Saving Summer

As summer wanes, I’ve been getting that feeling of urgency about preserving its tastes for the coming fall and winter.  So I’ve been shelling field peas, snapping pole beans and getting them in the freezer.

And I have a big batch of pears from our trees in the refrigerator doing their overnight thing before I pack them in jars and process them tomorrow.  This will be my third batch of pear preserves in the last month and probably my last as there are just a few pears left on the trees.  On the first batch I did a not-unusual “Suzy trick” and got busy doing something else at the crucial time and they cooked a bit too long.  I was able to save them by adding some hot water and reprocessing them. They looked a bit dark, but Robert ate a half jar of them at one sitting the other day and said they were very good so I must have rescued them in time. 

For the second batch of pear preserves as well as today’s production, I carefully followed the directions in an ancient copy of the “Ball Blue Book:  The Guide to Home Canning and Freezing,” Edition 30 from 1977, and they turned out beautifully.  Of course I’m giving myself some credit for managing to pay attention to what I was doing.  

And here they are.  It is always a satisfying feeling to see these
jars with their fruits of your labor.

As for tomatoes:  I have been making tomato sauce by roasting paste tomatoes, cut and anointed with olive oil and salt and pepper, on the grill. I firmly believe in roasting many vegetables as it really intensifies the flavor.  And in the heat of the summer when I cringe at the thought of turning on the oven in the kitchen, it is painless to roast them on the grill outdoors.  Then I pull the skin off and pop them into a freezer bag to pull out for soups and stews in the winter. 

This is my trusty old food mill.  I suppose I could get a new
electric one, but this is so satisfactory that I don't see the need for
another new-fangled gadget when this one works so well.

But mostly I concentrate on taking the roasted tomatoes and making a rich tomato sauce from them.  I do this by putting them in my old hand cranked food mill and in no time flat I have a lovely sauce to put in the freezer. I used to add flavorings such as basil and garlic, but decided that if I left the sauce plain, I could use it for anything and add the appropriate flavoring then.  Of course, a lot of it goes into the production of homemade pizza so I might as well add basil and garlic, but one never knows . . .

And speaking of basil:  My next project is to pick and wash huge quantities of the fragrant leaves and with the help of the food processor (okay, I admit that this is a gadget that is worthwhile for many a kitchen task), grind them into a simple pesto (again with not much added except for a little bit of olive oil) and freeze the puree in ice cube trays.  When they are frozen solid, I pop the cubes out and put them into freezer bags and quickly back into the freezer.  These are so handy to have during the winter and I can add a cube or two to whatever it is I am preparing that requires basil. 

Hopefully, these tastes of summer will last us through the winter. 

Suzy

Hummingbirds and Moonflowers

Hummingbirds and moonflowers:  How could it get any better?  Both are pretty special and we’ve had plenty of both in these last weeks of summer.  The record for the number of moonflower blossoms in one night so far is eleven.  The hummingbirds are too numerous to count.  And hard to catch in a photo.

Our moonflower vine is planted at the bottom of our back porch steps, growing up the bell pole there.  Moonflowers are relatives of morning glories, but are night bloomers with large white blossoms.  The white blossoms attract moths at night, which help in pollination.  This is the most successful moonflower vine we’ve had here in Sparta so far.  When I look at the blossoms opening, I hark back to the days when our children were young and we would all go out as the day began to fade and watch the buds start to quiver and shake and slowly open.  It seemed like magic then and still does.  And the big white blossoms are so appropriately named.  

We had been noticing hummingbirds darting around colorful blossoms in the garden earlier in the summer, but when we finally got around to making the half sugar, half water concoction for our hummingbird feeders we realized that what we have here is more than just a few of the hummers.  They are very territorial and fight over who gets to sup from the feeders.  So it is great fun to be on the back porch and watch the hummers dart around competing for their turn at the feeders. 

We have the best of both worlds, as one of the feeders hangs from the post with the moonflower vine while another one is very close by on the porch banister.  There is just a bit of overlap at the last of day when the hummers are still coming to the feeders and the moonflowers are just opening.  Makes for a perfect evening spectacle.  And great summer memories.

Suzy

This is a moonflower blossom in the process of opening.

A good evening for moonflower blossoms!  There
were eleven blossoms all around the bell pole.

Well, I said hummingbirds were hard for me to capture in a photo,
didn't I?  The dark spot below the feeder is a hummingbird.  Honest!

August Beauties

It’s too soon to call summer over, but there has been a shift in the garden lately.  You can see the end to the vigorous production of new fruit on the tomato vines.  Old spent cucumber vines have been taken down and we are picking now from the latest succession of cucumber vines and the same is true of our delicate French Filet bush beans.

Of course, summer is far from over and we will still enjoy many of the summer favorites for a while to come, especially as we have succession plantings of tomatoes as well as those mentioned above, but our thoughts and actions are already turning to the leafy greens of fall.  The first of the broccoli and kale transplants are in the ground and sowing of leaf lettuce is in the process.

The Currey family celebrated the first birthday of grandson Will last weekend with a small family celebration on the back porch and the celebrant gloriously smeared with self-applied chocolate crumbs and frosting.   Just as it should be. 

The family birthday celebration meant that Uncle Brownlee came and photographed not only the birthday festivities, but also ranged the garden with his new camera.  So here is our ode to August captured in Brownlee’s pictures of the last of summer’s glories.   

The muscadine arbor is a mound of green, but there are ripening muscadines now too.  The old vine was flat on the ground when we first got to Sparta but we cleared the underbrush and raised the vine which we know to be at least fifty years old and raised it to its current trellis.  Now we have a cool shady spot to sit on a hot summer's day.

This Yellow Explosion Day Lily is still blooming in August.

We have plenty of sunflowers this summer.  Somehow they
make me happy just looking at them.

Here is a fresh new row of haricot verts beginning to
bloom and make delightful  green beans.

Fairy Tale Eggplant look as if they are regal jewels.  They will get just a bit
bigger and then they are ready to pick,  cook and eat.  

"Harris" kitty knows a good resting place when he
finds it.  Here he is in the bonsai garden adorning a plant.

Sweet basil.  It is really plentiful in August and now is the time to
make pesto for the freezer to get us through the winter.

This is not exactly a garden picture, but a nice shot of our tomboys on
one of their favorite vantage points for overseeing what is happening in the garden.

So thank you, Brownlee, for sharing your pictures!

Suzy

Whoppers

It’s been tomato time here at Elm Street Gardens since mid-June, but there is nothing to compare to the great big varieties that are responding to the heat of mid summer and showing off in all their glory now.  I don’t think we’ve ever grown ones this big or at least not as many of these wonderful giants as we have this year. 

Some of the size, of this year’s tomatoes, of course, is due to the varieties we have chosen, including Cherokee Purples, Brandywines, Mortgage Lifters and Dr. Wyche’s, all heirloom varieties. But we are also attributing some of their exceptional growth to our rich soil, which only gets better every year with the constant addition of our compost and other natural mulching materials.  There are a number of other factors such as proper nurturing and control, the practice of picking off unwanted suckers, regular use of our drip irrigation system and the warmth of the Georgia sun. One thing is for sure; It certainly is not due to the favorite of a local gardener who attributes the unusual size of his tomatoes to the chemical wonders of “Miracle Gro.” 

Nope, we are steadfast in growing naturally and get these spectacular tomatoes by doing it the old fashioned way with good soil, good care and the help of Mother Nature.  Big does not always equal better, but these large-fruited varieties we are growing have superb flavor too. Biggest problem:  Making sure before you cut into one that you’ve got enough people around to share one of these giant size fruits.  You certainly don’t want a bite to go to waste! 

A colorful selection of Elm Street Garden tomatoes at
the FallLine Farmers Market.

A nice big slice of a Brandwine Tomato on Robert's plate at dinnertime.

Megan shows off one of the giants.

A Mortgage Lifer Tomato is some heavy lifting.