F.F.F - Golden Cherry and Ginger Jam (con't)

Today, I finish the Golden Cherry Tomato and Ginger jam I started on Friday.  If you missed the first part of this Fun Food Friday which has turned into a weekend edition, you can find it here.

We left off with a bowl of sugary cherry tomatoes resting overnight in the fridge.  The first stop in taking this sugary oddity to Yummyville, is putting it in a big pot.  Next, add matchsticks of ginger, lemon zest, and lemon juice.  I won't deny that I tasted the concoction at this point and had to fight the urge to add water to  make Cherry Tomato and Ginger Lemonade.  I will try that in the future.

With everything in the pot, it cooks until thickened.  Then goes into canning jars and is processed in a caning bath.  If you want complete directions, you can find them here:

Golden Cherry Tomato and Ginger Jam from The Joy Kitchen. 

The Verdict

Overall, this is yummy stuff and while it is really sweet, the ginger gives a nice peppery kick.  I cooked mine a bit too long, so it is thicker than I'd like, but still spreadable.  I wouldn't really call this a jam.  To me it has more of a marmalade texture especially with the ginger matchsticks and cherry tomato skins.  

Tweaks for Next Time

•  Use less sugar and add pectin.  Like any jam that relies on sugar alone, this stuff is super sweet, so I want to try adding pectin and reducing the sugar content like you would with a strawberry jam.  
• Grate the ginger and coarsely chop the tomatoes.  The skins on my Sungold Tomatoes are pretty tough, and I think this would help the texture.  
• Wait until the last moment to add the lemon zest.  I think it looses it's vibrancy during the long cooking process necessary to make jam.

Do you have a favorite recipe or Fun Food you'd like to share?  Drop me a line in the comments and you might see it here on a future Fun Food Friday.

Fun Food Friday

This was my first year with what I felt, was a real garden and the one thing I've had plenty of is cherry tomatoes.  The variety I planted was Sungold, and it has been incredibly flavorful and more prolific than I could have imagined.  Which means by this point in the season, I tried them almost every way imaginable and I'm pretty sick of the things, but they keep producing.  

Now, I think I may have stumbled across the solution in this recipe for Golden Cherry Tomato and Ginger Jam from The Joy Kitchen.  I'm pretty sure this will get the tomato surplus out of my fridge and into my pantry where it can wait to bring a burst of sunshine to the dreary days of winter. 

The first step is to wash the tomatoes, slice them in half, add sugar, and let them sit for 4 hours on the counter, or overnight in the fridge.  I'm opting for the fridge, so looks like this'll be a Fun Food Weekend instead of a Fun Food Friday.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Well enough to keep me from working on my other projects right now.

School is almost out and I've been super busy trying to get things done that will be harder once the kiddos are home.  Between that, a spring cold that knocked me on my rear for several days, and garden chores, I've honestly not had the time, or the inclination to sit down and write a blog entry.  

However, today the skies are darkening, threatening rain, keeping me inside and blog guilt has gotten to me.  So, here's an update on my garden.

As a reminder, here's my garden  in mid April.  

And here it is on May 9th.

And here it is today.

The first produce from the garden came from this tiny little 1'x 2' rectangle planted with assorted Greens.  I harvest just the outer leaves as they mature, leaving the inner leaves to grow.  So far, we've gotten about half a dozen family sized salads from it.  

Since it's really starting to warm up here I know it's days are numbered.  I'm planning for Cucumbers to follow the Greens.  So, I pulled up enough of the Greens to  make way for the seeds and cut the rest of the greens to soil level.  Apparently, not all of them are ready to call it quits and I may get one last harvest.

Spinach is the second thing the garden has yielded.  I've gotten 2 good harvests out of it so far.  Like the other greens, it want's to bolt and is trying to send up flower stalks, which I've been pinching off.  

Since it's days are also numbered, I went ahead and planted Bush Beans between the existing plants.  I figure the Spinach leaves will act as a canopy to shade the soil and keep it from dying out too quickly giving the seeds a better chance to sprout.

  

To extend the greens harvest, I have two other small sections in the garden, that will be ready to harvest this week.  I also decided to start a couple of pots which will live on our cooler and more shaded porch in the hopes of getting a much later harvest.

Another thing I've done is to plant Soybeans between my Sunflowers, now that the Sunflowers are about 4 ft tall.  I'm growing a Mammoth variety that should reach 12 ft.  As they grow taller, I'll strip off the lowest leaves to allow sun to reach the soy beans in what would otherwise be wasted space.  

How is your garden growing?

I'd love to know.

Leave me a comment and let me know what your growing, and how it's doing.  

Do you have any super clever tips or tricks?

If so, share those in a comment too.

Adventures in Gardening - Pt. 4 From Grassy Spot to Garden Plot a.k.a "Can you dig it?"

Perfect Grassy Spot - check
 Soil Test - check
Following the Rules for Gardening with Clay - check

For weeks we dug off an on as time and weather permitted.  We took the garden section by section.  Digging the clay, amending the soil, breaking up clods and tossing the worst clay chunks aside.  My little guy had a blast digging into the soil with gloved hands and his tiny little guy sized shovel to mix in the compost and break up the chunks of clay.    

Once a section was prepared it was planted and watered. We made use of the bricks and pavers, left by the previous owner, to create a border and pathways.  In the center, we created a mulched path edged with brick to provide a knee friendly work area.  

Everything was coming together so well, and I thought to myself:
  
"Nice!  But......."  

" if I extend the garden another 4 feet off of the closest paver path, it would look even better and we'd gain 24 ft of planting area."
"Yep, I'm sure I can knock out that last section in an hour or so."

 With Hubby and the kids otherwise engaged, I started digging.  Minutes later, I hit a little snag.

3 coaxial looking cables ran across my newest garden section.  buried at a depth that varied from 1"- 6" beneath the sod.  One end disappeared beneath the fence and into our neighbors yard ominously pointing toward the corner of their house, the other end pointed to a distant utility pole.  

Theory 1:  That's my neighbors cable line.  
(I like them, better safe than sorry.)

I put down my shovel and picked up my phone.  The next few days saw a parade of utility trucks and technicians with their brightly colored spray paint cans.  Each utility marked their lines and a week after the digging had stopped the verdict was official.  

Theory 1 was busted!  

No one had a clue what these lines were for, or why they were there.  ATT didn't claim them.  Our WOW/Knology/Cable technician said "Yep! They look like cable lines, but they don't feed your house or your neighbors.  The only way to tell is to cut into them, and I'm not comfortable doing that."  He also said that distant utility pole they seem to go to is too far away to provide a strong enough signal for either house if they were connected.

Technician: "Just try to work around it."

Me to myself:  "Seriously?!  That's all you've got? I've been twiddling my thumbs for a week for this?"
(Shaking head thinking about the wasted week when I could have been digging.)

Then it rained and my little hole became a little pool. 
Sigh........ 

While I waited for things to dry out, I worked on some other projects including one involving power tools and wood stain, which I might show you someday.  While working, I  came up with another theory about the cables.

 Theory 2:  Garden Gnomes are stealing cable from the neighbors.

(hmm....  now that I'm typing that something else occurs to me.  Perhaps I need better ventilation for those projects involving wood stain.)

Eventually, the ground dried up and I was able to "work around the cables" to finish the garden plot, put up a trellis, and get the last section planted.

I can't wait to see what it looks like all grown up!

Adventures in Gardening - Pt. 3 Four Rules for Gardening with Clay

Remember this picture from our soil test?

See the mason jar of orange-brown liquid in the back? 

 That's our soil sample mixed with distilled water, shaken and left to sit for about an  hour.  Over a month later it looks about the same.  The soil particles still haven't settled completely.  This is pretty common with clay soils.  

For those of you not experience with the red clay soil found in North Alabama,  it is special stuff.  

• It stains clothing well enough to be used as a dye.  
• Holds on to water and minerals well.
• It's pretty good for making bricks.  
• Slightly purer deposits can also be used to make pottery (granted according to my potter friend Wendy the pots are quite fragile).  

In general, it's pretty useful stuff.  But as gardening goes, it's a pain in the tooshkuss! 

 Many home gardeners around here avoid working with the stuff all together.  Instead, the build raised beds that they fill with truck loads of commercial or home mixed "garden soil."  That can get pricey fast, but if you have money to burn, it's a fine choice.  

We have 3 kids.
 (translation:  we have no money to burn)
We are on a budget, and I'm trying to do this as cheap as possible.  That means, working with what I have and following the rules for gardening with clay.

  Rule #1  Never dig wet!  
Ignore this rule and you'll end up with huge heavy inseparable clods that dry as hard as brick.

Rule #2  Don't dig dry!
If you dig when it is completely dry, the ground is already hard as a brick and if you can manage to get your tools into the ground, you'll have hours of back breaking work ahead of you.   

So when the heck should you dig?
  About 1-4 days after a good soaking rain in the Fall is about right.

You have to find a sweet spot of soil moisture when it's wet enough to dig, but dry enough that the clods can be broken apart by hand or with tools.  The first season you work the soil, expect to spend extra time breaking up clods, and know you will end up with some pieces that won't break up at all and will dry into pebble or rock sized bricks.  These are usually the bits with a higher clay content.  You'll know them because you can knead them in your hands like putty.  I try to pull these out by hand now or later when it's time to plant.  I've also used these "super clay" bits in the past as chinking/mortar in brick borders.

What's that you say?  It's not Fall.  

You're right, it's spring!  So there is an added challenge of trying to time this "sweet spot of soil moisture" in between the frequent torrential downpours, tornado watches, and schizophrenic temperature fluctuations of a North Alabama Spring.  Not an easy task, but not impossible.  
   

Rule #3  Amend! Amend! Amend!
By nature, clay is sticky, prone to compaction and slow to drain.  So slow in fact that this 6" deep hole in the garden, where we started digging and had to stop (more on that later), is still filled with water nearly a day after the rain stopped.

 The fix for all of clay's problems is to add as much organic material, like compost, as you can.  Add more each year, and over time, you'll end up with some pretty awesome stuff.  We bought compost this this year, but are starting a compost pile for next year's garden.

Rule #4  Keep Out!
Once the soil is amended,  your little tootsies should never touch it again.  When you step on soil, it gets compacted and the plant's roots have a harder time growing.  Clay compacts easily enough without you walking on it, and you can't have strong plants without strong roots.  So incorporate paths to work from into the garden design and stay out of the growing area.

Up Next:  Pt 4 - From Grassy Spot to Garden Plot

Adventures in Gardening - Pt. 2 Soil Test

With the location decided, hubby took on the chore of ripping up the sod to reveal our wonderful (if you want to make bricks) Alabama red clay.  

  While he did the grunt work, I did a soil test. 

PH -on the acid side of neutral.

Nitrogen- non-existant.

Phosphorus- plenty

Potash- good enough

This soil is better than the soil at our old house which in addition to being the same lovely clay was more acidic and had an assortment of construction debris, tree roots, and rocks.

Up Next:  Rules for Gardening with Clay 

Adventures in Gardening - Pt. 1

I mentioned in a previous post that I'd tell you later about my adventures in gardening.  Well, it's later!

We've been in this house nearly a year and a half now, without really changing or adding anything new to the existing landscape.  That whole time, I've been itching to get my hands in some dirt and plant something.  

This year, as Spring was first trying to spring, I felt the overwhelming need to scratch that itch, but how?  
Flowers?  Herbs?  Vegetables? 

Then, it was obvious. We enjoyed the fresh veggies from our fall CSA so much last fall, but at an average of $40 a week, it wasn't cheap.  

"What if we plant our own veggie garden?"  
 At the old house we had an herb garden, and occasionally grew beans and tomatoes there.  But that was for fun, this would be for food.  
"Could we actually do it?"
 "It would so much work and we'd have to invest some money.  But not as much as a full or even half share of our CSA. " 
"It might be fun."

I got the hubby and kids on board, and it was settled.  I just had to pick the spot and make a plan.

This is the spot we chose. It's our only open bit of fence and runs along the ENE edge of our lot.  

The fence prevents the garden from getting the early morning's sun, but somewhere around 10:00, the sun starts peeking over the top.  From then until dusk, the spot is bathed in full unfiltered sunlight. 
   
The ground here has a very slight slope which should help with drainage, and we never use this part of the yard for anything, but it is close enough to our house, water hose, and gardening tools to make it convenient.  It's also easily viewed from the back of the house and driveway so every time we come and go we'll be reminded to tend it. 

Up Next:
Adventures in Gardening Pt. 2 - Soil Test

Birhouse Gourds - also for the birds

Last year, I planted bird house gourds along our only open section of fence, and aside from scattering some wild flower seed, it was the only bit of planting I did.  

Apparently, they liked the location.  They grew beautifully climbing along the fence with such vigor that my neighbor told me her husband thought that we'd planted Kudzu on the fence.  After assuring her that the vines were not Kudzu, but rather Birdhouse gourds, she was relieved.  Not wanting to be a bad neighbor, I would sneak into their yard when they weren't home to coax the vines back on our side, and cut back the pesky bits that didn't want to cooperate.  

By fall,I had about 10 nice sized gourds which I set aside to dry.  My inexperience with the drying process led to a few issues with moldy gourds that had to be tossed, so by Winter, I was down to 6.  The first sunny days of spring, I scrubbed the gourds clean and cut holes in them with a hole saw.   Most fared well, but one broke, giving me a nice opportunity to turn it into a scoop for potting mix.

Next, I painted the gourds with white exterior paint to reflect the hot summer sun so baby birds don't cook. 

On a whim, I decorated 3 of them.  I'm not sure they'll attract any birds, but at least they're nice to look at.