Category: Summer

Preserving

Sabine2 Replies
Pickled – cucumbers and green tomatoes.

Every year, I strive to prolong the season by preserving vegetables (cucumbers, tomatoes, hot peppers, winter squash, garlic) and herbs (Italian basil, Thai basil) from the garden. I do not can my vegetables in a way that makes them shelf-stable. The methods I use are quick-pickling, curing/drying, slow-roasting and freezing. This year, I had a decent harvest of pickling cucumbers, and I quick-pickled several batches, one to two jars each. I also pickled green cherry tomatoes at the end of the season.

Dried and cured – hot peppers, garlic, shallots, garlic scapes.

I cured my garlic and my three (!) shallots, as well as my pathetic squash harvest (two small butternut and three small Delicata squash). For the first time, I oven-dried garlic scapes and turned them into a very fragrant and delicious garlic scape powder, which I am using in my cooking instead of garlic powder. I also slow-dried my super hot Thai peppers in the oven (at 175 F for several hours, checking first every 60 then every 30 minutes until they start to become brittle).

Slow-roasted and frozen – slow-roasted tomatoes and different types of basil pesto.

I slow-roasted several batches of tomatoes and made one big batch of garlic scape pesto, two batches of regular pesto and tree of Thai pesto. The tomatoes are topped with olive oil and frozen for future use. If not used immediately after making it, the Italian pesto is frozen in ice cube trays, covered with olive oil. This makes it easy to use. I just thaw a few cubes to use as pizza topping or for pasta. I freeze the Thai basil pesto straight in the jar (covered with sesame oil), as each batch makes one recipe for the crispy pork noodle bowls that we all love so much.

Tomato Issues

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Ananas Noire, August 23

This year was a strange one for tomatoes. Overall, I had a ton of tomatoes all August (I harvested around two pounds every other day), but then production dropped off sharply. By the beginning of September, the early tomatoes were done, and the Ananas Noire and Black Krim had developed some type of rot. It was not blossom end rot, just small brown soft spots that got bigger and started to take over the entire fruit. None of the other varieties had it (with the exception of one big Dr. Wyche’s Yellow tomato in close proximity to the Ananas Noire plant). The spots did not affect the flavor (I was able to cut them out and eat the rest of the tomato), but I have not figured out what exactly the problem was.

Ailsa Craig, August 27

I learned that another gardener in our community garden had the same issues with her tomatoes. Interestingly, Ailsa Craig, Brimmer and Green Zebra were not affected. Scotia and Stupice are also likely fine, but those varieties were physically far away from the diseased ones, and were almost done fruiting by the time the spots appeared. By early/mid October, only Ailsa Craig and Brimmer tomatoes were still producing, and I got a few more tomatoes from those plants.

Ailsa Craig, September 28

I will need to do more research over the winter on what the problem might have been and plan my tomato varieties for next year accordingly.

College Send-Off Dinner

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Crispy Pork Noodle Bowl with Thai Basil Pesto

I moved my son back to college yesterday, and we made one of his favorite dinners the night before – crispy pork noodle bowl with Thai basil pesto. I had made the Thai basil pesto a few days before (using a different recipe), covered it with sesame oil and stored it in the fridge. So, so good!

Thai basil pesto

I made one batch earlier this month and froze it for use in the future. I had experimented with freezing it last year and found it to freeze very well.

Thai basil pesto mise-en-place
Thai basil in the garden plot

August Tomatoes

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August 13 (the plum and cherry tomatoes are from another gardener’s plot that I had been tending to while they were on vacation)

I harvested the first tomatoes (Stupice) on July 23 and then a few more Stupice, Scotia and Ailsa Craig the following weeks. Things started to really get rolling by August 10. On August 17, I picked my first Green Zebra and Dr. Wyche’s Yellow (two of my favorite varieties). Since then, I have been harvesting about two to three pounds every other day.

August 17

There have been a lot of Caprese (and other tomato) sandwiches and tomato salads on lunch and dinner rotation, like this tomato and peach salad with whipped goat cheese, for which I like to use Dr. Wyche’s Yellow.

August 20

I also made two batches of slow-roasted tomatoes, which I packed in olive oil and froze. For this, I used mainly smaller red tomatoes.

August 23

My daughter made an amazing tomato galette the other day (using red tomatoes only), with home-grown garlic and basil. It has been an exceptional tomato season so far!

August 25

Notes for next year: The Ailsa Craig tomatoes were prone to cracking; Dr. Wyche’s Yellow, Ananas Noire and Black Krim to catfacing (not a big problem and also unavoidable with the strange weather earlier this summer); and Ananas Noire and Black Krim were prone to rotten spots. Brimmer was a bit crowded out by the other tomatoes and stayed small as a plant (but did produce a few very tasty tomatoes, like the large pink-red one in the picture of August 31). Same growth issue for Stupice, which was crowded out by the calendula flowers.

August 31

More Fall Sowing

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Tomato and squash side of the plot today

This afternoon, I did some weeding and sowed two rows of fall greens (mix of lettuces, arugula, mustard greens, kale) and more cilantro. The beets, cilantro and basil I sowed three weeks ago, on August, 2 have sprouted but are tiny. I also harvested a second batch of Thai basil to make Thai basil pesto in the next couple of days.

Rabbit-proof part of the plot (kale chard, lettuces plus Thai basil)