garden – Page 2 – A Smith of All Trades

Pasta sauce

August 12, 2014 Jessica Smith

I stockpiled tomatoes so I could make some pasta sauce from garden goodies. I finally had enough, so last night I tried my hand at a new sauce recipe.

Last year, all of my sauce was too watery. The new recipe was exactly the same. Soooo I took matter into my own hands. Instead of disregarding the peel and seeds, I separated the liquid and all the pulp. I then blended pulp in a food processor, seeds, peels and all.

With this new, thicker tomato concoction, I slowly added the tomato juice back on until the sauce reached a good consistency.

We had it for dinner tonight and it was delicious! I guess whatever works for me, huh?

I got about 4 jars out of 8 lbs. of tomatoes, which seems crazy. But considering I couldn’t eat all 8 lbs of tomatoes myself and I didn’t want them to go to waste, it’s a great way to use them even for only 4 jars!

Garden, Life

Tomato Tally

July 21, 2014July 21, 2014 Jessica Smith

My buddy Amy suggested I keep a running tally of how many tomatoes I get from my garden this year. Being the garden-lover I am, how could I pass up such a fun idea?

Yesterday’s haul at 8:30 p.m. proved very fruitful, no garden pun intended. And I know we missed a bunch of pickins because it was getting dark. As of last night, the tomato tally is up to 33. Not bad! I am hoping to get enough to make a batch of salsa this upcoming weekend… that means that I need to stop giving them away and eating them, which is the hard part. I still have a few onions left from my garden and my jalapeño peppers are growing like weeds. If I have enough tomatoes, I should be able to make salsa almost purely from my garden 🙂

In this picture you’ll see a green zucchini, a yellow squash, an oddly shaped cucumber, a handful of cherry tomatoes, three purple heirloom tomatoes, a few Roma tomatoes, a few early girl tomatoes and one yellow heirloom tomato. That are so pretty. There are also two banana peppers, which I do not remember planting. I wonder if labels got mixed up at Home Depot or something…. I planted tabasco peppers (those aren’t growing, darn), red bell peppers, green bell peppers, cayenne peppers and jalapeño peppers. Somehow the bananas snuck in there. They won’t go to waste.

Speaking of nature (good transition, yes?), Brian and I hiked the Billy Goat trail between the C&O Canal and Potomac River.

It was the best hike we’ve ever been on and I can’t recommend it enough. If you are anywhere near Great Falls National Park, you have to hike this trail.

Other than hiking, I spent the weekend winning a round of mini golf….

(Go me! I never win at mini golf!)

… hanging out with our neighbors…. (yes, our dogs are strange)

… and visiting with my cousins. Oh, and I helped paint my friend’s basement. Quite the tiring and eventful weekend.

Hope you all had great weekends!

Garden

Gardengardengardengarden gardennnnnn

July 7, 2014July 7, 2014 Jessica Smith

Imagine me singing the title of this blog post.

I got back from New York on Friday — four days away from my garden! … and my husband and my dog. But who cares about them (just kidding!). They don’t change much in four days, but a garden sure does. I came back to lettuce that was almost past its prime, cukes ready to be picked, my first two ripe tomatoes, squash, onions and a few cherry tomatoes! Oh, and a whole cup of blueberries! A WHOLE CUP!

My raspberry plants are growing by the minute and my strawberries are giving us a few berries each day still.

I’m so pleased! I spent yesterday clearing out all of he lettuce and onions, so now I need to figure out if I can plant something else in their spot or if it is too late. I think it might be too late.

I also need to figure out if my blueberries need to be moved around a bit. I have one bush that doesn’t doesn’t seem to be doing so well. I might move it into a sunnier spot, but that means I’ll need to transplant two raspberry bushes, too. It might be worth it if it will get those blueberries more sun.