Showing posts with label beets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beets. Show all posts

Monday, July 23, 2012

Vegetable Garden - July 23, 2012

Despite sever drought conditions, the garden is doing fairly well.  I know that it would be doing much better if I watered it every night, but with recommended water restrictions, I know that it doesn't make sense for me to risk running our well dry to water the garden.  All I can do is keep my fingers crossed that things get better.  And be thankful that the lack of rain doesn't effect my income.  And of course, I am praying for all the farmers who are going to be tragically affected by this.

So, here is the status of the garden veggies.  Onions and carrots are doing pretty well, the few carrots that were accidentally pulled while weeding yesterday are a little smaller than usual at this time of year, but not dramatically smaller.  Zucchini are a little disappointing so far, there are tons of flowers every day, but no zucchini yet.  Tomatoes have lots of blossoms and lots of fruit.  Unfortunately the romas are already showing signs of blossom end rot.  The peppers plants have lots of little peppers which are growing very quickly.  Lettuce, swiss chard, kale and beets are very slow.  As are the English cucumbers.  The other two kind of cucumbers are flowering like crazy and have a few tiny cucumbers.  Potatoes are covered in blossoms and I can see the ground starting to push up at the base of the plants.  Looking like it might be a good year for potatoes!

Onions and carrots.                                     Zucchini and tomatoes.


Cucumbers.                                                Peppers.


     Peppers and Beets.                                 Lettuce, swiss chard and kale.


What are these little ball things on my potatoes?  I have seen them on potatoes before, but don't know what they are or why they are there.

Really hoping that these little guys start ripening before they are all consumed by blossom end rot.


The potato jungle!  They are growing like crazy!




Tuesday, June 19, 2012

The Vegetable Garden - June 19, 2012

Despite being full of weeds when we got home from our weekend of camping, the vegetable garden is doing well.

Lettuce and beets are coming a little more slowly than some years, but they are both in the shadier end of the garden.  The shade doesn't seem to be bothering the swiss chard and kale though!

Cucumbers and zucchini are growing like crazy, even the cucumbers that were slow to come up are catching up with the rest.

Tomatoes and peppers all seem to have had a huge growth spurt recently!

Carrots and onions are continuing to grow steadily.

And the potatoes are growing like mad!  I can not believe how big they are getting and how quickly!  I can almost taste fresh fried potatoes! 

Don't look at the weeds, but you can see the little rows of soon to be salad!

Jalapeno Pepper flower!

Roma Tomato.

Tomato Flower.

Potatoes . . . if they keep growing like this they won't be plants, they will be trees!

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Pickled Beets

I was at it again today!  This time, making pickled beets.  Again, I searched the internet and created my own recipe based on bits and pieces of the recipes that I found!

Beets . . . fresh from the garden, clean and ready to cook . . . 

Boiling . . . 

Cooked, cooling and waiting to be peeled . . . 

Peeled . . . 

Sliced . . . 

Pickling spices . . . this is an infant Nibbler* and is so much easier to use for spices that need to be removed than fumbling with cheese cloth and sting!  I found this tip on the internet, but can't find it again to give credit, but it works really well!

Beet slices in brine.

Finished product . . . 5 pints of pickled beets.

Pickled Beets

4 quarts of beets
1 1/2 cups vinegar
3 cups water
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 tbsp mixed pickling spices

Clean and boil beets.
Let cool.
Peel and slice/cut as desired.  Place in large saucepan.
Mix vinegar, water and sugar, pour over beets.
Put pickling spices in cheese cloth pouch or infant Nibbler so that they can be removed.
Boil for 10 minutes.
Pack in hot jars.
Can for 15 minutes in boiling water.

Friday, July 23, 2010

BEETS!!!!!

Some of my beets were starting to push out of the top of the soil and they needed to be thinned, so yesterday, I took a look.  I was quite surprised with the amount that I found that were big enough to use. They are called Rodina Beets, and they aren't even the earliest ones I planted.  


I cooked up a nice little pot of beets to go with dinner.  I thought they were delicious.  But no one else did.  Liam took one bite and spit it out.  Henry just doesn't like beets.  So, I enjoyed them all by myself!  And ate the whole pot!  Everything always tastes better when it is the very first crop!


And the bunnies quite enjoyed munching on the fresh beet tops for their dinner!