My Earth Garden
acres away from ordinary
Hyacinth Beans
Seeds Started 02/01/10
Time to start the seedlings for the Spring 2010 growing season! Today’s round of starts includes:
- Purple Cauliflower (6)
- Black Sea Man Tomato (3)
- Red Hmong Cucumber (3)
- Hyacinth Bean (6)
- Red Brandywine Tomato, Landis Valley Strain (4)
- Aunt Ruby’s German Green Tomato (4)
- German Red Strawberry Tomato (4)
- Matchless Tomato (4)
- Livingston’s Golden Queen Tomato, 1882 strain (4)
- Valencia Tomato (4)
- Radiator Charlie’s Mortgage Lifter Tomato (4)
- Prue Tomato(2)
- German Queen Tomato (3)
- Wins All Tomato (3)
- African Beefsteak Tomato (3)
- Grandpa’s Cock’s Plume Tomato (3)
- 1884 Tomato (4)
- Wood’s Famous Brimmer Tomato, USDA# NSL 5793 (4)
- Abraham Lincoln Tomato, Original Strain (4)
Michael we started seeds about the same time - mine are waiting for the sunshine that is promised! I have ...
What have you started so far, Kate?
Seed Sources: Why Seeds of Change Will Not Get My Business
While getting myself motivated for the Spring 2010 planting season I put out feelers among my friends for sources from which I could buy some new onion varieties. I was surprised when one of my more informed friends recommended the Seeds of Change company as I had heard disheartening information about the company’s ownership. When I shared what I knew, I found that several folks in-the-know were not in fact aware that Seeds of Change is owned by the M&M Mars company.
I first learned about the odd ownership situation while researching a particular carrot variety that I was given as a gift over the holidays. That led me to this post on Homegrown Evolution about the precocious Purple Dragon carrot. A follow up post on the same website offers more information from people on both sides of the argument and can be found here.
As for me, I have made a conscious decision to give my business to good companies doing good things, not the good things that bad companies are doing in the name of public relations while it is the in thing. As a result, I will buy seeds from other sources and continue my own seed saving and seed trading efforts to ensure that private people still have open pollinated, genetically pure seed from which to feed their families.
If you are not yet a member of the Seed Savers Exchange, I strongly recommend it. Even if you don’t become a member you have access to thousands of great seeds through their online store, but as the site touts, members have access to 12,613 more varieties!
What are your favorite sources for organic heirloom seeds? Leave a comment and be sure to include a link!
thanks for that info, will keep remember as I'm planning my seed orders.
Interesting info, Michael, I had no idea...will do a bit of research.
I’ll take muddy boots over paper cuts any day.
I hope you will forgive me for being away for so long folks, I have been buried knee-deep in paperwork instead of in the soil where I would much rather be and yet I can’t complain too loudly because I am nearly at the halfway point in writing my new book on urban gardening! The first three chapters are wrapped up and now I am working on the real meat of this book where people will be able to get their urban hands dirty and maybe even get some dirt under those well-manicured nails.
For those who are interested, my book will be “in the can†by March and will be published a year from now, just before the holidays in 2010. I will of course be keeping you up-to-date here as things progress.
One of the tough aspects of this project that I didn’t foresee was how difficult it would be to write about gardening when my own garden was waning (i.e. it is Autumn and we had some particularly harsh weather this year). I guess it is a true test of my abilities as a writer to be able to write an uplifting, energetic and informative book when the ground isn’t far away from the first freeze.
In other news…
I don’t want to end this on a bad note so I have to talk about the 36 dozen Clemson Spineless okra seeds I was able to harvest and package as well the Ambrosia cantaloupe mentioned previously. As soon as I have a chance to breathe I am going to put some garlic in the ground for a Spring harvest and begin the layout for the Spring 2010 community garden.
Heirloom Tomato Sauce in a Crock Pot
Ever since childhood I have had one true love from the garden – tomatoes. In the interest of full disclosure there isn’t much from the garden that I don’t adore but tomatoes grow at home have a noted advantage over anything you can buy in the supermarket; it’s called taste.
After our recent trip to Portland I returned home to a huge number of my beloved heirloom tomatoes ready for picking even after asking neighbors to take whatever they could use. The colander was overflowing with gorgeous ripe heirloom tomatoes from six different varieties and I was ready to make sure I didn’t lose a single one!
One particularly beautiful specimen was sliced and found its way onto our breakfast plates this morning while the rest (as seen in the photo above) were chopped and pureed, combined with a healthy bunch of fresh picked herbs, peppers and onions and are now simmering the rainy afternoon away in my crock pot.
There are lots of recipes and schools of thought about how to make this or that the right way but to be honest I am almost entirely self-taught in the kitchen and I have discovered that the only right way is the way that works best for you. If you are the type who feels more comfortable following recipes to the letter then by all means, do it!
I tend to be the look-cook-taste type, meaning that I look at a recipe to see what the general ingredients list is like then I combine the ingredients my way, tasting as I go and adding a bit more of whatever my taste buds tell me is called for. That said, here are the ingredients in my crock pot tomato sauce and the general guidelines for how I make it happen:
INGREDIENTS (give or take)
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tomatoes
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onion
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peppers (I use both sweet and hot)
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olive oil
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oregano
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sage
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parsley
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garlic
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coarse sea salt
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peppercorns
INSTRUCTIONS (kinda)
First let me say that I don’t remove the skin or the seeds from my tomatoes because I puree them in my Vita-Mix and by the time they make it to my crock pot or sauce pan there is most often no indication of skin or seeds. Even when I make salsa I leave the tomato skin and seeds intact.
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Start by adding a Tablespoon or so of olive oil to the crock pot, covering it and turning it on high while you process the ingredients.
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Coarsely chop tomatoes and onion and toss them in the Vita-Mix, blender or food processor and process until smooth along with your herbs, peppers and peppercorns. You may have to do this in batches (in my case I filled the Vita-Mix container three times).
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Add the pureed ingredients to the crock pot along with a good pinch of sea salt and cover. Cook on high, stirring occasionally and cook until it has reduced and thickened. This process takes a long time but it is well worth the lack of effort that is required. In other words you don’t have to do anything but stir it every so often so quit complaining.
That’s really all there is to it, folks. You can then let the mixture cool and can it or pour it into large zipper bags and freeze it for an ultra-fast meal in minutes anytime.
UPDATE
Wanted to do a quick update to give you a glimpse of the finished product. First, here is the sauce while it was cooking down in the crock pot after about 12 hours:
And now a shot of my finished sauce bagged up and ready to be frozen:
Footnote: If you’ve been on the fence about spending the money on a Vita-Mix, you can use the coupon code 06-004453 to get free shipping in the U.S. and Canada (a $25 savings), or just click here.
Looks like a tomato soup recipe I make, except I add about 4 stalks of celery. Everything goes in ...
My Kind of Savings
I’m the first to admit that I am not a wealthy guy, financially speaking. When I made the decision to pursue writing full time I knew it wouldn’t be easy and though I have had a few rough months here and there I have yet to go without the necessities due in no small part to my frugal nature and my love for gardening and growing my own food whenever it is humanly possible to do so. A combination of these two loves brings me to my topic for today – seed saving.
When it comes to education my focus has always been on getting people to grow something in the first place and that can often be such a task that I leave seed saving for another season. The truth of the matter is that I just can’t understand why more gardening people aren’t saving their seeds! Do they somehow prefer to spend three or four bucks (or more) on a single seedling that they could have started themselves for pennies?
Often one single vegetable or fruit can produce enough seeds to grow dozens of plants. This is true for tomatoes (my favorite fruit in the world), cantaloupes, watermelons, heck, it’s true for lots of stuff. Half of one cantaloupe from this season’s harvest yielded enough seed for me to plant a huge border of fruit at my community garden to benefit my neighborhood and the local food bank as well. There are dozens of seeds just waiting to be started in February. The space is there, why not use it to grow something to help feed others? It won’t cost me anything but the time to plant the seedlings.
One word of caution to anyone who plans to start seed saving – make sure the plants you are saving seed from are heirlooms! Hybrid plants do not always produce fruit that is true to seed. What that means is that the fruit or vegetables you grow from the seed of a hybrid plant will most likely not be the same as the one you started with because it was created by combining breeds for various characteristics. It is a good rule of thumb to grow heirlooms anyway as they have a lot more character and flavor than hybrids and they haven’t been bought out by Monsanto.
If you have always wanted to but you weren’t sure how to save seeds, fear not! I am working on writing a good primer for seed saving to be included here on MEG in the near future so stay tuned! It isn’t as difficult or time-consuming as you might think either so don’t let that thought even cross your mind!
Visions of Peppermint Tisanes Dancing in My Head
One of the most beautiful things about tending to your own garden is how easy it is to take for granted all the things you can do without a trip to the supermarket. Tonight was a fine example of this for me. After a 15 mile bike ride this evening (I’m getting into shape for running a 5k and doing the Breast Cancer 3-Day 60 mile walk less than a week apart from each other this October) I wanted something warm and soothing to relax with, but my usual caffeine just wasn’t going to cut it. Of course I have a stash of several teas in the cabinet but that just wasn’t working for me either.
The weather was beginning to get loud and wet as the thunderstorms approached from the West, so knowing I wasn’t going to have to water the community garden, I just took a quick stroll over there to do my daily once-over – you know, when you just snoop around to find a new tomato here or a hidden bloom there. I discovered my okra plant is covered up with little pods and looking fantastic. My cantaloupe vine is threatening to overtake the neighborhood but there are several little cantaloupes getting there start so I’m excited!
As I made my way out of the five foot by eight foot plot I wrangle at the Riverside Community Garden, I bent down to pinch the peppermint plant back a bit, not wanting it to be the invasive I-want-it-all goody two shoes I know it can be. I held the freshly picked leaves to my nose and immediately it hit me – TISANE! One fistful of bruised mint leaves, a pot of almost boiling water. Steep. A teaspoon of raw honey and a huge mug is all that I need to complete the wonderful evening.
I’m now piled up on the sofa being serenaded by thunder and the sound of the plentiful rain and on my second mug of peppermint tisane. I didn’t have to go any further than my garden to get the ingredients either. I also have a fresh picked General Lee cucumber and a handful of 18″ long asparagus beans for my lunch tomorrow.
Tell me again why people aren’t doing this for themselves?