One Lonely Gourd
I started bird house gourd plants this spring. I gave one to my mom and I kept one to plant on my trellis on the garage. My mom had a gourd set fairly early on, it’s pretty big now. Mine is still fairly small but it seems to be growing.
I was hoping to get more than 1 gourd since I was wanting to give them out for Christmas. Oh well, I guess I’ll have to try again next year. It was just something I decided to grow to add a little fun to the gardens.
Anything fun growing in your garden?
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A Little Peace of Mind
There’s just something wonderful about waking up in the morning and seeing this on your counter. This is what I saw Wednesday morning when I got up and went into the kitchen.
On Tuesday I canned: 5 quarts of tomato soup, 5 pints of tomato soup, 4 pints of pickles, 3 quarts of sauerkraut, 3 pints of sauerkraut.
What’s on your counter at the moment?
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August Harvest Totals
I almost forgot to do my July harvest totals post. It’s such a great way to realize how your hard work in the garden is paying off.
The tomatoes were by far my biggest crop for the month of August. The weather finally heated up around here and they started to come ripe rather quickly.
So what did everything total last month?
113 lbs of tomatoes have made it into the kitchen, most of them have been made into tomato soup.
11 lbs of elderberries were made into syrup for sweetening tea and drizzling on pancakes.
7 lbs of wild blackberries have been frozen for winter cobblers.
5.4 lbs of celery has been used in my tomato soup.
5.2 lbs of cucumbers have been made into various pickles.
4 lbs of peppers have been roasted and pickled.
3.2 lbs of zucchini have been steamed, sauteed or made into zucchini bread.
2 lbs of crab apples were used to make pectin to thicken my elderberry syrup.
1.5 lbs of green beans have been steamed, drizzled with olive oil and enjoyed.
1 lb of herbs have been chopped and diced and added to recipes or dried for winter use.
That’s 155 pounds total, and I’m sure there were things I didn’t weigh because I forgot. I’m very happy that I’ve already exceeded my tomato total for last year!
What’s your garden harvest total for August and which vegetable/fruit tops the list?
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More Seeds in the Garden
I found this while I was cleaning out one of my garden beds the other day. What kind of seeds do you think they are?
They’re tulip seeds. I saved them and thought I might try to start them to see what happens. I’ve researched and found out that it will take them 3 years to bloom. That’s why it takes patience to garden!
I’m not sure what color they’ll turn out to be, I’m not even sure which tulip they came from. What a fun experiment to try to start tulips from seed.
Any interesting plants you’ve tried to grow from seed before?
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Making Jalapeño Jelly
I’m always game for making new things, particularly when it comes to enjoying fresh produce from the farmer’s market. When I was at the market last weekend I saw some lovely jalapeño peppers, so I snatched them up. While contemplating what to do with them and I came across Baby Loves Jellies post about making jalapeño jelly.
Since I’m a big fan of all things spicy, particularly where spicy hot peppers are involved, I knew this jelly was right up my alley. This recipe is particularly interesting because it is made with all jalapeño peppers and it contains no green peppers. It’s actually more of a jam than a jelly because you don’t strain out the seeds like you do in a lot recipes. Of course the result is a hotter jelly than most recipes.
Since I cannot follow a recipe to a T, I amended it to suit my tastes. I don’t like to use pectin when making jams/jellies, I prefer using tart apples or nothing at all. I find that certain jellies, particularly this one, work well if they’re a little runny. After all, you don’t really want to use huge amounts of this jam on your toast, it is quite spicy!
Jalapeño Jelly
12 jalapeños
2 tart green apples, chopped
2 cups cider vinegar, divided (I prefer organic unfiltered raw apple cider vinegar)
6 cups sugar (I use organic evaporated cane juice which makes the jelly darker)
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
2 green jalapeños, diced finely (for added texture, add to blender with peppers above if you don’t want jalapeño bits in your jelly)
2 red hot peppers, diced finely (for added color, you can use sweet if you’d like, or add additional jalapeños)
Chop up 12 of the jalapeños and add them to blender with one cup vinegar and the 2 chopped apples and liquefy.
Make sure the wear rubber gloves while cutting & handling peppers since the hot pepper oil can burn the skin. Also don’t inhale too deeply when opening blender and when cooking the jelly, can cause coughing. Make sure you wash your hands well after handling peppers to remove all pepper oil.
Combine the pepper & apple purée with the remaining cup of vinegar, lemon juice and sugar in a pan and bring the mixture to a boil over high heat.
Boil for ten minutes, stirring often. If it’s not thick enough boil longer, test for thickness by putting some on a cold plate and letting it rest. Remove from heat and add remaining diced red peppers and jalapeños and stir to incorporate.
Ladle directly into hot, sterilized jars. Leave a quarter inch of headspace. Remove any air bubbles and wipe the rims clean. Add lids and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.
I canned this jelly in small 4 oz jars because I figured a pint or half pint might not be used up quick enough. I ended up with 12- 4 oz jars and 2-8 oz jars.
This jelly is perfectly spicy, of course I love hot spicy foods. It’s perfect on things like cornbread, or a bagel with cream cheese. I even added some to my apple pancakes the other evening and it added the perfect spiciness, of course Mr Chiots thought I was crazy. I think a jar of this mixed with a jar of chutney would make a great BBQ sauce for chicken or salmon.
Are you a hot spicy food lover, or do you prefer to keep things on the tame side?
