Using Garden Produce
The thing that never occurred to me when I started a vegetable garden is that I might actually get vegetables. Given my track record with plants, that is not an unreasonable assumption – you could almost hear the sigh of relief from my houseplants when my husband moved in and started to care for them.
As far as the garden goes, I have had one in place for five years, and so far have harvested nothing more than a couple of small tomatoes and a scrawny bell pepper.
This year, having straightened out the watering situation, and bought plants instead of starting from seed, I have had a great garden. And when the produce started rolling in, I was at a loss for what to do with it.
Here are some ideas that I have used this year to deal with the abundance:
Blueberries. Thanks to bird netting, we actually got to harvest the fruit. We found that while not more than a cup of fruit was harvested from these young plants, the fruit was very good added to oatmeal or cereal.
Blackberries. The blackberries were abundant this year, and we created simple fruit smoothies using yogurt, ice and fruit.
Tomatoes. Besides supplying all the fruit needed for basic cooking, and enough for snacking on for lunch, I am in an avalanche of tomatoes. We made a huge batch of salsa last night from every tomato we could find: Roma, Better Boy, grape and cherry. Chop them up, throw in some onion, black beans, frozen corn and a jalapeno with a splash of red wine vinegar, and you’re set.
Cucumbers. The first cucumber took me by surprise – I didn’t find it until it was almost a foot long. The later cucumbers were edible, though. I sliced these up, added a sliced onion and then threw in some salt and let it sit for an hour. After rinsing, I added equal amounts of vinegar and water, and a quarter amount of sugar. It’s a nice refreshing salad.
Green peppers. My peppers didn’t grow big enough to stuff, so we have cut these up into strips. They have gone into stir frys, salads, and into lunches. The flavor can’t be matched by store-bought peppers.
Basil. Last year I got enough basil to dry and refill my spice bottle. This year the plants are taking over. Besides making the obvious pesto (recipes can be found all over the Internet), you can also add these leaves to salad, and place them on good bread with fresh mozzarella cheese for an awesome sandwich.
Lavender. My lavender survived the winter and is fighting the basil for the larger part of the herb garden. There are many uses for lavender, and most involve drying the plant in the fall. I am finding that picking a few sprigs and bruising the leaves gives off a wonderful subtle smell, enough to fragrance a small room
There are many different ways to use garden produce, like preserving and freezing. But dealing with unexpected produce has proved to be a challenging and delicious outcome!
Photo by B.D.’s world
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader or email.
![[Valid RSS]](/images/valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed")
Comments
No comments yet.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.