Composting!

 Ever since this was first posted, I've wanted to make one of these compost bins. Last year, when my father-in-law brought us a truck load of treasures, a few trash cans were included. Perfect!

I chose a nice round one with a locking lid that worked and without wheels to make a compost bin. We finally got around to it this weekend. A very easy project with a high-powered drill!

I'm excited to try composting! This is a good list of what all can be composted. Lots more than just egg shells and veggie scraps, although we do have plenty of those! This should really cut down on our trash.

A large recycled cottage cheese container sits by the kitchen sink to collect food scraps and another box is available for compostable non-food items.

As with everything I set my mind to, I'm determined to give this a good try and learn as much as I can about it! My most asked question now is, "Do you think I can compost (name of object) ?

If you compost, I'd love to hear your tips and ideas!

Just When I Think....

...That the garden is done producing for the year...

I find all this!

Garden Bounty

Our gardens are beginning to yield quite the bounty! I picked all of this last night and this morning.

Here's what I'll be doing in the next few days:

--Freezing green beans.

--Baking zucchini bread.

--Making Garlic-Dill Pickles. I've wanted to try my hand at these since trying something similar at the farmer's market a few weeks back. They were delicious!

--Freeze shredded zucchini to use in zucchini bread through the fall and winter. I freeze in 2 cup portions as that is the amount my recipe calls for. Just shred and freeze in a baggie. When ready to use, thaw and pour the contents of the bag, including the liquid because that's part of the zucchini, into the batter. Fresh zucchini bread made with a pureed orange added to the batter makes a delightful Christmas gift!

How are your gardens faring? What fresh foods are you eating now?

Planting Time!

For the past 3 summers, we have planted a big garden with friends at their house. Several households go in together to buy the plants, help with planting and the upkeep of the garden. At harvest time, of course, we all get to share the produce! It works pretty well and we all profit from it.

This summer, like last year, I'm doing a small garden of veggies and herbs at my house to supplement what I get from the big garden. It's nice to have some plants growing right outside my own door!

We all got together last Saturday to plant the big garden. We didn't plant as much variety as other years, since we've figured out what does and doesn't do as well plus what the individual households like! We planted zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, green beans, peas and peppers.

The kids were quite helpful with planting and watering. They have helped every year and it's exciting to see them grow and learn throughout the whole process! After the planting was over, they had lots of fun making mud muffins and turtles as you will be able to see in a few of the pictures.

We also were all treated to some grilled hamburgers and hot dogs! Yum!

Thursday Thirteen: 13 Things I Want to Grow This Year

It's February and I'm ready to start gardening! Here in the South, we can start cool weather seeds and plants such as peas, lettuce, and lettuce early. I need to buy seeds!

Between using pots and containers, my small garden here, and gardening with friends, here's a list of 13 things I'd like to grow this year:

1)basil

2)chives

3)dill

4)peas

5)green onions

6)spinach

7)leaf lettuce(a couple kinds)

8)radishes

9)green and red peppers

10)zucchini

11)tomatoes

12)cucumbers

13)green beans

Do you have the gardening fever yet? What do you want to grow this year?

**This post is part of Thursday Thirteen!

Kitchen Tip Tuesday: When Life Gives You Basil...

...Make pesto!

My two basil plants have really produced this year. I've snipped it liberally into many different dishes. I've made chicken pasta salad with basil-walnut mayo. We've eaten pesto on pasta, pizza and even mixed into eggs. Yum!

I've wanted to try freezing some of my bounty and had heard that pesto freezes well. So one day last week, I whirred up a big batch in my food processor. What looked like a whole lot of basil turned out to be only 3 recipes/bowls of pesto!

I usually just add basil, garlic, parmesan cheese, walnuts and olive oil to taste when I make pesto. This time, I followed the recipe in my Joy of Cooking. I decreased the amount of oil that was called for. It still was pretty oily after it set a couple of days in the fridge since the recipe stated to cover the top with a thin layer of olive oil in addition to the oil in the recipe. Next time, I'll decrease the oil in the recipe even more to account for the oil that's put on top.I put the pesto on pizza and it was very oily into the crust but mixed with pasta, I probably wouldn't have noticed it as much. So all I can say is try it for yourself and see how you like it!

Other than the amount of olive oil, this pesto recipe has a delicious flavor.
Pesto from Joy of Cooking

In a food processor, mix 1 1/2 cups fresh basil leaves, 2 cloves garlic, 1/4 cup pine nuts, walnuts or almonds(I use walnuts).
Puree then add about 3/4 cup of grated Parmesan cheese. When really thick add 3/4 cup olive oil(I used only 1/2 cup and will decrease it further next time), adding slowly and letting the food processor mix it in until a good consistency. Pour a film of olive oil over the top and cover to refrigerate or freeze.

Enjoy!


For more kitchen tips, please visit Tammy's Recipes.

Fresh Tomatoes

Fresh cherry tomatoes from my little flowerbed garden.

"She looks over a field and buys it, then, with money she's put aside, plants a garden." Proverbs 31:16 The Message

Snowballs From My Garden

"He has made everything beautiful in its time." Ecclesiastes 3:11

Everything I Know About Gardening

Everything I know about gardening is about nothing! It is something that I am not very good at. I do want to be better at it so I continue to learn and plant.:-)

This is the second year we have gone in with friends and done a garden at their house. Last year, I helped with all the planning, planting and watching it grow.

This year, I've done nothing in their garden. Nothing, nada, zilch.
Except harvest the produce. I am pretty good at that!

It just turned out that when planting days came around, I wasn't able to be there.


So my gardening expertise is really quite limited. I pretty much subscribe to the "plant it and hope it grows" rule.

When we have our own place, I will do a lot more digging up and planting than what I do where we live now. The gardening that I do now is on a small scale but I'm finding out little by little what grows better where and what I am good at growing! I have a flowerbed full of a few different veggies and herbs this year, all of which are doing well.

I have tried growing herbs from seeds and have not had much success with that. This year, I bought some herb plants and they have grown wonderfully so far with plenty of water. Beans grow well with little help from me so I plant plenty of those. I'm trying peppers and cherry tomatoes again this year and it looks promising. I haven't always had great success with those.

My mom , who is a wonderful gardener, told me to use a root hormone(Take Root or Root Tone) to start plants from clippings. I am experimenting with some ivy that needed to be trimmed off the fence. I also divided 2 house plants into 5 pots and used the Root Tone on those too, since it worked better to just clip off the good parts and replant them. I'll let you know how that goes!

I'm happy with my little successes and hope someday to be much better at gardening than I am now!

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!

A Little Bit Of Gardening

Even though we are helping our friends with their big garden again this year, I still wanted a few things to pick right outside my own door. I've had basil growing for a while now as well as lettuce in pots. Today I planted some pots of dill and chives as well as some cherry tomatoes and beans in the front flowerbed. We'll see how they grow here! I needed to plant in an area that would be pretty much dog-proof and this was it. I also have some yellow peppers to plant yet.

I wanted my own fresh dill to use for more homemade pickles this year!

The little ones also did some gardening of their own!


What have you planted this year? Or depending on where you're from, what do you plan to grow?

Frozen Green Beans

The fruit of yesterday's labors-7 quarts of green beans for the freezer! I will probably will do some more beans later this week; there were so many still hanging on in the garden. I would like to preserve 20-25 quarts in all.

I followed the easy instructions for blanching and freezing in my Ball Blue Book of Canning and Preserving. This is an invaluable resource if you are serious about canning and preserving-it tells you everything you would ever need to know!

If you don't have access to this book or any other canning instruction manual or wealth of knowledge(like a mom, aunt or grandma), here are the instructions for freezing your own green beans.

You can freeze any amount of beans-a little or a lot. Snip ends and break beans into halves or thirds or leave whole if you like it that way. Wash beans in cold water.

Meanwhile, put on a big pot of water to boil. Having a strainer or colander that fits in the pot to hold the beans under water while boiling will really help. I used my large metal strainer.

Prepare either one side of the sink or a large dishpan with ice cold water. Using large ice chunks is a better idea than little ice cubes because they don't melt as fast. (Plan ahead and freeze plastic or stainless steel bowls of water the night before.)Keep extra ice cubes and chunks back as you will need to replenish as the ice melts and water gets warm again.

When your water is at a full boil, immerse a small batch of prepared green beans in the water(keep in the strainer or colander for ease in removing quickly). Time for 3 minutes. When time is up, remove from boiling water immediately and dump beans in ice water. (It is very important that the water is icy, icy cold!)When beans are completely cool, remove to another bowl to continue cooling.(You can put ice in this bowl as well.) Drain beans well and pack into freezer bags or containers.

Repeat process with remaining green beans. As you work, you will get your own rhythm. I keep the beans going and package them all at the same time at the end.

Happy freezing!

Edited to add: I've had questions about how I cook these after freezing. I steam them for about 15 minutes or until soft. Remember they are pretty much still raw so they need to be cooked well. We like them this way. Frozen beans have a different texture than canned. We prefer frozen to canned but not everyone does, including some of our family members! Feel free to add your personal preference for cooking frozen beans.

From The Garden

Any guesses as to what I'll be doing this morning?!?

Fresh Lettuce

I gathered this small amount of fresh lettuce from my container garden yesterday. It was so yummy added to the spinach I had on hand for last night's salad!