SQWIBS Urban Gardening Adventure 2018

[SQWIB]

That is interesting that your baking tomatoes in the oven, with a few peppers. Is there a reason for baking rather than cooking in a large pot? Does that add a special flavor to the tomato sauce? It looks like your putting, basil, onion, parley in your sauce?

I still have not gotten the hang of cooking with real home grown garden herbs vs dry herbs.

Freezing the tomatoes then tossing them in the oven separates most of the water. these really weren't roasted this time around.

When I roast fresh tomatoes I roast until they cook down 4-5 hours and it does give it a much richer flavor, this time I used the stove top after a few hours in the oven, not as rich but still good but I prefer the fresh roasted. Maybe next year.

Yes fresh herbs and dried, some onion fresh and minced, fresh minced garlic, olive oil, oregano was the dried stuff, Worcestershire and soy sauce then whipped out the immersion blender and that took care of most of the seeds and skins.

I always try to toss in a few green and red peppers also so I don't have to add too much sugar if the acidity needs to be cut, a little black pepper helps also. This batch had a few pinches of red pepper flakes and a couple Red Poblanos and the sauce has no heat. Ill double that next time. I don't want it hot but a tiny bit spicy.

Next canning session will be a chunkier roasted sauce by roasting most of the tomatoes then blending with immersion blender then roasting the rest of the tomatoes with peppers and onions and process lightly for a chunkier sauce by mixing both together.

Last Year (richer sauce)






here's a batch that was very rich with no peppers




I just finished up my 2017 sauces.

[applestar]

Looking good! Your energy and enthusiasm are inspiring!

[SQWIB]

Looking good! Your energy and enthusiasm are inspiring!

I wish.

You are the one that is actual the inspiring one.

[SQWIB]

November 2nd

For folks that followed this thread from the beginning know my frustration with my 3 year old asparagus, well this season I put in 10 new crowns along with 2 from the original surviving 10 crowns, well that was also a bust only a few sprouted. I think I am the only person on the planet that cant grow asparagus and zucchini.

Anyhow, mother nature is doing a better job than me, found these 50' away up on the hill.


Looks good


Lets have a look at the crown, looks good.





Tossed the little guys in my asparagus bed. I got three crown from this, hopefully they will take. It's actually a bit funny, last season I saw these sprouting all over the place and didn't give them much thought. These are Jersey Knights and supposed to be all male plants, not sure how they grew up on the hill.



Great, these guys again, I think they know I planted some apple trees and have two peach trees on order. This is the only guy I saw and by the looks of him, he's not going to last very long.

[SQWIB]

November 5th

I got a lot done this weekend and my back is feeling it.
Got 80% of the wood stacked in the back yard over the weekend. If it wasn't for my Son and Daughter I would never get this done.
First piece I picked up there was a decent size Garter Snake. First I had to clean out and level an area for the wood.

Ants, I'm really getting tired of these things!


1/2 cord dropped off.









Cut back the Tabasco and re-potted to bring inside for overwintering.

Built a pressurized clean out for the overflow on the rain barrel.


Found a new home for my irrigation equipment.


Installed another 4x4 post for some cable and ran another length of the vintage cafe lights.













I finished winter prepping a few more beds, I wanted to wait for a winter kill of the cover crops but the yard is looking pretty messy and I need to get it cleaned up, that and the weather was so nice especially Sunday. The yard is so small that a few buckets and pallets and it looks trashed! Topped the beds with cardboard then compost.


When the beds settle a bit they'll be topped with double ground mulch and get a good watering with some rain water and urea. During the winter, leaves, rabbit manure/bedding, bio-char and other things will be tossed on top as they become available.


This bed I am doing a bit differently. Rabbit manure and bedding then cardboard, yard trimmings and compost. When this settles a bit I'll top with Ramial? Wood Chips. I plan on planting a peach tree in the right corner and may be trying mushrooms this year. I checked out the wood chips I picked up and they have a lot of small branches with buds on them, there's also a bit of green leaves in with them.









Started another batch of bio-char.

Re-potted all of the Mums in compost. Funny thing when were looking at Mums, Laura grabs the ones that are all opened up and look beautiful and I grab the ones that are just buds. Re-potted my daughters neglected succulents.




Pulled some Leeks for dinner, one of our fall favorites.

[SQWIB]

November 8th

My Redhaven Peach Dwarf tees from Stark Bros. came in, so I planted both of them and also worked on my "mushroom garden" layered some more compost, rabbit bedding/manure and wood chips, just waiting for the Wine Cap Stropharia rugosa-annulata mushroom spawn from Field and Forest.


Planted one in the Hugelkultur bed (right). This will be the mushroom bed also.


and one in the corner with some blackberries, it's tight but I'll prune to fit.






November 12th

Got a chance to try out my Blow Out fitting. It worked very well, just hooked it up, turned on the compressor and opened the valve slowly until the water in the lain was drained.



Added some Bio-char and compost out front where I plan on putting in an Apricot Tree to add to my "Mini Orchard" Dug out the Tiger lilies to plant my Pear Tree for the "Mini Orchard". I really need to stop buying trees.
There is a black walnut in the neighbors yard that I am a bit worried about, its about 50' away.

Finished prepping my Mushroom bed and planted my King Straphoria spawn. Started with a layer of wood chips on top of the already covered beds, than worked in the spawn, added another layer of wood chips, followed by some double ground compost then cleaned my back yard pond filters on top to add pond sludge as a cap. This area gets a good bit of sun but I'm hoping that when my annual veggies are planted they wil provide some shade. I did add some spawn to shaded areas just in case.



Finally got around to making my horseradish this year, I was really impressed with it, lets just say my nasal passage is clear. Some will be gifted to a friend and some will be used for Horseradish Mustard, the rest will be left as is. I'm not sure I am going to grow this next year, its just too hard to dig up, but then again, if I missed any roots, I will have it growing anyway!






I decided to Knee High my dwarf peach trees, I took off more than half of the tree, ouch! This is a very emotional cut and hopefully I done the right thing.





I had my daughter Sam help me with harvesting the Yacon, I figured she would get a kick out of seeing the tubers as the were pulled from the bed. It was time, we had a decent frost the other night and the plant was done. I was happy with the harvest and Sam was intrigued by the tubers so I asked her to make a Yacon Pie for thanksgiving. The rhizomes are stored in some mulch in the refrigerator to hopefully grow next year. I chopped and dropped the Yacon and topped with a bag of shredded cardboard for its winter nap.







Finished picking my Tabasco peppers for my sauce, It has been resting on some charred oak for 4 years. I'll process this next year into some hot sauce after another batch of Tabascos are added.




Stacked the rest of the firewood, cleaned the yard, burnt some yard scraps, pallets and some hardwood for Bio-char.

Topped the beds with a layer of double ground mulch and added rainwater and urea to 6 of the beds at a ratio of 4-1 except the mushroom bed.



And what was my reward for all of this hard work.? Dessert! This is a banana that I ran through a Magic Bullet Desert Bullet, OK maybe the butterscotch isn't a healthy choice but hey I'm trying!

[Gary350]

Your Tabasco peppers sauce looks GOOD. I wish I could still eat spicy hot food I would make some of that. I LOVE spicy hot food but my stomach does not allow that anymore.

[applestar]

Especially if your garden is visited by rodents or rabbits that can get in those beds, don’t forget the hardwarecloth trunk guard for the new fruit trees. At least you probably don’t have to worry about deer.

One year when we had really heavy late winter snow that drifted to over 30 inches — higher than rabbit fences that protect my garden beds from pesky wild rabbits, winter-worn, hungry rodents came around on the following days, easily traveling on the crusted over snow and “over” the buried fences, and nibbled on fruit tree branches that should have been way above their reach

That was the year “they” also girdled one of my espalier apple trees — the plastic wrap around tree guard had failed due to action of the snow pack freeze/thaw cycle plus the frozen over snow drift provided a perfect pocket cave underneath for them to do their dastardly work. By the time the snow melted, it was too late.

[SQWIB]

Especially if your garden is visited by rodents or rabbits that can get in those beds, don’t forget the hardwarecloth trunk guard for the new fruit trees. At least you probably don’t have to worry about deer.

One year when we had really heavy late winter snow that drifted to over 30 inches — higher than rabbit fences that protect my garden beds from pesky wild rabbits, winter-worn, hungry rodents came around on the following days, easily traveling on the crusted over snow and “over” the buried fences, and nibbled on fruit tree branches that should have been way above their reach

That was the year “they” also girdled one of my espalier apple trees — the plastic wrap around tree guard had failed due to action of the snow pack freeze/thaw cycle plus the frozen over snow drift provided a perfect pocket cave underneath for them to do their dastardly work. By the time the snow melted, it was too late.

Would a cardboard core work?
These are over a 1/4" thick and 6.5" long and I can get an unlimited amount.
Maybe 2 high?

[applestar]

I would be concerned that those would promote fungal growth inside where you won’t be able to see what’s happening. You want airflow.

[SQWIB]

November 18th

Put in my Apricot tree.

Winter prepping my Rosemary. I had a three year old plant here last season that didn't make it, I usually put a fluorescent lamp by the base and cover with a blanket, last winter I did not and the plant died. This year I am going to try just mulching the entire plant with leaves and pine needles. I don't expect it to make it but I am curious to try.





I finally winter prepped this planter, I waited till the last minute because I was still getting tomatoes. The beet was mulched in.










This was the last bed that needed a winter blanket, I used some pine needles and leaves that I liberated from Trap Pond.



Had this packaging material that I used around my Pear Tree.



Although this bed was actually put to sleep for the season it was topped with Rabbit Bedding/manure. I will continue to top a lot of my gardens and "in-situ" compost all winter long.



Finished winterizing my Rain harvesting sysytem.



November 22nd

My daughter Sam made me a Yacon Pie for Thanksgiving.





Found a bag of maters in the freezer so I canned some stewed tomatoes, test recipe for next year.






The next two items are not from the garden but here are a few ways I like to use up my Thanksgiving Turkey.
Turkey Panini club w/fried salami, fried ham and American cheese with a bit of mayo.



And turkey soup, but this year I canned it. For this batch, I reduced the stock to make it like a concentrate so when we go to reheat it we can add three cups of water with a cup of Amish noodles, giving us 2 quarts of soup.



For dinner last night Laura and Samantha made us a Pizza.




Here I am attempting to grow Black seeded Simpson and Paris Island Romaine for my wife, I felt bad for her, she loves romaine but has gotten sick from it twice so she won't ever buy it again, last time she got sick we ended up in the emergency room. I also tossed in some Beets to hopefully get a beet harvest so I can make some pickled red beets, but I'm not holding my breath.

[Gary350]

I love to see what other people cook it gives me good ideas. Most people tend to cook the same things over and over because it is what they know how to cook and they grew up with there family cooked it too. I love to try new things. Sometimes I watch cooking shows on TV but YouTube videos are best I get to pick things that we might like to eat especially foods from other countries. Your turkey soup looks good that gives me ideas. My wife likes to cook more than me but sometimes I need to have my turn in the kitchen.

I wish the garden forum had an Every Day Cooking category. What every other people are cooking for, breakfast, lunch, dinner I would love to see it. I get tired of eating the same stuff for breakfast what do other people eat. It might not be anything special to them but it might be special to someone else. We eat garden vegetables all winter I hope other people do too. If others don't have a large pantry full of garden vegetables they need to buy food at the grocery store it is still interesting to see what other people cook every day.