Green Tomato Bread

Green Tomato Bread

There has been plenty of rain and not much to do in the garden, so early this morning I decided to do something with those green tomatoes I had harvested. I decided to make Green Tomato Bread!

I started by cutting up the green tomatoes to go into the food processer (a blender would work too). I cut up four tomatoes.

 The cut up tomatoes were processed to a mush.

The mush was drained of it's liquid. I ended up with 2 cups of the drained mush, which is what you want.

The resulting mush juice went into my compost pile. There has got to be a ton of nutrients in that!

 In a large mixing bowl, I mixed together 2 cups of white sugar, 1 cup of oil (I used Canola) and 3 eggs slightly beaten.

 When that was mixed I added 3 cups flour, 1 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. baking soda, 1/2 tsp. cloves, 3 tsp. cinnamon and 1/2 tsp. nutmeg.

I mixed this in with the egg mixture.

At this point I was thinking I should have used my stand mixer. It is a very thick batter at this point.

Then I added 2 cups of the green tomato mush and 1 teaspoon of vanilla and the batter loosened up a bit and was much easier to stir by hand.

I then stirred in 1 cup of chopped walnuts. This is totally optional. If you don't like nuts, leave them out.
 It was suggested to me that raisins would be good in this bread also. So if you like raisins you could add 1 cup of raisins in addition to or instead of the nuts.

 Divide batter between two bread pans and bake in a 350 degree oven for one hour or until done. Let cool in pans for a bit before you take them out.

Voila! A beautiful loaf of Green Tomato Bread!

It was really very good! Try some.. it's a great way to use up those green tomatoes that may not be in good enough shape for ripening indoors.

Autumn Potager

 The face of the Potager has changed. It's getting cooler and Tropical Storm Nicole knocked over some plants, so it was time to give the garden a fall clean up.

The two large Ugli tomato plants were knocked to the ground by the storm. I picked off the green tomatoes and took the plants out. I'll let the healthiest looking green tomatoes ripen indoors. The other will be chopped up and made into something yummy.

The empty space where the tomato plants dwelled was refreshed with lime, fertilizer and compost and some more asparagus was dug up from the old bed that was destroyed and put in. Now the Asparagus bed is full, as I planned it and should remain undisturbed for the next 20 years or so.
Unfortunately for us, we won't be eating any Asparagus from our garden for a few years. But the fond memory of how wonderful the fresh Asparagus tasted will give us the patience to wait for it.

The turnips and radishes are getting big and the beets and swiss chard are looking good too.
I'm not sure if the carrots will get big before the first frost, but this whole box is liking the cooler nights.

 I love Mums. The Zinnias had done their duty in the garden. They needed to be removed. The mums add a pop of color instantly.
Mums are perennials and would come back in the spring if I were to leave them there, but I am planning on treating these like annuals and tossing them once they die back.

The bell peppers are doing really well with the cooler temperatures. They are producing dozens of flowers which I will remove so all the energy can go into these peppers before the first frost.

 The jalapenos are heavy with peppers. I'm hoping to make more jelly and freeze some for use during the winter.

The basil will continue until the first frost. It will be completely picked before then and made into pesto for the freezer.
The parsley, or what's left of it after the caterpillars, will be available until Thanksgiving, and then should survive as a cutting until Christmas. I've never had luck digging the plant and keeping inside.

And lastly the lettuce is getting bigger daily, as is the volunteer dill. The red leafed Merlot lettuce has all come up, most of the Black Seeded Simpson is up and getting big, but only about a third of the Little Gem Romaine has come up and is growing very slowly. I'll cover the lettuce when a light frost is predicted, but will have to rig up some kind of a cold frame to give them more time to mature.
I can't believe how quickly this gardening season is passing!

"There ought to be gardens for all months in the year,
in which, severally, things of beauty may be then in season."
-  Sir Francis Bacon

Summer's Winding Down

The harvest basket is less full. A lot of basil to be made into Pesto for dinner. Some cucumbers that should be pickled before they go bad in the refrigerator (oops - did I let that happen?), a few tomatoes and wax beans. Summer is winding down.

Now we sit in the garden in the evening and it gets too cool for us well before it gets too dark or too buggy. The eggplant has gone into the compost pile and will soon be joined by some other plants that have stopped producing. The tomatoes are hanging in there, but I have been looking for recipes using green tomatoes to be safe.

But the peppers are going strong and the seedlings are looking good. I have never tried a fall garden, so this is an experiment for me. It's all about timing - did I get everything in on time? Did I calculate the first fall frost correctly?  I am no expert, but I am having so much fun learning!

Moon Flowers!

Moon Flowers!


This afternoon I saw this in the garden and made a note to come back to the garden tonight. It is my first Moon Flower Bud

.
Sure enough at twilight there was my first moon flower bloom! It is supposed to smell heavenly, but I could not smell anything at all. It is about the size and shape of a squash blossom. It also reminds me of a lily. I was so enchanted by it I stayed in the garden until dark.

In the moon light the rest of the garden was shadows, but the Moon Flower was visible. It was being visited by moths quite frequently (there's one in this photo).

The Moon Flower is a relative of the Morning Glory. But while the Morning Glory unfurls at the break of day, when the sun rises the petals of this flower will fall to the ground. It blooms for one night only. I am so glad I was there!

Pepper Pointers

This is a jalapeno on the way to maturity. The woody lines are called "corking" and it means that this pepper will be much hotter than a smooth shiny green pepper. To pepper people, this is a good thing!

This jalapeno is also on the way to maturity. The black color is a blush that precedes red. This pepper will also be hotter than a shiny green one.  I'm trying to patiently wait for my jalapenos to turn red so I can make red jalapeno jelly with them. I've heard that it takes four weeks from the time they turn black or cork to be red. I may not have four weeks before the frost. And then I will need about two dozen peppers at the same time. I'm not sure if that will happen.
Fortunately, these two plants are churning out a lot of peppers because we use them every night in our dinner and occaisionally whip up jalapeno poppers for a snack. Yummy!

I had a few of these beautiful bell peppers earlier this summer. But the constant 90 + degree days were not conducive for bell peppers. The plants went into stress mode and didn't set flowers. No flowers, no peppers.

The smallish peppers that did grow looked like these. They are small due to the heat and drought (in spite of being watered.) The spots on them is another thing altogether. It's neither bugs nor a disease - it's sunscald. Basically the peppers got sunburned! It is only on the side that faced the sun and the rest of the pepper is good to eat. Now I know, if it's another record breaking hot summer to rig up shade cloth to protect the peppers! Or, more realistically, I need to buy my plants at a nursery and get a variety that resists sunscald. I bought these at Lowes because I was in a hurry.
I may even plant them from seed. I'll see how my life is going in March.

Seedlings and Caterpillars

It was chilly in my garden yesterday - in the 40's when I went out to work in it! I hope we don't have an early frost!
The radishes I planted between the carrots are looking good. These are a blend of Black Spanish, Cherry Belle, China Rose, Easrly Scarlet, French Breakfast, Long Scarlet, Minowase, Sparkler, White Hailstone and White Icicle. It's fun to see what you get when you pull one up.

These are purple top turnips.

I pulled out the dill and put in lettuce. Now I have a bunch of dill seedlings growing with the lettuce!

Dill is one of those plants you only have to plant once!

I stuck some mint at the edge of the woods and it looks good. Mint is too invasive to keep in the garden. The deer and rabbits don't eat it, so it will flourish here.

And just when I thought the asparagus I had transplanted was dead, this little sprout appeared.
I hope the frost holds off until he grows a bit bigger.
I'm not sure what the Asparagus bed will look like next year.

Cabbage -- not so good. I need to find a way to keep the bugs out of these. They are starting to form heads, but the heads are full of bug scat and holes. Yuk! Not just the green caterpillars but also these brown guys. They are ruining my crop! I spend most of my time picking them off lately. And all the gardening books said cabbage was an easy crop to grow!

The parsley has caterpillars too, but these will turn into Black Swallowtail Butterflies. They are different from the Spicebush Swallowtail caterpillars the parsley had before (which got eaten by birds!)
There are three of them. Maybe I should put a netting over them to help protect them.
Why don't the birds eat the cabbage moth caterpillars?

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Ah, the harvest is in full swing and we are eating well from the garden these days!

This one Ugli tomato cut up measured 3 cups. I am definitely saving some seeds from this plant. These tomatoes are delicious!

Hunky Hubby added a few more tomatoes, some peppers, some jalapenos, onions, cilantro, parsley, lime juice and salt and pepper for some wonderful homemade salsa.  He loves cutting up vegetables - and we all love the results!

 This was wrapped in a whole grain soft tortilla with guacamole, leftover london broil and cheese for a yummy dinner. (On paper plates! No dishes - it's a holiday weekend!)

The holiday weekend gave me a chance to catch up on some gardening chores, like planting more fall crops.
I put in carrots (Danvers Half Longs and Red Cored Chantenay) with Radishes (gourmet blend) planted in between. The radishes will be picked before the carrots need the room, hopefully.
I also planted lettuce - little gem, Merlot, and black seeded simpson.
These are all new seeds. I am a bit disappointed with the old seeds I planted earlier. Only a few of them have sprouted. I am throwing out my old seeds and starting next year with all new seeds.

My cat Smokey patrolled the fence top while I planted.

Patrolling lower down was this cute little toad. The wood he's sitting on is only 1-1/2 inches thick! Toads eat bad bugs, so I hope he stays and invites all his friends!
I haven't gotten any photos of them, but we are being visited daily by Goldfinches. They are feasting on the sunflower seeds and the zinnia seeds and eating something (bugs I hope) in the Ugli tomato plants (or maybe they just think they are trees - the plants are huge!!). The break from the hot weather and the animal visitors have made the garden a fun place to be in this weekend!