Welcome to My Garden:Happenings in the Garden

Last weeks load of tomatoes is going to be made into tomato sauce and stored in the freezer. I am just not getting enough tomatoes at on time to can them. It is so much work that I really want a larger haul of those little beauties before I bust out the steamer/caner again.So far I have only gotten about 6 pints of tomatoes canned and that was in two batches of three pints each and a couple jars of salsa and of course the tomatoes from last week. 

These tomatoes made me 2 quarts of freezer tomato sauce that turned out yummy! I just cooked down the tomatoes all day in the crock pot with about 6 cloves of garlic, a whole yellow onion, a couple handfuls of fresh basil and a few sprigs of fresh rosemary.

Today's harvest includes a couple of jalapeno peppers that I will put into some fresh salsa I am going to be making later. The rosemary will go into the freezer for seasoning dishes throughout the winter months and with all the cucumbers I have gotten and ones from friends I will be making a cucumber salad.

Love harvesting out of the herb garden! Today's haul is a whole bunch of lemon balm and that's not even close to how much I actually have!!! I planted two lemon balm plants in the herb garden and have many baby lemon balm plants in the back yard from before when I just had one plant in a pot and kept moving it around my flower beds!!

The lemon balm is going to be dried for use later in lip balm and tea. Right now I am infusing some of the lemon balm I previously picked in some Extra Virgin Olive oil so I can make some cold sore lip balm. I will post more on the lip balm later! I still have to get the mint picked and prepared to dry. Maybe I will fit that into today's chore list.  

Happy Gardening!!

Welcome to my garden!:Progress

I am amazed how well everything in the garden is doing. I was so worried that I would over/under water and kill it, but I have a green thumb when it comes to houseplants and this isn't that much different! I spent a little bit of time looking up how to care for each plant so I have a good idea of who needs how much water and so forth.
 I haven't yet put any fertilizer in the garden. I have been using an Epsom salt spray on the tomatoes and peppers and the peppers are looking good! There are about 8 on the plants right now and more coming!

 Last night I had to have my boyfriend add some more wire around the tomatoes. They are getting big and have lots of new fruit. All bugs are being controlled with an all natural spray that I made myself and it is very effective. I can't wait until we are harvesting fresh tomatoes.

 The basil plants are doing well they are however, looking a little bare after yesterdays harvest!

 I have also added cucumbers to the garden. I know the timing is not right but they don't get too much sun right there and I can always build them a little shade shelter if its not enough and if they die that's ok too!

 I just recently found a website that tells you when to start seeds according to zip code. This will be very helpful come fall because I want to try some fall crops this year! No reason to stop gardening because summer ends!!

Happy Gardening!