Gardening, Uncomplicate.

Garden Hack: Plastic Tubs as Mini-Greenhouses

May 9, 2021 Beth Comments 0 Comment

This gardening hack is something I started doing way back in my much more complicated life. For 14 years my business year started and ended in May: my Art Licensing contracts pretty much all came from and led to exhibiting at Surtex, an annual tradeshow for the Surface Design industry. My focus and obsession for months leading up to the show was booth displays, handouts, portfolios full of new art. Must. Have. All. The. Art. Springtime, instead of a time for planning and planting my garden like I’d done all those years before, was my annual mad-scramble to finish all the extra last-minute stuff I decided I had to have done. I rarely took days off anyway back in those years, but spring was the worst of all when it came to any kind of self-care or real-life stuff.

All the local annual plant sales as well as prime planting time in my area happened anywhere from 2 weeks before I left to the week I was in NY for the show. After I got home, I’d hit the ground running with show follow-up, sending out samples, and starting newly requested projects. By the time I was ready to come up for air long enough to think about planting my little vegetable garden, most garden centers only had a few sad, dry, leggy starts stuffed into a back corner – if that. I might get plants at a discount this way but my beloved garden had become an afterthought and I hated that.

After way too many years of this I finally decided I needed a compromise and a way to grow what I wanted around my busy work schedule. I started going to my favorite plant sale the first weekend of May with no spare moments to actually do anything but keep the little plants safe and healthy as possible until I got home later in the month. Doing this meant I’d be forced to take a day off as soon as I got back to plant them. An actual day off. This was me taking baby steps toward a healthier less-complicated life – gotta start somewhere, right?

I needed a setup that was simple for me during a stressful & busy time and something my house-sitter could deal with fairly easily the week I was gone, so I bought some clear plastic storage tubs with clear lids to keep them in for those few weeks. The tubs were large enough the seedlings could fit inside with the lid closed to stack in my tiny living room by the front door at night, then move out to the porch during the daytime for fresh air and sunlight. This became an easy way to harden them off slowly to be ready for planting a few weeks later.

Fast-forward what feels like a thousand years to my new life and my bigger garden, where I’m back to starting everything from seed: my plastic tub method has been a great way to manage seedlings until I get a proper greenhouse (someday!).

They’re like mini-greenhouses early in the season, and portable cold-frames when it gets closer to planting time.

When the seeds are first planted, the tubs can get moved around, taking turns between warm windows and the couple heat mats and grow lights I have inside. With the lids closed, it provides a nice humid little space for them to germinate.

planting tomato seeds on a snowy February day

cat-proofing indoor tubs with stuff I have on hand

When it starts getting warm enough during the day, I can start transitioning them outside to the patio with the lids on or off depending on weather. Good air flow is important for these tender little babies, but spring weather can be a little harsh: hard rain or direct sunlight on those rare hot early spring days can sometimes be too much, and their leaves may get sunburned. Leaving the lids on, propped up with a stick (or whatever else is handy) works great for protecting them while still letting in sunlight and air.

Then, late in the day while they’re still warm from the afternoon sun, I’ll lid them up and bring them inside for the night, stacking the bins in a safe place until morning. As their final planting day gets closer, I start leaving them out during the day without a lid overhead for protection, and to harden them off to outside temperatures I’ll usually leave them outside for a few nights first with lids on and then without, before planting them in the garden.

When it’s finally time to plant, I can just carry the tubs out to the garden. Easy peasy.

I haven’t done this yet, but turning a tub upside down over tender direct-seeded starts could provide extra early-season protection from cold, or even emergency-coverage in hard rain or hail. Clear plastic tubs for the win, right?

Someday I’ll have a real greenhouse, but until then, my plastic tub method has been an excellent way to keep my babies safe and healthy from the time the seeds are planted until they’re moved into their beds.

The Veggie Garden: Scheduling Plantings

March 2, 2021 Beth Comments 0 Comment

So, you’ve decided what to grow, you’ve gotten your seeds and are ready to go. Now what?

Last year I procrastinated starting my seeds for so long (motivation-killing global pandemic and all, we all had our own versions of this, right?) when I finally started planting I just threw everything I had into little pots on the same day and hoped for the best.

Most new things I’d planned to plant either weren’t available (because 2020) and I’ll admit I didn’t make the best choices for alternative vendors when my favorite sources were closed for quarantine, so a lot was delayed even further. But again, not rocket science, right? Plants grow. It all worked out.

Moving forward though, I wanted to be a little more organized and really utilize the seasons and this space to their potential. Or rather, start learning how to do that.

It started with organizing my saved and purchased seeds. After being totally intimidated by that fancy alphabetized drawer system I saw on Instagram last month I started to brainstorm about how I should organize mine: alphabetizing and color-coordinating stuff is kind of my thing but what made more sense for me is to file them in order of when I’ll be planting them. I checked each packet’s instructions (sometimes this is in the seed catalog or I might have details noted in my little garden journal) and started laying out little stacked packets by planting date until my table looked like I was playing a game of Solitaire, and realized this could all make more sense with some kind of spreadsheet or calendar.

The Virgo in me is all about lists and schedules and charts, but the word “spreadsheet” seems to bring on a spontaneous eye-twitch so I drew it out by hand instead of using actual software meant for stuff like that. I’m weird that way.

I double-checked my average last-frost date online and marked it on my calendar and counted backwards from that for the number of weeks before that date it was recommended to plant, noting which things to start indoors and which to direct sow in the garden.

I find it helpful to see the weeks spread out visually this way: somehow anything, even the passing of time, seems more real if I can just look at a picture or chart.

So far this has really helped me figure this all out. My seeds may not appear more organized in their same little old cardboard box but they’re all lined up in order of planting dates. After planting something, the packet or jar just goes to the back of the box behind those I haven’t yet planted.

So far so good.

tomatoes and greens from the first planting 2 weeks ago

teeny tiny basil (& friends) planted last week

If you’d like to use my planting calendar to fill-in your own gardening schedule, I’ve tidied it up and saved it as a PDF you can download here for free and print out yourself. It’s organized into two pages of pre-dated 12-week schedules (starting with this week!) and a third page left blank so you can fill in your own dates and start any time or keep using it for late-summer and fall planting. If you’re not sure of your own average frost dates, you can find them here on the Old Farmer’s Almanac website (US and Canada).

Of course weather isn’t guaranteed so exact dates for hardening off and transplanting out will probably change as we get closer, but it helps to have a general idea. I mean, who hasn’t had to run outside in a mad frenzy trying to salvage tiny seedlings they transplanted the day before from a freak hailstorm or random foot of April snow, right?

If you download and use this Planting Schedule, please let me know how it works for you! I’d love to hear your feedback and some of your own organizing and scheduling ideas. I realize there are a lot of more involved and detailed garden planners out there, but I kind of like a simpler approach that gives me more control over the details. Maybe some of you out there are like me, and hopefully you find this template useful.

The Veggie Garden: What Should You Grow?

February 19, 2021 Beth Comments 0 Comment

It’ll be here before we know it: garden season!

This year I’ve noticed a shift in how I’m planning the garden. Back in my shady little city garden I was successful and satisfied to eat backyard salads during the summer months, maybe have enough berries to bake something once or twice during the summer. Aside from my usual short-season tomatoes, scattered herbs and greens, I might splurge on a plant or variety that sounded fun or different.

The first season in a larger space I guess I did that same thing but on a larger scale. Then last year I started planting things I buy more often, or have trouble finding now that I no longer live a couple blocks from Whole Foods or my old favorite co-op.

I realized I had been buying a spaghetti squash every week or two from the grocery store or farmer’s market. So I planted a ton of spaghetti squash. We started harvesting and eating them in July when my big, sturdy (!) squash arch started to bend and break under the weight of dozens of squash, and here in February we’re still enjoying them weekly but there are about a gazillion still out in the garage . . . so, ok, there’s a lesson learned.

just one squash harvest in mid-September

Same thing with the tomatoes. I thought I could never have enough tomatoes, and I have literally a freezer full of tomato puree (so fortunate to have lots of freezer space here).

I grew a second crop of peas in the fall but didn’t get many from it. I had been freezing shelled peas all summer but I ran out mid-winter and I’ve been back to buying bags of frozen peas on my monthly shopping trips. I was giddy to have grown my very first crop of potatoes last summer and had a good couple baskets stored away in the fall, but I’ve been back to store-bought potatoes again. Note to self: grow more peas and potatoes. Right?

my first potatoes (and green tomato photobomb)

Why haven’t I been growing my own cabbage for homemade sauerkraut? I’m still buying grocery store celery: I should be growing that. Dry beans, more string beans, more carrots. I end up buying all of that stuff eventually. We eat a lot of homemade soup during the colder months so I should be growing more of my usual soup ingredients. So many things could occupy some of that space left when growing a few less tomatoes and squash, right?

To me, this feels like some new amazing concept (!) but I realize it’s just Beginners Gardening and Homesteading 101: Day 1 Stuff, right? But many of us seasoned gardeners have never really grown this way: thinking like a homesteader or farmer. We’ve basically been grocery shoppers who grow a few extra things because we like them, or they’re fun to grow. It’s a definite shift in thinking for many of us and a key step toward living more sustainably.

We’ve been conditioned to survive as consumers, depending on others for our most basic needs: we run out of something in the pantry or fridge, we get in our car and drive to the store and pick it up. This was totally my life back in the city. Several times a week. I used the excuse that my house was tiny and I didn’t have room to keep stuff on hand, plus there were multiple grocery stores and restaurants within a couple blocks. Honestly though, it was just easier to not have to think about stuff until I needed it.

Quarantines and closures this past year forced all of us to rethink the way we shop and eat to some extent, but even as restrictions loosen and life gets back to “normal” we have the opportunity to change our habits for the better.

Growing more of your own groceries doesn’t have to be rocket science.

Even if you have limited space for growing or storing year-round, you can become a lot more practical about how you’re using your space by thinking about your garden this way. What do you buy a lot of that you could actually grow yourself? Chances are you can fit some of that into existing garden beds or a few more pots on your patio, and extend its usability by utilizing shelves in a cool corner of your garage or basement or even the space in the back of the freezer where that old bottle of vodka is pretending to be a woolly mammoth buried behind a giant ledge of frost.

And along the way, you’ll learn what you could use more (or less) of and what crops are really worth your time, energy and space.

It’s time to get planning what you’d really like to grow now. What do you buy and eat a lot of that you could be growing? What would be awesome to have in your freezer or pantry next winter? Buy those seeds or make your lists for the spring plant sales in your area.

Start small or go big, either way it’s going to be an amazing year!

Starting from Seed: Planning and Buying Seeds

February 11, 2021 Beth Comments 0 Comment

It’s that time of year again: time for buying garden seeds and planning what and where we’ll grow it all. This is that endless-possibilities time, the hopeful, looking-forward time: winter won’t last forever and this year will be better than ever, right?

The last few years, January and February slipped by super fast with a lot of mumbling to myself about how I really need to get going and order/plant seeds. Yeah. I need to get on that. Like, yesterday. You know how that goes. Then suddenly, like 2 months have swished by and there’s a global pandemic and you can’t buy anything from anyone in a reasonable time frame and all your motivation has been sucked out into the void and… Yeah. We all had our versions of that last year, right?

This year I really felt like I had my shit together (I should know better whenever I start to think that). It was still January when I finally sat down to pour through my seed catalogs and plan the garden, but by the time I was ready to place my orders, one of my favorite seed houses had already put new orders “on hold until we catch up with the first round” setting that order back at least a couple weeks, maybe a month. The company that was still taking orders had already sold out of a few of the key items I had been hoping for. What? I’m already late?

Ok. Deep breath. It’s still just the beginning of February, I’m still ahead of the curve, right? It’s all good.

After my first order arrived I sat down with my little garden journal and coffee can of saved seed packets, once again feeling pretty smug about how organized and on time I’m being with all this. I’ve got this all under control: I should write a blog post! Yeah, that’s it. Because, look how on top of it all I am? This inspiration should be shared with the world.

But before I started, I took a break and peeked at Instagram, where the first post on my feed was a local homesteader’s photo of her gorgeously super-organized seed-filing system, categorized and alphabetized in a clear plastic bin of neatly labeled drawers. People had been commenting on her post about their own super-organized systems and the cool gardeners who had inspired them, and I just sat here looking kind of like that little emoji with the straight line mouth. Or maybe the one with no mouth at all. Leave it to social media to completely zap creativity and self-esteem, right? I put down my phone and switched gears to business admin stuff and housework while my little coffee can of seeds and empty garden map sat untouched on my desk for a few more days.

Here’s the thing: there will always be folks who have more beautiful or organized or spacious gardens or homesteads than us. Who know more than us. Bloggers who make it look easier or more romantic. The important thing is we keep moving forward, keep trying, keep learning.

Each year we have the opportunity to build on what we learned the year before, and that’s awesome. Three years in, I still say stuff to myself like “I can’t call myself a homesteader, I still don’t even have chickens.” But I keep learning and improving what I’m already doing. I’ll get there.

So, we’re going to call that photo above a “before” shot of my garden and seed organization system. I’m probably not ever going to have that flawless alphabetized drawer system I saw, but I’ll invent something along the way that works for me and my space, and hopefully I’ll share some ideas you’ll find inspiring and useful for your own seeds.

When it comes to seeds, I prefer to purchase locally grown: it just makes sense that a grower from your own area can provide something that will do well in your garden and will have growing advice specific to your climate. Here in the Pacific Northwest, my most recent favorite sources have been Adaptive Seeds & Territorial Seeds (this is NOT a paid endorsement, I just really like what both companies have to offer). Seed Saver’s Exchange has always been a great source for heirloom varieties, and here in my town, our local Naturopathic Health Center just started a seed-swap for local gardeners. A quick internet search should turn up some great sources in your own areas, from seed growing companies to Facebook groups for gardeners and farmers: a wealth of information right at your fingertips.

Next I’ll dive a little deeper into planning the garden and scheduling plantings, but for now: if you’re not already way ahead of me, there’s still time to get going and pull out your saved seeds and/or buy new ones. Let’s do this!

It may look like this out there right now, but spring is coming! What do you want to grow this year?

Listening to Nature

January 11, 2021 Beth Comments 0 Comment

Last summer we started carving paths through the brush and trees to more easily enjoy different areas around our little homestead.

One of these little paths has a stairway over a rocky hill (actually it’s old railroad ballast: just big rocks piled on more rocks filled in with little rocks) and when I finished the stairway in late-summer, I transplanted a little fern that had been growing in the center of the path. It was the hottest driest part of the year so I hauled buckets of water to the little guy daily, but by mid-fall I was sad to see it seemed to have not made the transition and was completely brown and shriveled (you can see its little brown fronds hanging over the stairs in the very center of this photo).

Last month I walked back up and over the little hill for the first time in a while, and was greeted by a gazillion little baby ferns sprouting on the other side of the hump where there had only been rocks, dirt and a little moss before.

In the middle of what we usually think of as the greyest and deadest part of the year, fresh little green stuff is busy filling in every possible crack in the woods.

All these tiny woodland babies just celebrating the return of the wettest season made me smile, and reminded me Nature has it all under control.

I’ve been growing and gardening my whole life, most of that time spent in a more urban environment. I built little areas and planted stuff and pulled out the weeds. I mean, that’s what you do, right? I spent almost half a century obsessively studying gardening books and pouring through gardening magazines for fun. I felt like I kind of knew a lot about growing stuff.

Living out here where I’ve spent most of my days from spring through fall working outdoors, I realize how much more I’ve learned about growing in these 3 short years than all those other years put together. The plants and the land tell me what’s up: what they need, what they like, where they should be. It’s taken me a while to realize this was happening, to actually listen to what Nature is trying to teach me. It makes me even more excited to get back outside and work together with this place to create more useful yet sustainable spaces for producing food and simply enjoying.

This concept isn’t exclusive to living in the country, this is just where I finally slowed down enough to actually listen and learn. Nature shows us what’s up in a crack in the sidewalk if we take the time to look and listen. Uncomplicating the way we interact with Nature is key, and I’m still learning how to do that.

Tomato Season: Extended Dance Version

January 8, 2021 Beth Comments 0 Comment

Ok so maybe there’s not any dancing (sorry/not-sorry) but it was definitely extended as long as possible.

My old city-garden was heavily tomato-centric due to limited time and space. I grew other stuff but my main focus was always the one thing that is so superior to its store-bought version, my favorite food: fresh tomatoes. Once again I brought my old habits with me to my new space and I’m still learning to let them go. I used to say “there’s no such thing as too many tomatoes” but I may have learned my lesson this year.

Or not.

I got a way-too-late start on my tomatoes this year. Most normal gardeners are wrapping up in early October but my tomato plants were just hitting their peak: I was literally popping cherry tomatoes in my mouth all day long and we were feasting on Caprese salads for dinner almost every night. It was kind of heaven.

My October garden was chaotic, messy, and prolific. But when several days of hard-frost were predicted by the 3rd week, it was time to think about extending the growing season indoors.

I’ve had good luck in the past ripening end-of-season tomatoes in paper bags loosely folded shut: the bag allows some air flow, and the ethylene gas they release is trapped in the bag and causes them to ripen more quickly. Check them daily for soft spots or mold which will spread quickly to the rest of the fruit in the bag leaving you with a yucky wet mess.

I needed a new system to keep track of this many tomatoes. I wanted the fruit to get whatever nutrients and moisture they could from their vines, so for 2 days straight I harvested 2-3′ long vines, tying them together in bundles and hanging them from sloppy makeshift nails and wires in my kitchen.

The vines dried out within a couple days but the fruit continued to ripen slowly for another month. As the vines dried they shrunk a lot. I’d bundled a few with rubber bands but most were held together with twine and wire, which I had to scramble to tighten after the vines dried out to keep them from slipping out of their bundles.

Even after the vines were dried up, they benefited from the air flow and I didn’t lose too many to rot or mold. Every few days I’d roast or freeze another small batch, and had to stay on top of that because once they ripened they would soften way faster than summer tomatoes.

As the weeks passed they became less flavorful, but they were still far superior to grocery store tomatoes.

By November 20th they were done, and so was I.

We savored the last fresh tasty one and I processed and froze the last batch.

I never really counted how many quart bags of fresh, roasted, and smoked tomatoes I ended up with, but every time I go get a bag out of the freezer I feel sort of rich. I love how easy the bags are: they thaw super fast and are so easy to add to a dish.

I’m starting to plan this year’s garden and am trying hard to focus on a little more diversity and – yes – a few less tomatoes. What are you excited about growing this year?

The Grotto

October 9, 2020 Beth Comments 0 Comment

One of my favorite spots on the property has become this happy little corner of the back yard we created this summer.

Day or night this is an awesome spot to sit and enjoy a lovely beverage or a snack, or just stop and breathe for a moment.

It started as just another sunny spot in this new space, home to a falling-apart old rabbit hutch.

Our first spring we brought home a couple little grape plants from the Spring Fair at our local grange and decided this would be the perfect corner to start a little arbor.

JD had been clearing overgrown brush and dragging cool-shaped dead branches out of the weeds that we were saving from the burn pile because they were just too cool to waste. He lashed together a natural little arch and I loved it.

We get quite a wind through here so he installed the main “posts” in concrete, like fence posts. We didn’t get any grapes yet, but the plants seemed ok with the setup.

The second spring we came home from the Spring Fair with 2 more little grape plants and a plan to expand and reinforce the arbor with a second set of posts. We had been focused on building the vegetable garden all spring and had been creating support structures with more found branches and JD just kept finding more awesome pieces to work with. Although I thought the original arbor structure was amazing, he had been looking at it all year critiquing it with his perfectionist engineer eye, and was enthusiastic to improve on its design and stability.

2 more posts were installed in concrete, additional arch and support branches were wired together, and the new grapes got planted in their new home. After the structure was in place, we realized what a nice little spot it was.

I trimmed back some of the weeds and set my old garden bench back in there. The ground was lumpy, rocky and full of snowberry roots and weeds but it was kind of nice.

That year, we got tiny baby grapes on 2 of the plants but critters got to them before we did. Still, the plants seemed to be doing pretty well. I used a lot of the leaves when I canned pickles: the tannin in grape leaves helps the pickles stay crisp.

This last spring JD would disappear outside for hours: when I’d go looking for him, I’d find him dragging more and more cool shaped branches out of the brush, adding to his creation. He was determined to create shade in our little nest and was adding branches thick with usnea for even more protection from the sun. The whole thing started reminding me of Carol’s creations in Where the Wild Things Are (the movie). He’d lay out smaller, more flexible branches from thinned brush for me to “do my magic” with: braiding and wiring them in between the larger branches in swirly shapes.

The structure was solid but now it was time to focus on the inside.

We had some large, super-heavy concrete sample pieces we’d picked up for free from a local contractor that I’d been saving for another project but decided they’d be exactly what we needed for a flat, solid base for any seating or tables we’d want in there. While I spent hours on my hands and knees with a pick and shovel clearing out roots and rocks, JD was out back prying rocks from the back of the property and hauling them closer for me to build up the areas around it (fun fact, the “ridge” behind our house had been built up as railroad ballast so the whole thing is just…rocks. Big rocks, small rocks, crushed rocks. Lots. Of. Rocks).

We laid down landscaping/barrier fabric, crushed rock, and sifted/clean(ish) soil and set the pavers and stones in place. I built up a little terrace at the back and we planted ferns from our woods and laid crushed rock for a path along the back. I couldn’t wait to get my bits of mosses and Corsican mint planted between the pavers so that stuff went in next.

This was when the space named itself: The Grotto! Ferns and rocks always add a bit of magic to a space for me: I’m so grateful to live somewhere with so much of both all around me.

Once that was in place, it seemed like the little hill toward the dog-path behind it needed a couple stairs, so JD headed back out to the ridge for some flat rocks to use as stairs and I worked them into place. Then it seemed like we needed some smaller pavers heading toward those stairs to go with the larger salvaged concrete ones and decided to build them in place: we laid out wood scraps with duct tape at the corners in the shapes we wanted, and poured concrete to the height of the other pavers. I gently pressed pretty little rocks from my collection into the surface while the concrete was still wet.

While we waited for that to dry, I got back on my hands and knees with my pick and carved out paths on the hill behind it: using the trails where the dogs run as my guide, terracing as necessary with rocks JD had been hauling from the ridge. I finally started pulling some of my old rusty treasures out of the barn that I’d saved from my grandparents’ property. They had lived on a steep hillside with terraces and paths carved throughout the woods; I miss that place dearly and I’ve always wanted to create my own version. This is just a start.

I’m so happy with what we created so far.

I can’t say it’s finished because this stuff is always a work in progress.

As I unpack my buckets of rusty goodies from the barn, stuff gets added here and there.

Making this property into our own space is a lot of work but it makes me smile. This spot has been fun to share with our few-and-far-between socially-distanced outdoor visitors this summer…I kind of wish you could just join me there right now. 🙂

As for the grapes: well, that can be the focus for this space next year! The plants seem healthy enough, I’m just going to have to do a little research on how to keep them happy. I’ll keep you posted!

Roasted and Smoked Tomato Goodness

July 10, 2020 Beth Comments 2 comments

After my late start this spring I’m still just in the dreaming-of-the-future stage with this year’s tomato harvest. They’re coming along nicely but it will be a while before I get that magical taste of late-summer I look forward to the rest of the year.

As I mentioned before, my old gardening habits from my small, shady city backyard don’t exactly fly here in my sunny country garden. In my old garden, I pretty much only ever had enough tomatoes to eat the day I harvested them. An already short season here in the Pacific Northwest is even shorter in the partial shade, so I had given up on growing larger varieties and focused on cherry and grape tomatoes that I could pop in my mouth and enjoy as they ripened, or throw in a fresh pasta dish that same evening.

Fast-forward to my first country garden: I planted as I always had before, and ended up with out of control cherry tomato vines with way more than we could eat fresh. I only grew 1 variety of larger tomatoes (gorgeous and tasty “Orange You Glad“) and had way more than we could eat of those, too. My answer to preserving much of this goodness was roasting and smoking them for sauce.

If you haven’t roasted tomatoes before you’re in for a treat. It’s been my go-to solution for years to use up those pale, flavorless off-season grocery store tomatoes (I’ve always called them “cardboard tomatoes”, you know the ones). Cut those icky old things up into chunks and stick them in the oven with a little olive oil, sprinkled with some salt, pepper, herbs and maybe a couple splashes of balsamic vinegar: you end up with sweet, caramelized tomatoey goodness.

Hit that with an immersion blender or throw it in the food processor and you’ve got a killer rich sauce for pasta, you don’t even need to peel the tomatoes first. Our favorite is to toss the puree with roasted spaghetti squash and top with generous amounts of Parmesan and cracked black pepper.

Roasting is awesome, but I’ve become even more obsessed the last couple years with smoking fruit in our little electric smoker, and tomatoes are excellent smoked. I like to use the smoked puree as an ingredient in soups and sauces more than a stand-alone sauce, as it can be pretty strong on its own.

Last summer I would roast and/or smoke a batch or two of tomatoes every few days and usually just freeze quart bags of them as I went. By September the kitchen counter was always full of tomatoes.

We ate a lot, I froze some, canned some, but mainly stuck with freezing the roasted sauce as I didn’t have an accurate feel for acidity (as in, canning safety) for each different roasted batch.

By the end of October we were overrun with green tomatoes that needed to be used right away.

I tried making some smoked green tomato salsa that wasn’t as exciting as I’d hoped (will be experimenting and tweaking that recipe this year and will keep you posted). The salsa was sort of meh on its own, but it and the roasted and smoked green puree has been an excellent addition to soups, chili, and other sauces this past year.

If you’ve got a little freezer space, or just want to try some roasted or smoked sauce now, it’s a simple way to enjoy your harvest, or even those icky cardboard grocery-store tomatoes if that’s what you’ve got!

Roasted or Smoked Tomato Sauce:

Scroll down for printable instructions/recipe!

Cut any variety/shape of tomato in medium/large fairly uniform size chunks (no need to peel them!). Size isn’t that important as long as they’re all around the same size so they cook up the same. I like to halve cherry tomatoes for this so they release the juices but it’s not necessary. Place in a single layer cut-side up in a deep baking sheet lined with parchment. The tomatoes may release quite a bit of liquid while cooking so it’s important to do this in a pan with edges so it doesn’t run all over your oven.

Toss a little olive oil, salt and pepper, and whatever herbs you prefer (I usually use basil and oregano, fresh from the garden or dried).

For roasted tomatoes: Roast in a 400 degree oven until their released juices get bubbly and caramelized and they just start to darken up. Depending on the size of your chunks and the moisture content, this is usually 20-50 minutes. Some tomatoes will appear very dry through this process, others get really juicy as they cook. These were all “eating tomatoes” rather than paste/sauce tomatoes but still the liquid content varied quite a bit.

For smoked tomatoes: I’ve only smoked tomatoes in a small electric smoker so I suggest you use the basic guidelines in your smoker’s manual (or previous smoking experience!) for the perfect smoked tomatoes. I prepare the tomatoes the same as for roasting and use a small pie pan or piece of foil lined with parchment to contain the released juices.

I’ve used alder and mesquite chips for tomatoes but still can’t decide which we like best! I’ve had the best success smoking them at a medium-high temperature (275-300) until they bubble and caramelize a bit. This won’t happen as dramatically as higher-heat roasting and a little more juice will still be present when they’re cooked.

If you’re going to eat the sauce right away, transfer the warm tomatoes to a heatproof bowl and puree with an immersion blender, or place in a food processor and pulse until smooth. Toss with your favorite pasta and top with cheese for a simple and delicious dinner.

If you’ll be saving the sauce for later, it’s all much easier to handle if you let the roasted tomatoes cool before pureeing/processing. Refrigerate the pureed sauce for up to a week, or after it’s completely cool you can fill freezer bags to enjoy the flavors of summer the rest of the year.

Roasted or Smoked Tomato Sauce

Print Recipe

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 1

Course Main Course, Side Dish

Equipment

oven or smoker

Ingredients

Fresh Tomatoes - cut into uniform chunks
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper - to taste
Fresh or Dried Herbs - optional

Instructions

Cut any variety/shape of tomato in medium/large fairly uniform size chunks (no need to peel them!). Size isn't that important as long as they're all around the same size so they cook up the same. I like to halve cherry tomatoes for this so they release the juices but it's not necessary. Place in a single layer cut-side up in a deep baking sheet lined with parchment. The tomatoes may release quite a bit of liquid while cooking so it's important to do this in a pan with edges so it doesn't run all over your oven.
Toss a little olive oil, salt and pepper, and whatever herbs you prefer (I usually use basil and oregano, fresh from the garden or dried).
For roasted tomatoes: Roast in a 400 degree oven until their released juices get bubbly and caramelized and they just start to darken up. Depending on the size of your chunks and the moisture content, this is usually 20-50 minutes. Some tomatoes will appear very dry through this process, others get really juicy as they cook. These were all "eating tomatoes" rather than paste/sauce tomatoes but still the liquid content varied quite a bit.
For smoked tomatoes: I've only smoked tomatoes in a small electric smoker so I suggest you use the basic guidelines in your smoker's manual (or previous smoking experience!) for the perfect smoked tomatoes. I prepare the tomatoes the same as for roasting and use a small pie pan or piece of foil lined with parchment to contain the released juices.
I've used alder and mesquite chips for tomatoes but still can't decide which we like best! I've had the best success smoking them at a medium-high temperature (275-300) until they bubble and caramelize a bit. This won't happen as dramatically as higher-heat roasting and a little more juice will still be present when they're cooked.
If you're going to eat the sauce right away, transfer the warm tomatoes to a heatproof bowl and puree with an immersion blender, or place in a food processor and pulse until smooth. Toss with your favorite pasta and top with cheese for a simple and delicious dinner.
If you'll be saving the sauce for later, it's all much easier to handle if you let the roasted tomatoes cool before pureeing/processing. Refrigerate the pureed sauce for up to a week, or after it's completely cool you can fill freezer bags to enjoy the flavors of summer the rest of the year.

Keyword canning and preserving, quick dinner, tomato sauce

Oh Deer.

June 9, 2020 Beth Comments 0 Comment

If you’re gardening anywhere outside of the center of a city, you deal with deer, right?

And if there’s anything those little buggers like even more than wreaking havoc on the highway by leaping out right in front of your vehicle, it’s wreaking havoc on your edible and ornamental plants.

Having previously lived in the center of a city for 35 years, I’m still rather new to this conflict and am still creatively inventing what works here (and what doesn’t). Much of what I know I’ve just read, but I’m getting a little more first-hand experience every year.

I used to assume they’d steer clear of a yard with obnoxiously barking dogs, but no: these guys just walk in slow motion, like a cat, while my dogs give themselves coronaries freaking out about the oversized intruders to their territory. It’s sort of hilarious, really. What’s not hilarious, though, is the damage they can do.

Planting pest-resistant and repellent plants has always been appealing to me as a way deal with nuisances. No plant is 100% deer-proof, as they’ll sample pretty much anything that looks interesting, then decide whether to come back later for more. Deer in different areas have different “tastes” (dietary needs depending on what else is available) but there are some things they all seem to dislike: mainly super-aromatic plants. This includes most herbs: sage, thyme, rosemary, lavender, oregano, catmint, bee-balm, yarrow. All the stuff I love to smell, so that’s a win-win.

They also will avoid plants with fuzzy or hairy foliage like lamb’s ear, yarrow, even cucumbers and squash are usually a little too prickly for them. Other plants with toxic compounds that cause stomach upset are poppies, bleeding hearts, euphorbia, daffodils, and ferns. They don’t like grasses and are offended by the onion family. However, they are delicate nibblers and will gently browse the good stuff from in-between the bad. I watched a deer in my yard gently strip all the tiny leaves off an entire snowberry bush while avoiding every single (toxic) berry.

This of course isn’t a complete list, but it gives you a good idea where to start if you’d like to plant a deer-resistant garden.

My own pest-repellent garden is coming along slowly but surely.

Here, the main vegetable garden is fenced and kind of a dense/busy area with all the raised beds and structures. I know if a deer really wanted to, they could easily clear the 6′ wire fence, but so far they haven’t bothered – I’d like to think it just looks like too much trouble to risk entering that small of a space (only time will tell).

But in one of the outer areas of the yard, there’s an adorably short (as in, perfect deer-browsing height) little crab apple tree with the sweetest, most perfumey little apples I’ve ever tasted. Every spring it’s loaded with blossoms, but so far we’ve only gotten a few apples come September.

Years ago, long before I lived anywhere near a deer, I read a letter to the editor in Organic Gardening magazine saying they’d had great luck hanging Irish Spring soap in their tree branches to deter deer. I would enthusiastically share this tip with friends from the suburbs and country every time they’d lament about deer, but was usually answered with “no, NOTHING will deter these beasts” and I’m pretty sure none of them ever tried it.

The first summer here, I talked about that a lot, but didn’t get around to buying the soap until late in the season. It seemed like I may have saved a couple apples this way, and a couple apples was all we got. Last summer I was a little more on-the-ball and hung a bunch of bars mid-summer. Deer still ate several apples, but the ones closest to the bars of soap were left untouched.

This tree is small and as the apples grow, they weigh the branches down nearly to the ground if we don’t prop them up with stakes. I had been hanging whole and half bars, which weighed them down even more. It took me a couple seasons to realize on this particular tree, I should have been hanging more and smaller pieces closer to the apples rather than just the few big heavy ones.

Just a couple weeks ago we noticed that although the apples are still tiny (and must be crazy-sour!) our deer had wandered through and sampled several clusters of apples and tender leaves.

So I went out and bought a big package of my trusty Irish Spring: this time cutting each bar into 4 or 6 smaller chunks that I could hang closer to each apple cluster and farther out on the ends of the branches without additional staking.

I cut several pieces of garden twine about 12″ long each to tightly wrap each soap chunk like a little present. Tying it tightly pulls the twine into the soft soap a bit, securing it – but be careful not to pull it too tightly or you’ll cut right through the soap.

There’s enough string to tie around the branches; some are secured tightly to the branch, others dangle a bit just below the clusters of apples, depending on its location in the tree. I had good luck last summer using the smaller chunks like this in a beloved rose bush, although the aesthetic quality of brightly colored, highly-scented soap chunks in an ornamental shrub may not appeal to most folks.

I realize these smaller pieces may need to be replaced during the growing season from rain and weather, but you can smell the soap just walking past so I’m hopeful they choose to leave it alone. JD picked up a few more big packages of Irish Spring the other day, so we won’t run out before the apples ripen.

I think creativity is key here: keep trying different methods to confuse and annoy them. A few days after hanging the soap pieces, I wrapped some of the branches with old Christmas tinsel that will move a little in the breeze. Next week I’ll hang some metallic curling ribbon from the branch tips as well (I had the ribbon out already to try to keep the birds out of my strawberries, but that’s another subject for another day!). By the time the apples are ready to eat, this poor little tree will look even more ridiculous, but at least we’ll get to enjoy those amazing little treats.

And finally, I originally tried Irish Spring because that’s what had been recommended by the other OG reader in their letter to the editor so many years before. I also tried a pack of Old Spice because it seemed pretty highly-perfumed also – but the Old Spice not only didn’t deter my deer, but was also apparently a delicious treat for the local rats.

Do you have any tried-and-true methods to keep deer out of your favorite plants? I’d love to hear them.

The Edible Garden, Year 1: Lessons Learned

May 18, 2020 Beth Comments 0 Comment

Well, technically this was Year 2; the first year’s garden consisted of a couple pots of tomatoes on the patio while we watched the movement of sun and shade through the growing season and started getting to know the property.

Months of sketching, mapping, & measuring led up to this. I used to be the throw-stuff-together-however-I-can-and-call-it-good type, but I now share my space and my life with a mechanical engineer, so stuff gets measured and steps don’t get skipped. And I’ve got to admit, it’s kind of awesome this way.

We’ve got crazy-dense hard red clay here that sticks to and looks like dog poop on your boots, so I thought raised beds would be the way to go.

I’ve always built my beds with this no-till layered method: I first saw it in one of my parents’ Organic Gardening magazines when I was a kid (yeah, I was that little girl who read OG and Prevention magazines for fun). Although I’m pretty sure it has a real name that makes it sound more official, I’ve always just called it Lazy-Bed Gardening.

For smaller beds I’ll turn over a section of turf/weeds (didn’t do that here) spread a layer or two of cardboard and/or newspaper, a layer of raw/un-composted clippings, food & wood scraps, whatever’s on hand – then top it off with finished compost and garden soil. The cardboard/paper decomposes in a couple years but (supposedly) not until it’s suppressed any weeds still alive below. Every year as more layers break down I just add new soil/compost to the top.

I’d been saving all our big moving boxes for this as we unpacked. A ton of tall grass cleared from the creek area and 1-1/2 year’s of weeds & scraps seemed like a lot of composty-stuff to start with, but it just barely covered the cardboard. I ran over the whole mess a few times with the mower, then scooped the bulk of it into the bed areas.

We salvaged shipping frames for the 3 main beds from a local window manufacturer (normally they get broken down and trashed). I’d meticulously disassembled my bottle borders from my Seattle garden (I know, there are other bottles in the world, but I already had these) and they were packed and moved here. Rocks and random garbage found around the property finished the beds.

I showed JD some photos of squash-arches I’d saved in Pinterest and he designed the structures using branches and brush cleaned up around the property: we pre-assembled sections on the ground then screwed them to the bed-frames for stability.

By early May it was ready for planting. The topsoil blend I’d bought was seriously nitrogen-deficient and even with purchased/bagged compost my little seedlings had a super rocky start. We still don’t have chickens and I’d already used every bit of my compost building the beds so all my kitchen scraps and weed tops got buried in next to the babies and I fed them every concoction I could throw together trying to keep them from withering away in stunted, yellow-brown sadness.

By June, stuff was filling out and leaves were all green again. I was feeling like a real gardener. Someone in a nearby town had advertised free wood chips on Facebook Marketplace after removing a huge old pine tree from their front yard, and we gathered 3 truckloads to spread in the pathways between beds.

By August, I was like “we’re gonna need a bigger boat.” Flimsy posts weren’t enough for these tomatoes so almost daily I was adding sticks and tying up vines and trying to keep them upright. One morning I came out to the entire tangled structure of 30 or so plants leaning out of the bed at a 45 degree angle and had to run around finding stuff to prop it up before it took out one of the other beds as well.

I’ve been growing vegetables and herbs however I could manage for over 30 years but this is the first time I’ve had space for a dedicated vegetable garden with full-sun all day long, so I’m learning as I go. And in 1 year there have been a lot of lessons to learn.

I’ve always planted super-tightly which worked fine in the limited space/sun of my city garden. But the tomatoes were a ridiculous mess to manage and even harder to harvest, and maybe 1/3 of my Brussels sprouts and kohlrabi produced at all because they were suffering in the shade of those that did. I suspect that might have been the issue with a lot of my winter squash as well: 1 or 2 plants thrived and the rest just kind of sat there looking small and bored. My peppers which had been planted in the prime south-facing warm-soil spots in the 2 big beds got lost under the shade of the monster tomato vines anyway, and I got maybe 3 or 4 peppers from over a dozen plants.

My old chop-and-drop weeding method, immediately burying bits of the pesky buggers for a little extra nutrition, doesn’t work here either. These weeds are like creepy little aliens from a sci-fi movie: multiplying and becoming more powerful than ever when cut to bits or buried more deeply. Also, I’ve recently noticed the grass that pops up in my pathways has roots that run along the top of the cardboard layer: yup, it’s all that dried-but-not-composted grass I laid down first.

I’d like to think I know what I’m doing now but like everything else, there are a lot more lessons in store for me to learn. As May starts to wind down already I’m still trying to wrap up this year’s planting and be sure my little babies have the best chance to survive and thrive in the months ahead. Where there’s a garden, there’s always hope.

Uncomplicate.

in pursuit of a simpler, more sustainable creative life.

Category: Gardening