re: 2019 Garden Thread

Do you blanch your tomatoes before freezing? What about squash?

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Do you blanch your tomatoes before freezing? What about squash?

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I blanch and peel my tomatoes.

Can’t help you with squash.

Everything for dinner tonight except the steaks came from the garden.

Sliced tomatoes with basil
Grilled zucchini
Fried eggplant

I love this time of year.

Yesterday I pulled up tomato plants but still have a few with tomatoes on them. I have wha looks like dollar weeds in the garden. If I spray weed killer and till it over in a few weeks will it be okay for Fall planting?

Today I'll be doing another batch of tomato sauce with a bunch of San Marzanos. Last batch was delicious and I used some to make eggplant parmesan.

Both of my zucchini plants broke in half . I tried to pull one further down in the cage because it was overgrowing it. The other just fell down and snapped. They did great though, and I managed to keep the vine borers away the entire season. Just sowed some okra seeds in their places.

I will pull some of my tomato plants this weekend, but probably half of them are loaded with tomatoes.

I'm planting some Kabocha seeds this weekend. It's a Japanese pumpkin that supposedly sweeter than butternut squash but half the carbs. Perfect timing because I'm ready to pull my butternut squash up. I've picked over a dozen and they'll keep for a while.

If it made seed already sparaying it will kill the existing plant but as soon as you till it will disperse the seed in the soil and come back up. For best weed prevention practices it’s best to cultivate (till, plow, etc) before the weed makes seed. You could spray it, till it, don’t plant anything and let the weeds germinate them till it again before you plant your fall crop. Or, prob the best option which I’m about to start doing is using tarps. When your done with a crop, till the ground, hip your rows then cover them with a tarp for 2-3 weeks before you plant your fall crop, then cover again over winter and you won’t have a mess to deal with come next spring. The tarp is supposed to allow the weed seeds to germinate then they die so when you remove it and plant it should be way less weed seed to germinate are. Google sillage tarps.

I won’t say that I have mastered canning pickles, but let’s just say that I have experimented enough the past two years to have found the right recipe and procedure to make some damn good pickles. I canned 24 quarts this weekend.

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Do you have squash vine borers there?

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Strangely, other than stinkbugs I haven't had any pests this year. Not even a single hornworm and I started pulling tomatoes last week.

Heres the pickle recipe

Pickling cucumbers (haven’t took notes on how many need per quart jar etc)

Brine- (doubled brine with packed cucumbers makes 13 quart jars)
Vinegar 4 cups
Water 8 cups
1/2 cup canning salt

Each quart jar-
One Clove of garlic
One seeded cayenne or jalapeño
One tsp dill seed
1/4 tsp crisp pellets

We sterilize our quart mason jars, bands, and lids in boiling water. I usually wash and cut the cucumbers a couple hours before and soak them in ice water. Put the water, vinegar, and canning salt in a pot and bring to a boil and stir until dissolved then turn to low. Remove mason jars from water and place the ingredients listed above in jar and pack sliced cumbers in, then use a ladle and fill the brine in each jar leaving 1/4 head space in jar, place lid on jar, secure band, then flip upside down and let cool by itself and it should seal.

Tip: I usually take my cucumbers and make two piles before I slice them. The cukes that are larger in diameter and longer I make spears and the ones that are perfect sized, I slice in chips for sandwiches, poboys etc. Works out perfect if you want a spear with some fried fish you pull out a jar of spears, want chips for a sandwich open some chips. Hope y’all enjoy, btw they’re perfectly crispy.