Happy New Year!!!!

May 2012 be a year of joy, contentment and love for all!  

Today's Bounty!!

Today was a nice quiet day for me spent mostly at home or close to home. I visited with my neighbor Jen  and her mom while she had her yard sale then came home to read. My afternoon was spent napping and clearing out beds in the garden. After 4 weeks of neglect the tomatoes had succumbed to a virus and insects were munching merrily on the tomatoes. Sadly, and with regret  I had to pull out all of my Amish Paste tomatoes which left only three Viva Italia plants. The rest of the garden was fair to middling and tomorrow I will be clearing out the other casualties as well as the weeds that have slowly crept into the beds.   

After the tomatoes were destroyed I walked around the yard and marveled at the sheer beauty of the plants and trees in our yard. I am a novice gardener at best and am consistently befuddled by what happens to my plants. They start out lush and beautiful then I turn my back and Mother Nature plays pranks. When I turn around again leaves are curled or bug bitten or plants are stunted or dead. Yet there are the successes, beans that are so prolific I have to can dilly beans so my husband does not have to eat them nightly for weeks. Cherries abundant enough to make cherry jam and freeze cherries for more jam later in the year and greens enough to keep us in salad for months. These successes balance out the annual failures in my garden and keep me trying again every season.  

Yes, I pulled most of my tomato plants. It is fine because I harvested enough green tomatoes to give a few away and to put up a few pints of green tomato chutney. It also opens space to put in more salad greens, some chard and anything else that strikes my fancy.

A little bit of Hope on a tree. Persian Lime blossoms.

   

My garden gives me hope. When I plant a seed I trust that eventually grow into a plant that will feed and nourish myself and my loved ones. May garden gives me patience. A plant does not simply produce right after planting. It takes time and effort- no instant gratification here. My garden gives me beauty. Working in the beds and in the yard puts me out in the paradise of South Florida. I can watch bees hop from plant to plant or see water droplets glistening like diamonds on emerald green leaves. 

Most of all my garden brings me peace. I can be overwhelmed by work and stretched to the limit. When I walk out that door and into the yard it all fades away. I don't even have to work in the garden I can simply stand and look around and the cares of the day dissolve into nothing.     

A snapshot of Peace and Beauty, Star Fruit buds (Carambola)

May 2012 be a year of hope, patience and beauty for you as well. With love from my garden to your home.
Have a Blessed and Happy New Year!!!   
Jo

The Garden is Done!!!!

The view from the patio. 

Rob has been working all day hauling stone to get the garden area finished this week end. His hard work has more than paid off and really dressed up my raised bed garden. I know it wasn't necessary to make it pleasing to the eye but this looks amazing. And it is less grass to water and mow. One more energy and time saver here on the home front.

Every year the garden expands a bit and every year Rob steps up to the plate and helps haul dirt and mulch, build new beds and generally do those things for me that I can't do without hurting myself or taking 8 times as long to accomplish. Doing all this without him would not be possible thus he is my hero for always helping me to make things better.

The view looking toward the house.

A little walk way off to the side. This is what got the whole project started!

Looking toward the patio.

So there it is! The "New and Improved" raised bed garden! Hope everyone has a great day!

Simply Food and the New Improved Garden!

After a lot of thought I decided I needed to get rid of my all over the place posting. And it has covered the gamut  of topics.

The one thing in my life that has been a constant, through thick and thin, is my love of food. All kinds of food, all cuisines, everything from how it is grown to cooking it and of course consuming it as well. Thus this blog is now dedicated to food. I can write about food safety, a subject I am passionate about and about my garden, a subject I am equally passionate about. As anyone who has been stuck next to me on the couch when the new seed catalogs arrive can testify..... you get to hear all about the amazing heirloom seeds and to see the beautiful pictures that go with the tantalizing descriptions of what could be in the garden next season.

I'll still write about the pantry as that is food storage and saving money on food. I will try to limit the social commentary unless of course I can tie it into food. I may have to do some twisting to make that happen but we shall see.

To begin the new and improved blog here are picture of this years garden....currently under construction. (The  new heading is from last seasons garden).

View from the porch. Lots of rocks...Rob has been working hard!

View From the shed. Not quite done but looking good.

More looking out from the shed. Lots of tomatoes and basil.

The garden has been an evolution. In 2004 I decided to put in a raised bed after reading countless posts on "The Garden Web". It couldn't be that hard now could it??? I had no clue what I was doing and built the first bed on my own and shortly thereafter my husband went behind me and "fixed" it. I had a great crop of peppers and I was hooked. A couple of years later I added a second bed and two years ago a third. This year I added 3 more beds and we are now adding stone and paver walkways around all of the beds. Less to mow and easy to maintain.

The rocks still to be moved.

When all the of the rocks have been moved I will add the finished garden pictures. Hopefully, more will be blooming and growing in my garden. 

Enjoy !!!!
  

The Lowly Tomato

Before I write about the lowly tomato I want to express my appreciation to Ilene over at "The Rock Whisperer" (see the Blogroll) for being a good friend when I needed one and now mentioning my blog on her blog. I would not be doing this if I had not started following her blog.  And another word of thanks needs to go to my old high school buddy and still another great friend Shelly for supporting my blog. Many thanks to both of you!! On to the tomato.....

It is tomato season in most of the country!!! I love tomatoes, my husband loves tomatoes.Red, full of juice, juice, tart and tangy-perfect for salads or plain with a bit of sea salt and cracked black pepper. So simple and yet so full of amazing flavor. Thus I try to grow some every year.  I say try as I live in SW Florida and tomatoes do not exactly thrive in our soil conditions. Our soil is a veritable hothouse of pathogens that can easily destroy a tomato plant. Everything from the dreaded tomatoes mosaic virus to several different kinds of blight.

My first year gardening, blissfully unaware I planted tomato and pepper seeds and watched eagerly as the plants grew larger and larger. Soon they were large, vibrant green and I was dreaming of salsa and canning my first crop of red deliciousness. Then the dark hand of fate stepped in and cruelly introduced me to blossom end rot and a whole slew of evil insects. I staunchly stuck to organic techniques and forbid the use of the dreaded pesticides and fungicides. Topped with my lack of knowledge on soil conditions, nematodes and fertilization my poor little plants were doomed.    

I have garnered a bit more knowledge and this year had a respectable crop of Amish Paste tomatoes and Thai Egg tomatoes. Both are heirloom and can handle tricky weather and soil. That and fertilizer, mulch and proper planting times have helped my crops tremendously.  I have had very little luck with the tomatoes bred for Florida. Many gardeners on Garden Web (a great resource no matter where you live) have had much better luck.

Now is the time for me to have seeds started for my next crop. In fact it is a little past time and I need to get on the stick. Luckily, I have a few volunteers in a pot on the patio so there are 2 tomato plants already.
Eventually, I will get them started and ready to go into the soil in September. Then I will be having tomatoes while the snow flies and the frost hardens the North. In fact I live about 30 minutes away from where most of the tomatoes are grown for the nation for winter sales.

Immokalee, FL grows much of the produce the rest of the country eats in the winter. Well, if that is the case then it should be easy to grow produce in S. Florida , you say? Nope! The growers use a host of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers to grow the tomatoes you eat. Not to mention they use migrant labor composed of mainly illegals, working 12 to 20 hours a day in poor conditions. I have seen this first hand in the packing houses. Workers there labor 12 hours a day in season with no A.C. in 80 to 90 degree weather, 2 -15 minute breaks and 1- 30 minute break. Did I mention water is no allowed on the packing line due to the possibility of contamination of the product? That in itself is ironic as the buildings are open to the exterior with lizards and critters carrying salmonella and all kinds of diseases able to run in and out at will.

Did I mention these tomatoes that they are slaving over don't really taste like anything?? They are bred for color and keeping qualities like a thick non bruise-able skin.

What can you do that is cost effective so you may have fresh luscious tomatoes to eat?
1) Grow your own. This can be a small container on a patio or a shared plot with a friend with more space. Cherry tomatoes pack a lot of flavor in a little plant.
2) Eat them only in season.
3) Preserve them yourself in season. This year I made freezer tomato sauce and dried some and preserved them in olive oil. Again of you don't have equipment to preserve them  maybe you can share with a friend.
4) Buy from local sources that you know and then either eat only in season or preserve them. This can be organic or not. At least if it is local a large amount of fossil fuels have not been expended on the shipping of the item.
5) Buy organic at a grocery store out of season - this is the most expensive option and I would not suggest preserving them as it is definitely cost prohibitive.
6) Buy canned tomatoes for cooking out of season.
7) Eat the crappy, mushy no taste store bought out of season tomato.  

Below is a link to a book review for "Tomatoland" and brief overview of the tomato on the NPR website. *****Notice the female on the sorting line is scratching her head in the accompanying photo . Another reason to wash your produce!
Also notice the tomatoes are green. They pick them green, gas them and the tomatoes ripen in the shipping process. These are not sun ripened on the vine. Just because the vine is attached also does not mean they were ripened on the vine. They just picked them that way as it is a great sales ploy.  


http://www.npr.org/2011/07/09/137623954/the-troubled-history-of-the-supermarket-tomato

If you don't want to read the article you can listen to it as they recorded in during the initial broadcast of the story.

Enjoy your tomatoes and relish the flavor whenever your season my be!




.