Cucumbers & Basil

I recently attended a Ladies of Virtue meeting for our church. I was asked to bring tea sandwiches. I had never made these types of sandwiches before, but I was super excited because I had just gotten a KitchenAid Stand Mixer and was itching to test it. First, I made some french bread using Pillsbury dough and my Pampered Chef bread tin. While that was baking, I made 2 loaves of homemade white bread using the new mixer. The next day, I whipped up to salad spreads. The first was tuna and the second, a cream cheese base for cucumbers. I topped the tuna tea sandwiches with fresh basil, picked right from our garden. The little cucumbers for the cucumber tea sandwiches also came from my garden.

I thought that these came out looking beautiful! And they didn't taste too bad either (surprising since I am not a big fan of either tuna or cucumbers!).

The cucumbers are starting to really pick up in quantity and most days, I am able to can at least one quart. Right now, I am making only dill pickles, and once my dill seasoning runs out, I will switch to bread and butter. I am really pleased with the results of these Parisian Pickling Cucmbers!

Happy Canning to everyone!

Crazy Summer

This summer has been a bit of a crazy one for us thus far...we have been mostly keeping busy with the garden and the day-to-day chores of laundry, ironing, cooking, and cleaning. We have also been busy preparing to install the fence, which meant a lot of cleaning up along the border of the property line. We also fixed all the windows on the first floor so that we could finally install the screens, allowing some much needed air flow during this hot season!

The garden continues to flourish, despite the heat. The Back to Eden method that we have been using has definitely delivered as promised as we have not had to water our garden all season. Here is a picture collage....

So far, we are done with the broccoli, radishes and first planting of salad greens. Our watermelons are growing beautifully, and we just picked our first zucchini and small batch of pickling cucumbers. We are keeping a close eye on the corn, but it appears to be growing well. Our tomatoes have so many green ones that they are literally falling all over themselves. We are going to have to do something about that, and soon. All in all, we feel truly blessed.

Blueberries arrived at the local Amish store, and so we were in full swing canning, freezing and dehydrating for a few days. I should be updating the food preservation page shortly with what we have preserved as well as what we have eaten fresh! Out of 30 pounds of blueberries, we made 4 fresh pies, 2 gallons frozen, 17 half-pints and 2 pints of jam, plus a dehydrater full. My little helpers were eating them almost as fast as I could process them, so I ended up leaving about 5 pounds fresh to be eaten.

Hope everyone is enjoying their summer, even with the heat!

Back to Eden Garden - Radishes

One of the plants that we decided to put in our garden this year was the Giant Sicily Radish, ordered from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (www.rareseeds.com). Their description advises that this particular type of radish will produce a 2" round, bright red radish. Here is the picture from their site.

The Back to Eden video does advise that following this gardening approach can result in larger than average production. It also mentions that he does not "thin" out his garden. We have been thinning ours, but only on an as-eating approach. Keep in mind, that we did not plant our garden until the first weekend in June...and that these were planted from seed and not starter plants.

Our plants are not as circular as those in the advertisement, but that is probably due to overcrowding. Next year, I will be much more aware of my spacing when putting in those tiny little seeds! And our radishes appear to be more "hot pink" than red. Either way, I think our results are phenomenal! For comparison purposes, we used a nickel to show the size (we couln't find a quarter, which probably would have been better). Personally, I am not a huge fan of radishes, but my husband loves these. He has even found some recipes for eating the green tops.

I am sure that as we continue to thin out the rows, and provide more room, we will get results a bit rounder than root shaped. Regardless, I am quite pleased with these and plan on growing them again next year...just a little bit more spaced apart.