How to freeze tomatoes

We have been getting a lot of tomatoes from our garden lately. 

I have made salsa, guacamole, used them in salads and recipes and given them to friends. I have also blanched them so I could freeze them to use later. I love adding them to soups and sauces in the winter time. Freezing tomatoes is really easy. 

 How to Blanch Tomatoes:

1. Wash your tomatoes and cut off stems and blemishes. They should be firm.

2. Add a few tomatoes to boiling water and boil for only 60 seconds. I only do a few at a time since you don't have to boil for very long.

 
 3. Remove tomatoes from boiling water with a slotted spoon and put into a bowl of ice water for a few seconds.

 4. Remove skins of tomatoes. It should slide off easily.

5. Cut tomatoes into desired size pieces. I like to dice or chunk mine for future sauce and soup recipes. You can also remove seeds if you wish.

6. Put portions of tomatoes and juice into ziploc bags, label and freeze.

That's it! It is SO easy! I used to buy canned tomatoes for soups and sauces but then I learned that BPA leaches into canned goods, esp. tomatoes since they are acidic. So freezing fresh organic tomatoes is much better. I look forward to having these from my garden when the snow starts flying here in Indiana:)

What do you freeze from your garden?

Thanks for reading! Have a great day!!

Rebecca

Rhubarb Diaries

I posted awhile back about this yummy rhubarb crisp I made. It was delicious! I swiped some rhubarb from my parent's garden in Wisconsin over Father's Day weekend. My grandpa planted it many years ago when he lived where my parents do now. My brother took some and transplanted it in his garden last year so I thought I would do the same.

We took the rhubarb on Sunday afternoon and after visiting my in-laws in IL, brought it to our home in Indiana and planted it on Monday evening. It did not like the heat and was pretty wilted when we planted it. It actually got more wilted after this but I didn't take a picture to show. We thought it was not going to take.

We were hoping for the best. We used Basic H2 organic concentrate and I regularly sprayed the leaves with it.

It still wasn't looking too good after about a week. But then, some new growth started appearing!

And this is what it looks like today, not even a month later. 

The old leaves have disappeared but the new ones look green and strong. 

We are looking forward to seeing how well it does. Rhubarb will come back every year and also multiplies over time. My parent's patch is huge! I wish I had a picture to share.

Can't wait for more crisps and pies! Stay tuned for updates....:)

Have a great weekend!

Rebecca

Garden fresh BBQ chicken salad

I made a very easy BBQ chicken salad the other day. It was so good! 

Many of the ingredients came from our growing garden.

Ingredients:

From the garden: spinach, lettuce, green onions, purple basil and cilantro. 

Other ingredients: grilled chicken breast, yellow bell pepper, tomatoes, black beans (rinsed), corn.

I usually add avocado too but didn't have any ready to eat.

I chop everything small and put a little BBQ sauce over it. I like Montgomery Inn BBQ because it has a good taste and does not have high fructose corn syrup. You could also make your own, which I have done before using molasses.  

The garden ingredients made it taste so fresh. My 3 year old ate it up. He thought it was pretty neat to eat things from the garden that he helped to plant. My 22 month old didn't eat the greens but pretty much everything else:)

I served this with some whole wheat tortilla chips and fresh salsa. The perfect light summer meal.

Is anything ready in your garden yet? What are your favorite garden recipes?

Thanks for reading! Have a great day!!

Rebecca

The Garden Is A-Growing!!!

Correction to this post: No fertilizer was used on the garden. My mistake! Sorry! :)



I keep meaning to post updates on our garden! It has certainly taken off. We noticed a big difference in the first two weeks. Now four weeks later, we are wondering what we have created. lol. Here are the before pictures from when we planted on Mother's Day.

 

And now for the after pictures that I just took.

 We have around 8 or 9 tomatoes growing already. In hindsight, we probably shouldn't have put that many tomato plants in. lol

We can't believe how much it has grown! The raised bed garden with the good soil definitely helps. And my husband has been watering and fertilizing. We also planted using Basic H2 (organic concentrate made from corn and coconut) and I occasionally spray the leaves with it. It helps to make water wetter so the roots were able to establish well from the start.

We are also excited about our blackberry crop this year. Believe it or not, this was a small little plant that we put in 3 years ago. Now it is a beast!! :)

The first year we had a few berries here and there. We were excited with that. And last year we got a lot more. But THIS year, I think I had better learn how to can and make jams. Anyone have any tips or recipes?? 

I also took a couple pictures of the boys while we were out playing in the yard today...:)

Thanks for stopping in. How has your garden been doing so far? Any tips or recipes to share using blackberries or tomatoes? I am always up for trying a new salsa recipe.


Enjoy Your Week!!


Rebecca

Our new garden!

I mentioned recently that my father-in-law came to help my husband build our new raised bed gardens. They look so great! I promised a post about this so here it is. I hope you enjoy it. We had a great time putting the garden in this weekend. Here are some picture from it. Enjoy!

 

This is the before picture of our garden. It was like this when we moved in almost four years ago. We have planted every year, but were not so great about keeping up with weeding.

 

 

And below is what it looks like now! We really love it. The raised beds help to keep the weeds out. It is also above ground, so it is warmer and you can plant earlier. My husband and his dad put in the white tubing along the side, which makes it easy to attach a plastic covering over it if it gets too cold outside. The soil is also much better then the clay-like soil we have here in Indiana. We are really happy with the gardens and are excited to see what kind of crop we get this year! :)

 

My husband and FIL did a lot of research on building the gardens. They had a great time gathering the wood and supplies and putting them together.

Digging the holes.

Ours are 4x6. Apparently if they are bigger then that, then the wood can bow and warp over time.

Using the rototiller to turn up the soil and get it ready for planting.

My in-laws were a great help and had fun putting this together.

Now that we had the gardens, we needed to fill them. We headed to the nursery on Mother's Day and had a great time picking out our plants.

The kids chose some cucumber plants for me.

We bought lots of different kinds of tomato and pepper plants and various herbs. We also got some eggplant, green onion, cucumber, spinach and lettuce. I love planting! :)

We are getting a few apples on the two macintosh trees that we planted last summer.

We went to the nursery with my in-laws when they visited a couple weekends ago. My MIL bought us two of these beautiful Iris plants for Mother's Day.

And we bought another apple tree that we planted yesterday. This time Gala. It is important to have at least two trees somewhat close together that flower in the same season so they can cross pollinate. We had another apple tree here that died last year with the high winds so we replaced it. Our kids love to help!

I also received this beautiful orange lily for mother's day from my husband and kids. It was the same flower I carried in my wedding bouquet almost  8 years ago. Isn't it pretty?

Andrew had a great time helping plant the garden. He especially loved planting this stick that he found. :)

 

We planted everything using Basic H2 super organic concentrate. We used the all-purpose spray (1/4 tsp. of H2 to 16 oz of water) and spray it in the hole and on the roots. Basic H2 is made of corn and coconut, and makes water 100xs wetter. This helps the roots take hold better to absorb the soil's nutrients. You can also use the window spray (1-2 drops of H2 to 16 oz of water) on the leaves to keep them moist and perk them up. It works great for this!

Have you planted your garden yet this year? Do you used a raised bed? What produce have you planted?

Thanks for reading! Have a wonderful week!

Rebecca

Gardening with Basic H2

It's that time of year again! Time to plant our garden. We did that this weekend. It is always a fun family day when we go to the nursery to pick out all of the veggies and herbs that we will plant. We had a lot of rain this weekend, but were able to get our garden going in between the rain drops:)
Here is my toddler helping out. He really loves to help in the yard. Right next to him is a bottle of all purpose Basic H2 super organic concentrate. This product is so awesome in so many ways. I use it a lot for cleaning, but we have also learned that it is great for gardening, lawn care, house plants, etc. And it is completely safe for my entire family to be around.
Here is my husband spraying the roots of a pepper plant with the Basic H2 before putting it in the ground. It helps to make water wetter, which helps the roots take hold in the soil better and give higher yields.
Here is our garden after everything went in. We planted tomatoes, peppers, melons, herbs, eggplant and also did beets and peas from seed. We used the Basic H2 on the seeds as well. We have also found that spraying the window solution (1-2 drops of Basic H2 to 16 oz of water) on wilty houseplants, will perk up the leaves nicely. You can read some of my other uses for Basic H2 in my post about how I went from 20 cleaners to only 3 non-toxic ones.

I am excited to see our garden grow! It is always fun to pick something fresh from the garden to use in a meal.

Have you planted your garden yet? What are your favorite things to plant?

Thanks for reading and have a healthy week!

Rebecca