All Blog Posts Tagged 'tomato' (13)

Cross-posted from Local Me.



No local food journey would be complete without preserving the harvest. Freezing, drying, pickling, and...canning. I grew up with dusty glass jars shelved like aged books below the basement steps, each lid personally labeled by my mom or an aunt.



I recently ordered canning equipment through Amazon.com and set aside time on a Saturday to can…

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PASTA MAKING 101

What does making homemade pasta got to do with gardening? Nothing! But a gardener’s got to do something in the dead of winter and I wanted to try out that new pasta machine that I got for a birthday gift in June. I thought it…

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Baby, it’s cold outside, but spring is just around the corner, so even if you don’t garden year-round outdoors, now is the time to prepare for spring. Getting a head start on the growing season indoors will insure your garden lights the landscape up come spring.



Make a list of what you want to grow, take inventory of what you have, then sit down with your seed catalogs and order what you want. Don’t wait too late in the season because not only might you be faced with items you want… Continue

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Gather Up:

1 Recipe Pastry Dough, rolled into a 12 inch round and chilled

1/3 cup fresh Basil Pesto

1 ½ cups fresh corn, blanched and cut off cobs

3 heirloom tomatoes, assorted colors, sliced

½ cup mild white cheese, Monterey jack or your choice

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

1 tablespoon freshly grated parmesan…

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It’s ROUND TWO: Battle of the Fresh Tomato Pasta Sauce. Tonight’s contender is a crowd favorite, champion of the “Cooked” Tomato. With lots of fans and lots of press this contender comes to the table highly anticipated.

This veteran competitor knows that garden fresh tomatoes must have a garden friendly recipe. The winner of this “Cooked vs. Uncooked” battle will…

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The challenge: to make a meal with ingredients from this week's farm share. Share consists of: golden beets, baby carrots, strawberries, peas, arugula, broccoli, green leaf lettuce, collard greens, radishes and parsley.

The result: Braised radishes and peas, whole wheat…

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One of my favorite ways to grow fall tomatoes is by tip rooting my summer tomato plants.



To tip root, you bend, or tip, a branch from existing tomato plants and bury it in the ground. Give it a little extra water to help out, and in a week or so the buried branch should start rooting. Once it appears that the new plant is growing on its own, you can cut it, detaching it from the old plant.



The same concept works great for suckers on your tomato plants as well. To start a… Continue

I spent the weekend starting lettuce and tomato seeds, tossing the worms over in the compost bin and setting up one corner of my kitchen for the future lettuce-growing and kombucha brewing operations. I decided to go to Bignamehomeimprovementcenter-with-an-orange-logo because they have a good selection of cheap fluorescent fixtures, bulbs, and doo dads. And there it was. Just as I walked into the garden section. I'd seen the TV ad. I'd even seen it in reputable magazines. The upside-down tomato… Continue

I started my first round of seeds today! Last fall was my first attempt at starting from seeds, and this is now my first spring.



My first round includes tomatoes, broccoli, cucumbers, bell peppers, eggplants and tobacco (why not? Although being careful to not pull a Homer and make tomacco).



I started all these in one of those mini greenhouse starters. Anybody use these before? Also going to direct sow some carrot… Continue

Here it is, my last tomato of the season. I can't believe my plants were producing this long, but there's the Austin winter for you.

And on the same week I'm starting…

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