Our garden lives on during the winter! Using up peppers from our garden!

Picture is from mid-October.

Our garden is done of course as of mid-October but we are still using up our pepper crop this winter because we froze a bunch. We froze a lot of peppers to use in soups, casseroles, and fajitas. Unlike other crops you don't need to blanch sweet green peppers them first. I am proud to still be eating our garden produce on cold wintery days!

Freezing Sweet Green Peppers

You will wash then stem the pepper. Remove the center and seeds. These also freeze them whole halved, sliced or diced. Again I usually freeze them diced. We vacuum seal them and put in our upright deep freezer.

Freezing hot or mild chili peppers

Wash the peppers first. They may be frozen whole, halved, sliced, or diced. Just depends on how you'd like to use them. I mostly pack diced.

If you freeze green peppers diced in 1/2 cup quantities they are ready to be tossed into a chili or soup recipe right from the freezer.

Then pack into freezer containers or freezer bags. Remove as much air as possible by pressing your bag flat without crushing the peppers. Seal the bag (or use your sealer).

Label the contents, date the package and then freeze.

Please note: When handling and cutting up hot peppers I recommend that you wear gloves. The seeds can be very hot and may burn your skin. Remember don't touch your eyes or face!

Thanks to Simply canning for the info.

Garden 2010- Our trip to IFA in Utah for peas, onions, beans and BABY chicks!

This is a belated post but I wanted to let you know it's time to plant peas, beans, and onions outdoors. We planted them two weeks ago when the weather was unseasonably warm in the 60's. Here's the details on how much we paid and what we purchased. We went to Intermountain Farming Association in Utah.Yummy tender sugar snap peas $7.99 a lb. Click photo to enlarge for details.We planted a bag of both yellow and red onions for $2.69 a bag.Blue Lake beans $5.99 a lb

The girls were very excited to see it was baby chick days at IFA (it might be going on still call them). We saw a variety of baby chicks, turkeys, ducks and roosters. Great educational opportunity too. I want to have chickens some day.

Growing seeds indoors when it's snowy outside!

Here's our seedlings growing under grow lights in the almost finished basement. As you can see we are just awaiting carpet soon. Yippee! This past week was a cold, snowy, and blowing wind weather weekend (with more snow coming tonight). I can't wait for spring and will be prepared with plants when it comes!We transfer the dirt sponges to Styrofoam cups when they get big enough.
Ah, I can't wait till summer! What are you growing indoors?Then we will (actually my gardening husband) will transfer them to the wall of waters. I don't know why the picture is sideways. Stupid blogger.

You can read more about our Gardening ways and tips from 2009

HERE

October garden update

My hubby and I were freaks last week when it was a night time low of 32 degrees and put a heater in the greenhouse, he put on a few wall of waters, and the plants are ALL alive and well in there. We are enjoying the red tomatoes, green peppers, and a cucumbers still. We weren't ready to say good bye yet.I am a sucker for real baby pumpkins in my fall home decor so I grow them in my garden. I also enjoy giving them away to friends, nieces and nephews, and teachers. We got all of these off two plants. Just remember don't plant them near the big pumpkins plants they cross pollinate.

I am enjoying fall now that it's here to stay. It looks like we will be making butternut squash soup this year.

Outdoor canning for less heat in the kitchen (and mess)!

We choose to use our hot water bath canner outside on our camp chef stove on our deck. It saves energy, doesn't heat up our house, and the boiling over flow of water is on the deck instead of my kitchen floor. I got this camp chef stove at Intermountain Farmer's in Utah....on a 2008 BLACK Friday deal for about $89.00 (I think). It was $$ well spent this summer. I will be checking out their ad for sure for Black Friday 2009! You should too fellow canning ladies.

We are on a mission to save the crops from cold overnight lows!

The 33 degree night time temps happened last night so we gathered up most of the crops and put them in the fridge. Here's a picture of some of of what we brought inside. That was a monster cantaloupe. We blanched our corn, cut it off the cobs and got 12 bags. I am looking forward to saving a few bags for Thanksgiving dinner. I very sentimental that way. It's been a great growing year.

We kept the greenhouse up all year hoping we could keep our plants alive longer. The stupid zipper broke so we went to plan B and used a blue tarp on the door. We covered the tomato cages & squash plants with blue tarps.

Good bye cucumber plants, corn, and melons. Tip: Yes, you see newspaper under our plants in the picture. We used them as free weed barrier and compost under our large plants. It worked great and by the way and we'll just till them in for better soil.

We managed to keep the the tomatoes from the cold shock last night. Check it out.

So to brighten my spirits I made some yummy different zucchini bread. Pineapple Zucchini bread with raisins and almonds. Here's the recipe.

PINEAPPLE ZUCCHINI BREAD

3 eggs

2 c. sugar

1 c. oil (I used 3/4 cup)

2 tbsp. vanilla

2 c. zucchini (grated and drained)

3 c. flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 c. raisins

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

1 c. chopped nuts

1 c. crushed pineapple, drained

Beat eggs until fluffy. Add sugar, vanilla, oil, zucchini, flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda. Stir in pineapple, raisins, nuts and mix well.

Bake in 2 well greased 9x5x4 inch loaf pans or 4 smaller loaf pans for 1 hour at 325 F. Don't overfill the small loaf pans!

TIP: I often shred and freeze zucchini in two cup portions so that when thawed I have the correct zucchini proportions(without draining) The bread also freezes well.

Can you believe it's October?

I am enjoying our fall mums. I am in denial it is snowing in the mountains today. This picture was from a few days ago. Anyway we grew the plants from seeds in our home grow light system. Check out our set up Here.Ah beautiful orange, rusty red, and yellow ones. Have a great fall day everyone.

Late September fall garden update

We plant radishes & lettuce together in late July (around the 24th of July)....to reap the rewards in September. The "planing philosophy" is from The Joy of Gardening by Dick Raymond (the book is on my side bar).
I am happy to report we have in late September the following "spring" crops; lettuce, radishes, carrots (shown above), peas and spinach. You typically find them garden fresh in the spring but the late summer heat helps them germinate and fall weather doesn't scorch the plants. I know this thanks to reading Dick Raymond's book.

Our 1st harvest corn stalks are looking nice and DRY for our Halloween porch corn stalk decorations. I don't decorate for Halloween until after October 1st so stay tuned. You can see our second planting of corn in the distance. We ate many ears for dinner tonight with some friends. I will miss it when it's gone.

As you know, I am hooked on our first year crop of raspberries. I can be found hiding in the berry patch from my kids and eating berry after berry and NOT sharing with them. Ha ha

We grew what I call baby pumpkins (aka mini pumpkins). They are heavy yielders--like 30 or so on a plant! Planting HINT- Do not plant them near regular large pumpkins-cross pollination! I enjoy handing these out as gifts; the kid's teachers, their best friends, playgroup buddies, book club hostess gift, a widower on the street, Sunday school teachers, secretaries, grandma's, and my "mommy" friends.

This is our first year with apples and pears! My daughters class is studying apples and they have to bring apples to school--BINGO we a handful we are donating to the class. I love sharing. I hope it rubs off on my two year old soon.

How's your garden this month? I saw on the news it will be a LOW of 33 on Thursday in Utah. Boo hoo!

Covering up our tomatoes it's gonna get cold!

It's going to cool down at night A LOT in Utah this week. My husband and I are on a mission to try to SAVE THE TOMATOES (and peppers and a cucumber plants in the greenhouse)

The before picture when the little seedlings were planted.

The after solution picture with the blue tarp. Of course we close it at night.

We also lined bricks on the bottom of the green house hoping they will radiate heat. The white box on the bricks is an outdoor thermometer. We keep it outside and it reads the greenhouse temperature for us inside on our indoor gauge. We bought it at Walmart. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for fresh yummy tomatoes well into October!

A bountiful harvest- Our little farm is doing well.

It feels good to harvest the fruits of our gardening labors now. We feel blessed with healthy garden produce this year. My husband and I have been canning and freezing up a storm this last week. I like to can peaches with him because we can talk....uninterrupted by the kids. We start canning at 8:00 p.m. Here's what we are canning and eating this week.Ah the sweet yummy Utah peaches. Seriously I haven't tasted any better--even the GA ones aren't as good. I am happy that our peach tree produced such wonderful fruit. Ah don't they look delicious in the jars. We did 50+ jars of peaches this year (off one tree). It was our goal to have one jar for each week of the year.I love eating canned peaches on oatmeal and plain yogurt. I can't get enough of our sweet bi-color corn on the cob. It's almost done producing.We are enjoying our eggplants. I made eggplant parmesan. Did you see my recipe for it?The crookneck squash is still producing, so more tasty squash casserole. Did you see my recipe?

The melons are almost done producing. It's getting colder at night now. It was a good run though.
I made a lot of zucchini bread this year. I also grate and freeze the extra for adding to lasagna and more low fat zucchini bread in the winter.

Marinated cucumbers are the best. Did you see my recipe? We also make homemade pickles for the first time.

Fall bulb planting= Spring flowers. Watch for bulbs on sale.

I bought these tulip bulbs on clearance in September 2008 and look how wonderful they were in May 2009!

Keep your eye out for clearanced spring bulbs at Lowe's and Home Depot this month. I have purchased tulips, daffodils, and crocus bulbs in late September in the past.

Huckleberries-YES we grow them in my UT garden

Lots of our farmer's market customers were shocked we grow huckleberries in our back yard. We don't live in the mountains and don't attract bears either (thank goodness). We buy perennial plants (they have to be planted every year) from gardening catalogs. Burpee.com Parks seeds.com and rareseeds.com are the site we use. We harvested the berries in late August and into September. This variety is a bit bitter to eat right off the vine. But you won't be disappointed with huckleberries in pies, muffins, and my favorite jam. We sold cups at the market like hot cakes for $3.00 a cup.It's WONDERFUL in jam. Here's ours:


The huckleberries have a neat chemical reaction to the pectin and sugar. Our jam won first place at our county fair this year. It also makes great Christmas gifts.