.

¡Buen provecho!

Posted on

First Pick

The weather is continuing hot (85 degrees) and sunny. Tomatoes continue to flourish. True to its name, the First Pick tomato variety is among the first to ripen. This heirloom variety originated with the Baptiste family of Reims, France. Unlike most other early tomatoes, First Pick plants are large and indeterminate. They produce meaty 1″-2″ fruit.
Posted on

Cherry Baby

Yes, and the birds gave up on the huge crop of pie cherries, too. I pitted and canned 7 quarts of these beauties. I also made a fantastic cherry almond cake.

Here is the recipe at Epicurious. I modified it slightly by using only 1 stick of butter, adding 1/4 cup corn oil, and mixing the cherries into the batter, rather than placing on top of the butter.
Posted on

Kraut

My cabbages are doing magnificently, despite the recent heat. With the help of my friend Scott, I coinverted 15 lbs of cabbage into saurkraut. Here is the recipe.
Cabbage was shredded in a food processor. 5 lb batches of shredded cabbage were sprinked with 3 Tbsp. of salt (non-iodized pickling salt), tossed to distribute the salt, and then allowed to stand 5 minutes until wilted. The cabbage was packed tightly into a large glass container, pressing with the bottom of a wine bottle until the released cabbage juices rose to the top and covered the cabbage. This was covered with a dish plate, and the plate was weighted down with two quart zip-lock plastic bags filled with water. This will sit in the corner of our kitchen for 2 weeks, at which point it should be ready to eat. With refrigeration, the finished product will last a year. Alternatively, the kraut can be canned in a boiling water bath processor.
Posted on

Summer at last.

Well there always is light at the end of the tunnel. The coldest winter and coldest wettest spring in recent memory was followed by the driest sunniest summer in decades. I ended up with so many healthy tomato seedlings that I sold them, on consignment, to the local farm and garden store. The store sold nearly $1000 at retail price, representing a 50% mark-up. After costs (plastic pots, etc) my profit was about $400.
I planted over 40 varieties of mainly heirloom tomatoes. They are listed below. The first plant to ripen fruit was Koralik. Its tiny ( 1/2″) fruit have intense tomato flavor. Following close behind are Sausage and Besser.

Here is my tomato list.
Alicante
Amish Paste
Anna Russian
Ananas Noir
Beam’s Yellow Pear
Besser
Black Krim
Black Prince
Bonnie Best
Brandywine
Buckbee’s New 50 Day
Cherokee Purple
Costoluto Genovese
Cuostralee
Camp Joy
Delicious
Eva Purple Ball
Green Zebra
First Pick
Fred Limbaugh
Gill’s All Purpose
Ilse’s Yellow Latvian
Italian Tree
Kellog’s Breakfast
Koralik
Long Keeper
Manitoba
Manyel
Martino’s Roma
Marglobe
Mule Team
Money Maker
Napoli
Neve’s Azorean Red
New Hampshire Surecrop
Old Brooks
Picardy
Porter
Purple Russian
Red Siberian
Russian Big Roma
Rutgers
Saint Pierre
San Marzano
Sausage
Slava
Stupice
Tiffen Mennonite
Tigerella
Posted on

Sun, finally

Temperature over the last month has been below the seasonal average on 28 out of 31 days. We have had rain (or snow) every day for the last 2 months. We had an inch of snow yesterday morning – the first April snow accumulation I have seen in 22 years here. Today, finally, sunshine and 50 degree temperatures. Time to get the garden cleaned up and a few cabbabes, parsley and onions transplated.

Posted on

The calendar says it’s time to plant carrots?

Looks like a good day to work in the green house. Pots seeded with 50 varieties of heirloom tomatos are presently beginning to sprount in my house. I have transferred the first few into the green house. Small pots seeded with 50 seeds each of broccoli, white cabbage, red cabbage and cauliflower several weeks ago grew to have their first true leaves over the last week. Yesterday I finished transplanting these seedlings into 4″ pots in the green house.