Freeze summer extras for fresh year round

Sunday, September 22, 2019

Freezing is a super easy way to preserve summer freshness for all winter.  There are just a couple of tips to keep your frozen veggies fresh tasting for their entire winter stay in the freezer.

For some veggies, like beets, carrots, greens, eggplant, broccoli, and cabbage, you have to stop the enzyme action that will continue even when frozen.  It is an easy thing to do; you just “blanch” them in boiling water, quickly dunk in very cold or ice water, drain, pat dry and then freeze.  If you want to use just a little out of your freezer bag at a time, you can add the step of laying out on a cookie sheet and quick freeze before putting in the freezer bag.

Be sure to label your freezer bag with the veggie and date frozen.  Veggies typically keep their flavor for 6-8 months in the freezer.

Blanching times at a full boil:

Greens-1 minute

Denser veggies like carrot, eggplant slices, cabbage, broccoli-3 minutes

Process:

-Blanch for the recommended time, no longer.  You don’t want to over cook.  When the color gets very bright, they are done.  

-Quickly transfer to very cold or ice water to stop the cooking process, this keeps the veggies tasting like they were just picked from the garden.  I use tongs to transfer them so I minimize the amount of hot water I bring into the cold water.

-As soon as they are cool, remove excess water.  I use a spaghetti strainer.

-Transfer to labeled (with name and date) freezer bag and pop in the freezer.  I lay them flat so they freeze quicker.

-If you want to pull only a couple of leaves or slices from the freezer bag at a time, lay the cooled veggie onto a cookie sheet and put in the freezer to freeze the individual leaf or slice.  After frozen, place into labeled freezer bag.

I don’t blanch tomatoes, peppers, green beans or peas.  I haven’t found that the flavor is affected by just directly freezing them.  For the green beans, I snap and freeze.  For peppers, I cut in half and freeze Preserving peppers.  For more on preserving tomatoes  Preserving the tomato harvest  and basil Basil basics-harvesting, preserving, growing basil. 

For dehydrating tips:  Dehydrate or sun dry your extra veggies

For drying herbs:  Make your own "Herbes de Provence"

For canning:  Easy, low tox canning of summer's bounty

It is wonderful to have fresh garden taste year round and, luckily, it is easy to do with no special equipment needed!

Seed saving-fun, easy and a cost saver

Sunday, September 15, 2019

Seed saving has been going on for thousands of years.  Seed saving is easy.  Always save the seed from the best vegetable you grew! Or the tastiest you buy at the farmers market or store.  

Pick the fruit or plant that has the characteristics you want to grow next year.  The one that was the biggest or had the best taste or produced the most or produced the longest or gave you harvests the earliest or was the most drought or pest resistant.  

Lettuce flower buds

One caveat, you cannot get true to parent plants from hybrids.  If they grow, they will often be totally different than the parent or could get weaker with each generation.  You need “open pollinated” or heirloom vegetables for the seed to produce a baby like the parent.

What do the terms GMO, natural, heirloom, organic, hybrid really mean?

I save seeds from the best eggplants, peppers and tomatoes I have in the garden each year.  I also let lettuce go to seed in the summer and either save their seed or let them self-seed.  You will get many volunteer lettuce plants.

I have finally found/grown two kinds of sweet peppers that produce well.  I'll keep saving the seed and growing them out.  They are now a mainstay for my garden.

Peppers are for every taste and garden

It doesn't cost a thing to save seeds from store bought veggies or fruits you like and you can end up with some great plants for your garden!  To be sure that the seeds you save will come back true to the parent, heirloom is a sure bet.  One of my favorite paste tomatoes is one I started from seed bought from the store.

For garlic, you save the best, biggest cloves.  You divide up the garlic head into individual cloves and plant them in the fall when it cools off.  Typically, sometime in October or November.  Most store bought garlic has been treated to prevent them from sprouting so you may or may not have luck using the ones from the grocery store.  Your farmers market is a great place to get garlic well suited for your area.

In our garden, seeds can be saved from tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, lettuce, broccoli, cilantro, dill, celery, borage, salad burnet, garlic, okra, Egyptian walking onions (bulblets), basil.  I had many zinnia and basil "volunteers" in the garden this year from seeds dropped by the plant last fall.

Try self-seeding veggies and flowers

Lettuce flower seeds

For peppers, squash and tomatoes, just scoop out the seeds, lay them on a paper towel on a plate and let them dry completely.  Some suggest for tomato seed to put them in water and let them ferment a bit.  The ones that sink are the ones you want to keep for planting, not the ones that float.  After drying, I put in plastic baggies and keep in the frig to prolong seed life.

Tomatoes 101, everything you need to know to grow ...
Growing zucchini and summer squash
Warm joys of winter squash

Many greens, like chard, parsley, lettuce, broccoli, will shoot a large stalk up then flower.  This is called "bolting."  The easiest thing to do is to let the seeds form, cut the stalk, then put the stalks with seed heads attached into a paper bag.  Let them dry thoroughly, then shake the seeds out.  Some may require that you roll the seed heads between your fingers to free the seed.  

You can actually re-sow seeds from cool season crops like lettuce, cilantro, parsley, chard, chives and get a second fall/winter harvest!  I re-sow seeding about every other week starting the first of September.  In about two weeks, you will have sprouting greens.  When they have grown a bit more, I will separate and transplant into pots and the garden.  I like starting seeds in long narrow pots what are self-watering to be able to move easily to the best growing conditions.  Can also move under the portable greenhouse when it gets cold.

Ideal soil temperatures for starting your seeds
Outdoor seed starting tips

I put my dried seeds in labelled ziplock bags and store them in the crisper, include the seed type, descriptor and date.  A picture of the plant can be helpful to remember the plant the seed belongs to.  Fun gift to give, too.  The seeds last for years this way!

Grow lettuce through fall and winter

Saturday, September 15, 2019

Plant a variety of lettuce types now via seeds for harvests through fall and winter!  Lettuce enjoys cool temperatures and gets even sweeter as the temps dip.

The challenge to starting lettuce from seed this time of year is that it can be so hot.  The seeds will not germinate well in ground temps above 70 degrees F.  

There are a couple of options for summer time seeding.  You can grow in shade, cover with a shade cloth or start your seedlings indoors move outdoors after they have sprouted.

I like to start in flats in the shade, close to the watering can on the east side of the house.  On a covered patio, porch or deck is an ideal place to start seeds.  The seedlings will be up in 7 days if kept well watered.  I let them grow until they have the first set of true leaves and are about 2” tall.  I then transplant them into their permanent home, keeping them well watered for another couple of weeks.

You can just plant a couple of seeds in re-used 6 packs so you can plant it all in the garden, plant several in a pot and then just transplant into the garden or final pot.  My personal favorite is sowing seeds into my self-watering Earthboxes that I cover later in the season with a portable greenhouse to keep the greens going all winter.  How to extend the garden season

If you want to direct seed in your flower bed, dig a shallow trench about a half inch deep, fill with potting soil, seed, pat down, then cover lightly with more potting soil.  Water well with a gentle stream of water so you don’t wash the seed away.  I use a rain head on my watering can.

Plant a few seeds each day for the next couple of weeks to get a succession of plants for on-going harvests.  This time of year, look for types that are the most cold hardy to last the longest into winter.  Look for varieties marketed as: fast-maturing, short and compact, winter-hardy, frost tolerant, overwintering, for every season, year-round, remarkably cold hardy, etc.  

A few varieties to try are Winter density, Rouge d’Hiver, No Name Red Leaf, Arctic King, Continuity, Salad Bowl, Mottistone.

Don't forget to look around your yard and garden for volunteer lettuce plant seedlings.  I let my lettuce plants go to seed in the summer.  There are many seedlings that will come up in the garden and yard.  I just dig them up and put them where I want them to grow for the fall and winter.  If it is still super hot, move them to a pot in a cool area in the garden or on a deck until it cools down.  Transplant them into the garden when it cools off.

There are some nurseries and even big box stores that carry edible transplants for fall planting.

September 2019 Edible Garden Planner

Winter squash from the September garden

Thursday, August 29, 2019

End of summer is a great time to tidy garden beds and harvest herbs.  As the days get shorter, growth slows and before long the sun cannot support all the greenery from summer.  Peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, and cucumbers will keep producing through frost.  Keep the fruits picked to keep them producing.  Beginning of September is time to sow seeds of cool weather lovers for fall and early winter harvests.  

Harvesting Herbs

This is the perfect time to harvest your herbs.  You can cut them back so they remain lush, improving the tidiness of your garden, and providing herbs for the winter ahead.  Cutting them back will help the plants build stronger root systems.  Trimming does encourage new growth as well.  You just don't want to prune too close to frost as new growth makes the plant less hardy.

Harvesting and drying herbs

I dry my herbs to preserve them.  I put loosely in a paper bag in a dry, warm area out of the sun and let dry naturally.  Loose is the key here so they get good air circulation and do not mold.  They should be completely dry in about 3-4 weeks.  I like putting them in clothes closets to dry as they release such great fragrance and the darkness helps keep the flavor in the herb.

Once dried, remove the leaves from woody herbs and store in an airtight container out of direct sunlight.  With a soft herb like chives, you can just crumble into the airtight container.  I use wide mouth canning jars for herb storage or freezer bags kept in a dark location.

For more ideas on herbs, Use herbs for signature desserts and grown up beverages, Quick tip on fresh flavor herb preservation and herbal butters, Homemade salad dressing recipes with garden herbs, and Make your own teas from garden grown herbs

If the winter is not a bad one, most perennial herbs like chives, oregano, sage, savory, and thyme can be harvested year round straight from the garden.

Fall planting guide for cool season crops

In September, plant more greens, carrots, and radishes.  October is the month to plant garlic for next year's harvest. Time to plant garlic! With growing tips......  Buy your garlic early because the most popular varieties sell out early.  I will plant the best cloves from this year's harvest.  I have both regular garlic and elephant garlic to plant.  I like elephant garlic because it produces such huge cloves.

You can pick up transplants like broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, kale, as well as herbs at some nurseries since gardening has become so popular, buy them on line or grow from seed.  Everything that loves spring also thrive in fall into early winter.  Lettuce is a favorite for fall.  Plant a variety daily the first two weeks of September.

Plant lettuce seed now for fall and winter harvest...

Broccoli and cauliflower growing tips

Everything you need to know about growing lettuce

Collards and kale in your garden

Midwest Perennial Vegetable Garden

For more on fall planting, Time to set out transplants for fall, winter, & spring harvests

Caring for your new seeds and transplants

Like in the spring, newly sown seeds need moisture to sprout.  Keep seeds and transplants moist until they get their first real set of leaves and are well established.  Then water as needed.

Many crops you can harvest into December and beyond, depending on how cold fall is.  Some get sweeter with some frost, like carrots, chard, and lettuce.  With cover, you can harvest all the way through winter!

Transplants for winter and overwintering

What’s growing in the late February garden

Homegrown, organic salads in a Midwest winter

You can garden year round in small space

Prepare for hard freeze

A quick reminder, save the seeds from your best performers to plant next year!  You can replant seeds from any heirlooms or open pollinated plants.  Not only does it save you money, but it also gives you the plants that do the best under your garden and zone conditions.  Seed saving-fun, easy and a cost saver

Preserving peppers

Potted pepper plant

Sunday, August 18, 2019

For preserving the pepper harvest, you have some options-drying, freezing, pickling. I have also seen creative pepper jelly and preserve recipes for canning.  They sound really fun.  I may have to try a couple of them this fall.  Canning is much nicer to do when it has cooled off.  Peppers keep producing until a hard frost so there is lots of time left to experiment with preservation options!

Peppers love summer warmth.  Surprisingly, when it gets too hot (in the 90’s) they can start to drop flowers and get sunburned.  So, don’t be surprised when they are not as perky as earlier in the season.  They will come back when the temperatures get out of the stratosphere.  During extreme heat waves, they appreciate some shade.

Sweet pepper plant in the garden

If you have your peppers in pots, you can just roll them into a spot that gives some relief.  If they are in the ground, you can use a shade cloth, or a piece of picket fence or screen on the south or west side of the plant.  Or just wait for nature to take its course.

I have tried peppers in the ground and in pots.  They seem to do the best in a pot.  All the hot peppers I have ever tried are much more prolific than any sweet pepper I had tried.  I kept trying new types of sweet peppers, looking for a type that loves my garden conditions.  I finally found one.  I grew out some plants from the seed of a hybrid sweet yellow banana pepper.  I got yellow, orange and maroon sweet peppers from the seed that do great in my garden.  I now save the seed to re-grow in the garden.  

The small hot pepper that I overwinter is doing well called Chiltepin.  It is the oldest form of capsicum annum species and is very hot.  These tiny hot peppers, I just put on the counter to dry.    When completely dry, I will put in a jar.  I use these peppers in the grilling mix I make. 

Using herbs, flowers and fruit for flavored sugars and salts

I gave a boost to all our garden plants with Espoma Gardentone and Azomite last week end (for a make your own boost I have also used bat guano, feather meal, and kelp meal).  Potted plants should be fertilized a couple of times a month and garden bed veggies, once a month.  

Summer garden tips

Ancho/poblano pepper

Peppers dry easily.  The quickest way is to put in a dehydrator.  Just slice in half and pop in.  If you don’t have a dehydrator, you can use your oven on its lowest setting.  This year, I have just been leaving them on the window sill and they appear to be drying just fine.  You can also put on a screen in the sun or hang in a dry place.  The watchout for drying outside is the level of humidity.  In high moisture, they may spoil versus dry.

Dehydrate or sun dry your extra veggies

I am growing Ancho peppers for chili pepper.  My hubby loves lots of chili pepper in his chili.  I have been harvesting them for about a month now.

The bigger hot peppers I freeze whole to use in salsa throughout the winter and spring.  Quick, homemade salsa  I chop and freeze the pimentos to use in salad.  It is a key ingredient in the salad we love from the Pasta House restaurant.  For the recipe, see  Homemade salad dressing recipes with garden herbs   Typically, any food gets soft when thawed.  The Pimentos I have chopped and frozen retain their firmness even after thawing.

Freezing the extras for winter

I also make hot sauce from the hot peppers.  It is super easy by slicing and placing in apple cider vinegar.  I typically use Cayenne peppers for hot sauce but any hot pepper that you like will do just fine.

Quick tip-make your own hot sauce

If you have a pepper plant that did great this year, there are a couple ways to make sure you have them in your garden next season.  You can save seeds from your favorite peppers for next year's garden.  Just dry the seeds and put them in a freezer bag in the frig.  Be sure to save the seeds from the best fruits.  Seed saving-fun, easy and a cost saver  

Peppers are perennials that you can bring in to the house or garage to overwinter.  It gives them a jump on next season.  This has worked well for my hot peppers and not so well for the sweet peppers I have tried to overwinter in the garage.

For more tips on growing peppers, Peppers are for every taste and garden.

What to plant in the edible August garden

November edible garden

August 17, 2019  

August is a great time to begin planting for fall and winter harvests.  Get the most out of your edible garden by using all the seasons for fresh, homegrown goodness.

Here are the crops you can start in the August edible garden:

August
Beets

Broccoli

Cabbage

Carrots

Fava beans

Kale

Kohlrabi
Lettuce
Mustard

Onions

Peas

Radish

Scallions

Snow peas
Spinach

Turnips

When planting in the hot months, be sure to keep the soil moist until the plants are well established.  

A great and easy way to start your fall garden is to sow the seeds in a pot on a covered deck or patio.  This makes it easy to keep an eye on the seedlings and protects them from the harsh hot summer sun.  After they have a couple of sets of their true leaves, you can transplant into the garden bed.  Harden them off first by moving the pot to full sun before transplanting.  After transplanting into the garden, keep them watered regularly.

For more summer seed starting tips Outdoor seed starting tips

What's happening in the early August edible garden

Garden in the morning

Sunday, August 4, 2019

August sees the full swing of the summer, warm season garden harvests.  Late sweet corn (plant corn in succession and different varieties to lengthen the harvest), summer squashes (like zucchini), peppers of all types (sweet to hot, hot), tomatoes, Mediterranean herbs, cucumbers, okra, apples, peaches, pears, grapes, beans, melons, figs, eggplant, honey, artichokes, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, onion, and fennel are all in season in the Midwest.  

This year for warm season veggies, I am growing zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, herbs, greens, sprouting broccoli, Egyptian walking onions, eggplant, cucumbers, goji berry, green beans, and stevia.  I planted my zucchini late and it has not started to produce yet.  For zucchini, it is a good idea to replant at the beginning of August to keep the harvest going.  Many do the same with tomatoes.  I did plant 3 tomatoes later and they all look really healthy.

If you are not growing summer veggies in your own garden, your local farmers market is a great place to pick up these seasonal veggies to either eat or preserve.  The best buy on any fruit or vegetable is when it is in season.  You can get even better deals on any produce that has a few blemishes which have no effect on the flavor.  If you are going to can, freeze or dry them, just be sure to remove any blemishes first.

I pick what to have in our garden based on the harvest per foot of garden space needed.  Our garden is incorporated into the flower garden mulch bed and in pots, so we have to be choiceful on what to grow.

In pots, we have had great luck with  Egyptian walking onions (which can be harvested year round), peppers, eggplant, zucchini, cucumber, greens, fig, columnar apple, passion flower, sweet bay, greens, mint, goji berry, lettuce and celery.

I have tried sweet and hot peppers in pots and the garden.  Overall, they seem to do the best in pots.  I am growing a couple of hot peppers-a pequin type and Ancho.  I’ll use the tiny peppers in my season salt I make and the Ancho for chili powder.  I still have frozen Jalapeños and cayennes from last year that I use to make fresh salsa and for hot sauce.

Quick, homemade salsa

Preserving peppers

My sweet peppers are doing well.  I  have gotten many peppers off my sweet Jalapeño type and several off the sweet pepper plants.  I planted all my peppers very late this year so they are doing well for how long they have been growing.

Peppers are for every taste and garden

My first summer squash died from the vine borer.  Plant after June 1 to miss this insect.  The zucchini Cocozelle was planted later.  It is huge and has many blooms but no fruits yet.

Growing zucchini and summer squash

What to do with all that zucchini?!

I have one tomato in a pot that stays small.  Look for compact varieties if growing in a pot or in limited space in the garden.  Weekly care for plants in the ground is sufficient.  A pot with a water reservoir in the bottom is the best solution for lengthening the time between waterings when growing in pots.

Choosing which tomatoes to grow

I grow all of our herbs in the ground except sweet bay.  Sweet bay is a tender perennial and will not survive winters outside so I keep it in a pot to bring in each fall.    I had one last year that was supposed to be hardy in our zone and it didn’t make it.  I put my new ones in pots and will overwinter them in our unheated garage this winter.  Fall is a good time to plant perennial herbs.

Midwest Perennial Vegetable Garden

Rosemary is also tender.  I have tried the several varieties that are supposed to be able to survive a Midwest winter and have yet to find one that will last past 2 seasons.  I have tried to also keep in a pot and bring in each winter, but have not had good luck with this approach, but many do.  So, this is an herb I will buy each spring if overwintering does not work out, plant in the garden, then preserve for the winter by harvesting late in the season and drying.

Harvest and preserve your herbs

Make your own "Herbes de Provence"

Flowers are doing great right now in the garden.  The zinnias, marigolds, dahlias, Hummingbird vine, and Cock's Comb are putting on a big show.

Red zinnia

A quick reminder, save the seeds from your best performers to plant next year.  You can replant seeds from any heirlooms or open pollinated plants.  Not only does it save you money, but it also gives you the plants that do the best under your garden and zone conditions.

Seed saving-fun, easy and a cost saver