The Garden

As promised a photo of my Blackberry Jelly, I'm not proud eh? 

That's not jelly, it's a luminous crystalline work of art! :) 

Thank you!

Been meaning to ask you all what kind of tomatos are you growing and why?

I did 3 different kinds this year and I am not overly happy with any of them.

I did grape and cherry tomatos which are great for little salad stuff but not great if your wanting to make sauce or salsa or dry them to make sundried toms.

I also did Brandywines ..but the suckers have now just gone completely wild in the one garden bed for them. I have lost the plot keeping up with taking the suckers off and they have huge green tomatos that I am wondering if they will ever turn red.

I want some tomatos that turn red early, taste better than crap store bought ones and can be used for salsa, dried, salad, sauce. Oh and produce like rabbits

Not too tall of an order I hope. I guess your basic vine tomato but I would love to know what you all go for year after year.

I love Amish Paste for tomato sauces. They are great growers and have few seeds compared to other varieties. They take their time growing, but the waiting is worth it. In the south, they probably grow faster.

I also grow Brandywine and Bonny Best. Of the two, I prefer Bonny Best. Great easy grower, nice size to cover a sandwich.

I am blessed to live near a tomato growing queen. She is a wonderful person who shares her knowledge freely. This year we are growing our tomatoes like she does. It will be interesting to see the results. She trains her plants up on a stick then ropes all the sticks together and cuts off the lower stems of the plants. All the tomatoes are kept away from the ground and the energy goes into the tomato instead of the plant.  You can google Vicki's Veggies to see her website. I think she has a list of the tomatoes she grows on the website.

I plant Amish Paste every year. This house smellls so good in August with chili sauce bubbling on the stove.

Hahahahaha, just saw your sig line. Love it!!!!!!

Thanks for the reply Succussed,

I am really wanting a tomato like the kind you get still on the vine in bunches of 4-5 at the store but I want them to taste like garden grown ones ya know?

Those Amish Paste ones look lovely!

CM that looks great and don't you just love the deep colours of Nature?    Whenever I make something like apricot jam or beetroot/red beet chutney I am still in awe of the intensity of the colour.   Mother Nature is such an artist!  I love that SF - crystalline work of art!  It IS art too - I love seeing rows of preserves on shelves! 

I don't think I can help with the tomato types there - we seem to grow mainly different ones here - I like Beefsteak, Money Maker, Early Money, Potentate, Russian Red and a few others - but great post succussed, I'm going right over to see that lady's site!  I love garden sites.

CM when you're ready I have a great tomato relish recipe - everyone I know loves it, including me.  I've been making it for years. 

http://www.vickisveggies.com/Home.html

Okay, here it is, not as pretty as CM's photos!!! hehehe - but some of last year's tomato relish, the red kind.

And if you can make green tomato relish.  I never made it for a long time as I thought it sounded kinda grody even though I know they made it all the time years ago.    Then one day I made some with the recipe below this and it was really, really, really nice!!!

GREEN TOMATO RELISH
Makes 1.25 litres 1.25kg green tomatoes, 2 onions, 1/2C cooking salt, 1C sugar,2C cider vinegar,1/2C sultanas, 1/2 tsp mixed spice, 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, 2 tsp curry powder, pinch cayenne pepper, 2 tsp water, 2 tsp cornflour Slice tomatoes and onions into thin rounds. Combine with salt in large non-metallic bowl. Add enough water to cover. Place small plate on top of vegetables to keep them submerged. Leave overnight. Drain tomato & onion. Rinse well. Place in large pan. Add sugar, vinegar, sultanas, spices. Stir over low heat 5 mins, or until sugar dissolved. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat. Simmer 30 mins, stirring often, or until the vegetables are soft. Add the water to the cornflour, mix well & stir into the mixture. Stir over medium heat until it boils & thickens.

Oh looks yummy Em, what's the difference between relish and sauce?
I tossed all my little grape tomatos in the dehydrator today. I topped them with fresh thyme from my herb garden.  I hope they resemble sun dried tomatos once they finish.

We are going on vacation soon and so I needed to do something easy and quick with them.
I bet I have a zillion waiting for me when I return along with cukes and summer squash. So the more ideas and things I can whip up the better.
Meanwhile I bought these little oranges/tangerines at the store the other day on sale because their skins didn't look very pretty. Well whoptttii doooo. They taste divine!
So I was sat sucking on one and thinking ..Ya know ..it's been years since I had a good marmalade ...
So I went back and bought 2 packs
Once I get on to something I kinda go a little wild! LOL

Orange Ginger Marmalade.

Oops forgot to add I experimented and made some "candied Orange Peels" while I was at it.

I am still awaiting the verdict on those. I put them in my dehydrator to 'dry' them off a bit so I can coat them with more sugar. LOL

I am friggen crazy! Yes Ma'am I am alright! But I will be eating awesome F*cking Jelly on home made indian fry bread when TSHTF!!

I will probably be drinking chocolate mint schnapps too! (that will be my next 'fall' project, 10 different kinds of schnapps! )Chocolate mint plant ..mmm sooo good.

That orange/ginger marmalade looks and sounds good, even to me and I hate marmalade!  My father, on the other hand, LOVES marmalade!   Could you post the recipe some time if you'd be so kind CM as I might make it for him? 

Tomato relish/tomato sauce, well sauce is usually more like a puree sort of, whereas relish is chunkier and thicker, but we just use the relish for sauce anyway.  Down here we don't use the word ketchup.  Ketchup I gather is sauce basically......

I just took a banana cake out of the oven.  I'm waiting for a chocolate cake to finish cooking now, then I will make some other things and fill the cake tins.  It's so darn cold and miserable the best place to be is the kitchen!  God knows you'd freeze to death in the garden.  I rarely ever do any gardening through the Winter.  Once May has gone here (last month of Autumn) it's goodbye garden for 3 whole months.  You can grow some things here through the Winter, but I just don't want to!  I've turned into such a sook in my old age, hahaha. 

I can't wait till Spring though!!!! 

Marmalade was suprisingly EASY to make

The hard part for me, is cooking it till it is setting temp and jells on the plate test.

What I did with mine was I saw it in a youtube video and went well sheet I can do that!

And I did. All I did then was add some powdered ginger (all I had on hand) till it tasted good to me, it ended up being about a teaspoon of powdered/ground ginger.

This is the video I followed.

I ended up using my meat slicer to get the oranges thin. My mandoline did NOT like slicing them and was thinking it had changed professions to a juicer. It got put back in the dark cupboard for being naughty.

It is worth it if you find some amazingly good tasting oranges. You know the ones where you take the first bite and it brings back childhood? Heheh

Good luck, I am sure your father will appreciate it.

Em, it's funny you mention baking breads.

I am going on vacation for 7 days and already have zuchinni over growing my beds and so I am freaking out what to do with it quick cause time is running out for me to catch up and when I return it willbe a huge chore of tomatos, cukes and zuchinni hell!

I decided I am going to take the current ones and grate them all up and then freeze them in 2 cup portions. This way I can then, in the winter when it is cold and all you want to do is bake ..I can then make fresh Zuchinni bread! LOL

I need to take a photo of the sun dried tomatos for you all ..They look like rubies in the jar. Little gems, they turned out beautiful!.

My "sun" dried Tomato's.

Thats 3 fulltrays fitting in that jar! LOL talk about saving space, dehydrating is the way to go if thats your problem.

Em, it's funny you mention baking breads.
I am going on vacation for 7 days and already have zuchinni over growing my beds and so I am freaking out what to do with it quick cause time is running out for me to catch up and when I return it willbe a huge chore of tomatos, cukes and zuchinni hell!
I decided I am going to take the current ones and grate them all up and then freeze them in 2 cup portions. This way I can then, in the winter when it is cold and all you want to do is bake ..I can then make fresh Zuchinni bread! LOL
I need to take a photo of the sun dried tomatos for you all ..They look like rubies in the jar. Little gems, they turned out beautiful!.

-concernedmomma

That's a good idea.  I love zucchinis.    Many of ours have a horrible tendency to end up becoming marrows and believe me it doesn't take long for them to bolt and get that big!   In the old days they used to make a lot of marrow jam....

My "sun" dried Tomato's.
Thats 3 fulltrays fitting in that jar! LOL talk about saving space, dehydrating is the way to go if thats your problem.

[image]

-concernedmomma

Thanks for the video for the orange and ginger marmalade by the way.

Beautiful CM!
I love making those and you are so right about it being spacesaving.
I much prefer dehydrating to canning. Especially for your BOB you can get all kinds of food in there if it's dehydrated.
what kind of dehydrator do you have?
mine is an excaliber.
Oh, and I was reading recently about how to make your own oxygen absorbers.
I'll try and find a link but basically you take a coffee filter, put a wad of steel wool in it and some salt. then fold the filter shut and staple it or I guess you could use tape to close it.
then put it in your jar or whatever and you're good to go.
those tomatoes you dried sure look pretty.

Marrow Jam??? GTFO! LOL

Oh wow that sounds ...gross.

Mine will be 'marrows' by the time I return. I actually quiet like them being super big. I quater them and then slice out the pithy/seeded bit in the middle then I slice them length wise to make Zuchinni Fries.

My kids gobble them down like that

Thanks Pam, ;)

I have an excalibur as well. I have yet to master banana's tho. They always come out nasty and brown.

I think the 'secret' to the toms looking so fab was a sprinkle of salt the recipe called for. Also I dried for 4 hours ..then turned it off for the night ..and resumed drying in the morning for another 4 hours. I honestly think the 'rest' they got helped alot. Needless to say I bet if I tried that again they wouldnt come out that pretty! LOL

Those were my thoughts on marrow jam too!  I don't mind what I call big zucchinis, but when they're actually what I'd call marrows I'm not a big fan. What amazes me is how long marrows will store for - months.  They look and seem like they'd be squishy things which would rot pretty quickly but they don't.  I think that was why they grew so many in my grandarents and great grandparents generations and further back.

pam, I think you're right in lots of ways about the dehydrating - a lot easier to store too and it has to be less expensive.  It seems like in lots of places it costs a small fortune to get set up for canning, whereas with drying your dehydrator is your only real expense right?  plus you can even sun dry, oven dry......there are some great videos on Youtube about dehydrating.  I've really got to do more.