Our Garden- fall update

It's been a long time since my post about the Garden this spring, I can't beleive how summer flew by! I wanted to share how the garden did this season. We ate well out of the garden most of the summer and right now we have cucumbers and tomatoes coming out our ears. If you'd like some, please drop by and pick yourself a few!

I did not have nearly the time I had hoped to maintain the garden this year, so it is incredibly overgrown, but the produce seems to have faired well.


This organic Roman Candle Tomato plant did extreemely well and produced far more yellow tomatoes than we knew what to do with. We made a huge batch of salsa for Daisy's birthday party, it was yummy! We had green pepper and jalapenos from the garden too!

Here's the salsa recipe, per Kathy's request :), but it's really all to taste, so make it how you like it:

-64 ounces (canned diced) tomatoes or however many you can pick from the garden
-1 green pepper
-1 jalapeno (or more if you like it spicy)
-3 carrots
-1 tbsp salt
-1 tbsp lemon juice
-1/2 bunch of cilantro (we like cilantro!)
- 1/2 of a big white onion

Dice up the tomatoes and place them in a bowl. Then dice the rest of the ingredients in a food processor or blender (hint: do the green stuff together last and separate from the rest so it doesn't turn the whole batch green) and then mix it all together!

I plant lots of Marigolds in the garden every year, they are my favorite flower for some reason. They are supposed to keep the pests away. I don't know if it works, but it makes the garden look real pretty! Having a garden in the yard brings me so much joy. I love looking at it and I love that the kids get to see where food comes from. I have come to feel that gardening is a very spiritual act and brings us so much closer to an understanding of creation and how we are tied directly to it.

I really need to make some pickles this week, before all of the cucumbers go soft. I am going to send some to Rosie's preschool class for a snack next week, but we will still have tons left. For some reason they are the thing that does the best in my garden every year. I made lots of tomato cucumber salad with fresh basil this year. Just mix up some sliced tomato cucumber and fresh basil with a little olive oil and salt and pepper...So goood!

One day when we were especially broke and commited to not spending any money, Rich said, "I wish that we had potatos." I rememered that we did have potatos (it was that weekend you know when it rained and rained and rained) but that they were in the dirt out side, so I went outside to harvest them. Yup in the rain. It was a moment I will never forget.

This is the rest of what I harvested that day in the rain:

If you've never tried them, you should totally try some FRIED GREEN TOMATOES!!! They are kind of an aquired taste I think. The first bite was really weird and I didn't think I liked it. Rich had the same reaction, but after eating a little more we both decided they were pretty good. The next time I made them, we liked them more than the first time.

So here's how you do it:
- Just slice the tomatoes about 1/4 of an inch thick and coat them in corn meal or fish fry mix.
-Shake on a little salt and pepper.
-fry them in oil till they are golden brown.
Enjoy! Yum!

So as the season is drawing to a close I am preparing to work on ammending my soil a bit and then to hunker down for that cold time of year and plan my garden for next year. If you've never done it before, you should think about it. Right now is the time to pick a spot and get your soil ready for spring! Here's a few books that I would recomend: