Harvesting

Recently I have been enjoying the produce from my very own garden. First it was sweet potatoes. I planted some sweet potatoes plugs and forgot about them. When I finally remembered that I planted sweet potatoes and went digging, had a lovely harvest and delightful mashed sweet potatoes side for dinner. Wonderful thing about sweet potatoes, they will grow just fine neglected. I plan to save some plugs for my parents so they can let them grow wild on the back section of their property. The arugula is now ready for harvest but unfortunately I do not like to taste of arugula, so my friends who do like arugula have hit the arugula jackpot. The radishes are ready as well and was a delight to eat tonight after sauteed in butter with salt and pepper. In about a week, the beets, lettuce, and possibly cabbage will be ready and now I must scavenge my old cookbooks for recipes to try. The tomatoes and peppers have flowers or tiny fruit growing, really look forward to that harvest.

Given this economy you would think there would be more pushing for people to grow their own food like they did in the depression era. Most I hear is a little news bite here and there. I think a tax break for people who grow their own food and free classes and materials to get started would be great. They have this wonderful program called GIFT Gardens that was here in Gainesville. It was a program for low income families to get a free square foot garden stocked with vegetables and a experienced gardener to help supervise and teach the family how to grow and maintain their garden so that people can have healthy meals for free. Not only would the families have this tasty garden that they can reuse over and over again and save money buy not buying vegetables but growing their own and encourage healthy eating. Unfortunately it seems our local government decided not to fund the program this year but instead put all the money toward food banks. So it looks like they will not be able to give any more gardens away. I really think this is bad promoting or something because how can this program NOT help. Food banks provide food true but the families will have to continue going back again and again for the food wheres this gift garden will enable them to get food and then proceed to grow their own again and again. It's like that saying about how you can give a man a fish and he can eat once but teach him how to fish and he will never starve.

Cooking and Foodie Memories

With all the garden bed prep work and seed planting, I have been dreaming of vegetables and tasty meals. Fresh squash from the garden cooked with some butter and served with some saffron rice. Fresh tasty peppers stuffed and served with some homemade tomato sauce. Getting fat just thinking about all the yummy food I can make from my garden. Paula and I have started out good so far with our seeds, lots of sprouts. Only problem is that we have a bit of a cold front here right now so have to wait to plant them into the garden bed. We're thinking of scavenging for some old wire hangers and bending them into a U shape to put over the container we have the sprouts in, and then putting some clear vinyl over it to make a taller greenhouse to give them a little more room to grow.

With all the vegetables we have been plotting to grow I have been thinking of food preservation and canning to make the most out of our future harvest. I have fond memories of different canned foods received from gardening friends. Peach jams, kosher dill pickles, and dee-lishious tomato sauces. After some research, I have decided to try both the water bath and pressure canning recipes and compare. I have the equipment just not the experience, so I have been asking a lot of questions and reading on the subject. Thankfully, Paula has some experience so this will not be a total shot in the dark attempt on my part. Another bonus to growing my own vegetables is the savings on my checkbook. The cost of vegetables has gone up insanely, vegetables laced with gold or expensive pharmaceuticals, so growing my own will save me money. And by preserving the harvest it will last longer and be more savings. Super all around.

Last but not least, I have also been researching different canning recipes and fresh vegetable cooking recipes. I have come across I highly recommended kosher dill pickle recipe, http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Dill-Pickles/Detail.aspx , that I really look forward to trying. I am collecting recipes to try with my future harvest. I also have been re-watching a lot of my favorite cooking pod casts and blogs for ideas. I love Cooking with Clara and have her book and video on my wish list. If you don't know about this awesome granny then check out her website, http://depressioncooking.blogspot.com/ . I found her while looking for some depression era recipes way back when she first got on YouTube and feel in love. While cooking she talks about her memories of the recipe and things that were happening in her life when she learned it. If you like history and cooking, then you will love Clara. Also have been browsing the blogs for recipes too as I hear they are ripe for the picking when it comes to tasty recipes.

Help out the newbie! If you have any canning recipes you would recommend or just recipes involving fresh veggies that you would like to share then don't be a stranger, share! Who knows maybe someone will post something you would like to try. :)