Filed under: gardening
I spent the morning pulling weeds and turning the dirt in my new garden plot. I had tried on Sunday but it was too muddy. Today was still wet but doable. I am going to start planning my fall garden. Has anyone planted rutabaga in Austin? A website says it goes in the ground in August.
The mammoth basil is making the tomatoes I am canning so delicious. I use almost 1/4 cup along with 2 cloves of garlic and 1 tsp of salt per quart. Then I process in a hot water bath for 45 minutes. I don’t know if I can wait for winter to open them..
Filed under: gardening
This summer, with so much rain, the tomatoes died off from diseases caused by all the moisture and humidity, leaving me with rows of skeletons. But on a more cheerful note, they would have died from the Austin heat if it wasn’t so cool from all this rainy weather we are having.
My first spaghetti squash that were planted on June 1 are ready to pick and the butternut squash I planted on July 2 are about 3 inches long and prolific. My Lima beans I planted in May are also ready to pick , if only it would dry out long enough to harvest!
I looked up when to pick the spaghetti squash and this is what I found out. “Spaghetti squash changes from creamy white to bright yellow at maturity. The delicata types, which have green steaks across a white background, are ready when the white changes to beige and a orange blush appears.”
With my overabundance of cucumbers this year I decided to try canning some of them. I looked for the easiest recipe I could find with no sugar(per my hubbie’s request).
- Wash the cucumbers and put them in jars.
- Make a solution of 2 cups vinegar, 2 cups water and 2 Tablespoons salt and bring to a boil.
- Add garlic cloves and dill weed to each jar.
- Fill with boiling solution.
- Process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes for quarts.
It can’t get any easier than that. I will tell you how they taste when they are ready in 2 months. In the mean while we are eating much cucumber salad and much Israeli salad.
Here are the veggies I harvested today from my plot at the community gardens.
Filed under: gardening
Has anyone successfully grown passion fruit in Austin?
Filed under: gardening
Today is July 3, 2007 and I went out to my garden to pick tomatoes and cucumbers even though we got 2 inches of rain last night. After 2 minutes there it started raining hard AGAIN and I had to leave. I think the birds will get more of my ripe tomatoes than me today. They can eat in the rain!
Eat Veggies, save the planet 