Grape Tomato Salsa

The tomatoes in our garden are finally deciding that they will ripen up.  And now we have grape tomatoes coming out of our ears and the tomatillos are finally deciding to ripen so J. finally got a good batch of his green salsa.

Z. is just about the only one that eats the grape tomatoes.  And while he does it a LOT of them, we had to figure out just what to do with all of them.

We keep picking and picking them but we still have loads and loads of bunches just like this one waiting to ripen.

So today while Z. and I were out there picking he decided he wanted to try and make a salsa with them.  Alrighty, let's give it a whirl.  The worst that could happen is that it doesn't taste very good but at least it would rid us of some tomatoes.  And I am all for letting him experiment with cooking, well, being in the kitchen at least.

So we brought them in, washed them up and Z. set to work.  This was after all his idea, so his recipe.

We decided since the grape tomatoes are usually on the sweeter side we would opt for yellow onions instead of a milder green onion.  Zack finished cutting the tomatoes and decided he was done with cutting, so I was the chopper and he was the instructor.  Turns out, grape tomatoes make a pretty yummy salsa.

Grape Tomato Salsa

Recipe you ask?  Who knows, we always just keep adding stuff until it tastes the way we want it to.  But here is, at least, a list of ingredients:

grape tomatoes
yellow onion
minced garlic
jalapeño
cilantro
lime juice
salt

Another Garden Update

I know, I know, enough with the garden already right!?!  Sorry, can't help it.  I am so excited that we are getting more and more veggies, not from the store but from our own garden.  It is pretty awesome to tell one of the kids:  "I need one more jalapeño, can you run out and pick me one".  Yep, pretty awesome.

So a couple of weeks ago while we were out garden Cameron was so excited to find this little guy he called me over to snap a picture of it.

Cute little baby cucumber

Yesterday, as in two weeks later, I went out and got this big ol' guy:

Probably not the same one but all of them two weeks ago were about the size as that little guy up there.  Hopefully the plants bounce back after the deer attack and we keep on getting these.  I wanted to make pickles.

Yesterday I also went out and picked all the green beans that were ready.  Whew, not a fun job really.  It started out fun but after a while as you keep looking down the row and it doesn't seem to be getting much shorter to the end, not so much fun anymore.  And the green beans were not doing so well early on so we planted two more rows of them.  Yep, two whole rows more full of green beans.  Green beans anyone?  Cause I am sure we will have plenty.  Just what I picked yesterday was two quarts full.

They sure are yummy though.  I forgot to take a picture before I started snapping off the ends.  Apologies.  Next time, or the next time, or the next time. . .  because I have a feeling by the time this summer is over I am going to be very, very tired of picking green beans.

This however, I will not ever be tired of picking:

I decided I probably better hurry and just pick all of this before it went bad or went to seed.  So delicious.  I headed out the front door pretty early and forgot that the front door opens from the inside even though it is locked.  grrrrr so frustrating.  So when I was all done and headed back to the house I had to ring the doorbell for the boys.  Jake yanked it open to complain that I should have remembered to unlock it and stopped mid word because the smell of the cilantro finally caught up to him.  He stood there sniffing loudly and said "Oh man, that smells so good it almost makes my nose hurt!"  So cute.  And I totally agree.

The tomato plants are finally getting some pretty good size tomatoes on them.  Can't wait till all of them are ripe and we can really get busy with salsa, and tomato sauce, and tomato juice, and. . . and. . . and oh yea - eat them!  Can't wait.



Beefsteak Tomatoes

And my green onions are doing OK.  Not great, I am really disappointed.  Do you know how many green onions I buy on a weekly basis?  Really, it's ridiculous.  But they are so yummy.  So, I am going to have to figure out what to do different next year.  In the meantime I think they are the most guarded row in the whole garden.

And lastely, radishes.  We have so, so many radishes.  Dad is mostly the only one who eats them.  I slice them up in salads, Cameron is starting to eat more of them and the boys from time to time will eat one. But really, what do you do with radishes.  So I googled yesterday and may try sauteying them and see how that turns out.  I picked some more of those yesterday.  This second batch is not doing nearly as good as the first batch.  They are in a different spot so maybe soil 20 feet away is not as good, who knows.  But I had to share our mutant crop with you all.

So there it is, yet another post about the garden from us here in Michigan.  We are like kids in a candy store.  You would think no one on earth ever had a garden the way we are all amazed every time we pull something out of the ground.  I just wish somehow we could send smells through this thing we call the internet.  Because really, WOW!

Garden Massacre

Every day we drive around this beautiful countryside and more often than not we see deer.  Lately it has been does with their cute little spotted fawns.  We always slow down and watch them.  Dad was commenting the other night that he wondered if we would ever get sick of seeing them.  I personally don't think so.

After last night, however; Cameron's view of them may have changed slightly.  Last night Dad, Mom, Rachel, and I spent up until the wee hours of the morning at the hospital with my Grandma.  So not fun.  Cameron was home with all the kiddos and said the dogs were barking like crazy.  Today we discovered why.  Something, a.k.a. deer, went to town on the garden.  I guess they figured it was an all you care to eat buffet because that's what they did.  Sampled a little bit of everything.



Cameron's poor strawberry plants are never going to get anywhere



Cucumbers - another victim

The deer really had a hay day out there.  Thankfully most everything is doing good and most likely what they did eat will grow back.  It is just so frustrating when things are just getting going and then a setback.

Here is what we pulled out of the garden tonight.  Some of the green beans, the ones that the deer missed anyway, were ready to be pulled off.  Most of Rachel's sugar snap peas were eaten but a few were able to be salvaged.  More radishes of course and Cameron accidentally pulled up one of the red onions and a red potato.  Dad ate the potato but said it would be going too far if he ate the onion raw too.  Silly man.


Cameron inspecting some bell pepper plants

More of the garden and a sneak peak at the almost finished pole barn

And today's "something new we've never done before" moment came right after cleaning the kingdom hall.  After polishing the inside we headed out to water all the flowers.  Our KH sits on 10 acres of land, most of which is wooded.  So after all chores were finished we wandered down to the edge of the woods.  Wild raspberry bushes are growing all along the edge.  Yummy!  So we all ate our fill of super sweet little raspberries.


Pretty little flower growing in the flower beds at the KH




Garden Update

Busy time is about to begin.  We finally finished with the mountains of strawberries, only to hear Dad say - let's go buy two more flats.  Sheesh!  But I found new recipes for jam so some will be put to yummy use and the rest will be - yep, you guessed it - frozen.

The garden is doing great.  Everything is coming up nicely.  It's so nice to go out there and see new little sprouts of this and that.  I can't wait until we can pick more of it.

Little Lady C checking things out.  The empty row there is where all the radishes have already been harvested.  We have another row coming up off to the left near the back and may plant another row here pretty soon.

Corn and potatoes.  Garlic is also growing way off to the right over there along with a few sunflowers.

The potatoes are starting to flower.  Good sign.  This is when they really start to plump up.  Waiting is so hard.  These are the russet potatoes.  The red potatoes should get a pinkish flower.

The tomatillos are doing great.  We have lots and lots of these little buggers popping out everywhere.  The jalapeño's are also doing great.  We have already gotten 5 or 6 spicy little guys off of them and promptly diced them into some salsa.  YUM!  Can't wait 'till the entire bowl of salsa is from our own garden.

And this little basket of loveliness is from the garden and went into our salad tonight.  From left to right it is baby spinach, in the back is buttercrunch lettuce, red leaf lettuce, and finally cilantro.  The cilantro was heavenly.  Cilantro is A. and I's most favorite thing.  When we buy it at the store we smell just about every cluster until we find the one that smells the best.  Not one in all these years has smelled as good as the bunches that we took out of the garden today.  The entire kitchen smelled like cilantro.  Yummy!  We chopped some up into the salad because we couldn't wait to have some.  Definitely puts a different taste in the salad.  So delicious.

Can't wait to harvest the whole garden! 

More Yummy From the Garden

More yummy goodness is coming out of the garden.  Over at Reuben's the spinach is huge so we have to help them eat it all.  Ours are still little baby spinach so we gladly helped them out.  Dad doesn't know it yet but these lovely leaves are going to be in his salad tonight.

We also got a couple more jalapeño's and radishes.  So many radishes.  They were getting a little too big and starting to split so A. and I pulled them all today.  Dad is pretty much the only one that eats them so he should be good and sick of them by the end of the week.  I looked up some recipes today so we are going to try grilled radishes and see what they taste like.  Sounds interesting anyway.

This has been a super busy weekend.  Saturday we went to Anderson & Girls to pick some more strawberries.  All we ended up doing is going through the petting zoo they have.  We thought we could go through it quickly but it ended up being larger than we thought.  Lots of neat animals though.  And the kids had a ball.

Cameron and the kiddos and a sister from the hall with her little one



The peacock gave us a little show



After the zoo we headed to school section lake to meet some others from the hall for BBQ, a swim, and some volleyball.



Little Lady C and her buddy



The Osprey's now have little ones.  This pole they built their nest on was built just for them.  Apparently they kept building a nest on the telephone pole so they built this pole just for them so they would be safer.  I tried to get as close as I could but it was freaking them out a little bit.  But those little guys are getting a bite to eat from Mom or Dad.  They are really awesome to see in person.

And then today A. and I worked in the garden for a little bit then Little Lady C came over to make some cookies.

Thanks for helping A, I love you.

Their creations

I think more frosting went into a certain little mouth than actually went on the cookies but I was forewarned.  They had lots of fun.

Busy, fun weekend.  Trying new things with new friends.  Oh, and I even made strawberry jam.  Coming soon to some of you this winter.  Love and miss you all.

Fresh From the Garden

Veggies from the garden are sprouting!  This weekend Cameron got the first jalapeño from the garden.

Happy boy making salsa with the first jalapeño

Yep, it's hot!!!!!

Then today Grandpa checked the radishes and they were finally ready.

So tonight the kids get to test out radishes.  I'll let you know what they think.  Grandpa is happy at least!

Gardening Creates Laughter and Stupid Sunburns!

Sunday afternoon all the troops headed out to do some gardening.  It was in serious need of weeding!  Serious need - it looked like we were growing grass and not vegetables.

It was a perfect day for it though.  Weather was in the high 60's so we were not sweating to death like I did last week.  Perfectly beautiful day for gardening.  Here, let me describe it for you:

It was the most beautiful kind of day.  You know where the sky is an unbelievably brilliant shade of blue and there are clouds hanging about.  Big, bright, fluffy, white clouds that are in not a hurry to be anywhere and so slowly drift about.  Birds were chirping.  Neighbors were busy out on the lake so you could hear the hum of boats and the laughter of people as they went buzzing by.  Bumble bees buzzed about from flower to flower, a turtle mosied behind the garden in the cool shade and tall grass.  <Insert sound of screeching record here as this comes to a stop :o)>  Enter the Richie/Ranshaw clan and this is what is mixed in with all that buzzing:

various children:  this row is too long, why do I have to do this row?

a certain City Girl Grown Up:  EEEK!, wait 2 minutes - EEEK!, wait another 2 minutes - EEEEEEKKK!!  you're getting the picture right - then SSSSHHHHHRRREEEEEEKKKK, now the bugs are in my hair!  Where is the mall when I need it!

various parent/grandparent:  when we were younger (insert typical grown up story about how hard they had it and how this next generation should be grateful it is not that bad)

a certain tiny little dog after it was locked away in the dog kennel:  bark!  wait half a minute - bark!
various gardeners:  Shut Up!  Go Lay Down!

All in all it was a relaxing afternoon and pretty hilarious.  I am sure if there were any neighbors within earshot they had a pretty good chuckle over us.  The garden looks a million times better now.  Some rows did not get weeded, only because what is growing in those rows are not big enough yet and we would risk pulling them out with the weeds.  Oh, which brings up another funny moment.  You know how you take your kids to meeting week after week, you do the family study, you prepare for all the meetings, and you wonder if they are learning.  In the midst of all the hullabaloo over which row to weed and to keep busy, and reminding them that we had to weed to keep the plants healthy, J. announces this:  "Jesus said we should not weed until the harvest so that we can tell the difference between the plants and the weeds."  Ahahahahaha so funny, not quite the right application but it got his dad quiet for a minute.

Which now brings us to stupid sunburns.  After our hours in the garden we went inside for snacks and for everyone to do whatever it was they wished.  Later that evening Rachel and I were watching a movie and Rach announces - my back hurts, I wonder if it got sunburned.  I say mine does too, so we lift up the back of our shirts for the others inspection - and yep.  Sunburns in the stupidest spot ever!  You know when you bend over and your shirt lifts up the tiniest bit in the back exposing an inch or two of skin.  Well apparently when you bend over in the garden for a couple of hours or so, it gets burned . . . . badly!  So stupid!

But all worth it.  Our garden is doing beautifully and plants are growing and starting to sprout whatever vegetable it is they are supposed to be.  Here are some pics - enjoy!




Jalapeños




Peppers and Jalapeños



Tomatillos

Red Onions

Red Potatoes marked by these cute little markers Aubrey and I made

Radishes - these are just about ready to pull up

Richie/Ranshaw Gang working away

P.S.  I almost forgot the worst part.  J. had a bad stomach this day and was spreading his ummmm, "love" around the garden.  So in between all that happening above you would hear a random - J. that is so gross, you smell bad - go weed somewhere else!  Funny stuff!

Dirty, Stinky Work!

This week marks the next phase in garden work.  Fertilizer - yuck!  My cousins cleaned out their barn this weekend which means we got nice fresh fertilizer for our garden.  So yucky, dirty, stinky work began.

Zack and Grandpa worked pretty hard.  Of course the tractor helped to hold Zack's interest but he really did work hard with no complaining.  It also helped that all day Grandpa made jokes about "crap".

By the time we were done with our garden the older kids had gotten home from school so we headed to Reuben's garden.  By now Zack was kinda tired, Jake and Aubrey were not too happy to be shoveling poo.  But we got both of Reuben's areas pooified.

My poor city children.  :o)  They are actually adapting well and having fun and working hard.  But really, who likes to shovel poo?  Grandpa then took their whining and was making songs up about "crying over crap".  Us adults were amused but the children not so much.

Cameron and Z. get lessons in tilling from Grandpa.  We still have some work to do but by the end of this week planting will be done and the weeding and waiting begins. 

Waiting on Spring

So this weeks weather report really zapped all the joy of spring right out of the air.  Last week was mostly gorgeous.  This week we are rainy and more snow is in the forecast.  Boo! Hiss!

So today, to remind ourselves that yes, it IS spring, we went seed shopping for the garden.  YEAY!  Menards is having a super awesome seed sale right now and most of our seed packets were only 35 cents.  I think we got most of the items on our list but we will have to shop around I guess for some of the more unusual items.

So this is the whole pile of yumminess that we bought today.  Still missing a few things but I think we got the bulk of it.  Now I have to be patient and wait a couple of weeks before I plant them in their little greenhouse to await actual ground planting.


Salsa Section

Here is the salsa section.  Still trying to find red onion seeds because I like those much better than yellow.  But I found tomatillos!  Yeay!  Now we will just have to see how well they grow.


And we got these for their awesome color.  How cool will it be to eat a purple carrot.  Maybe I can get the kids to eat a better variety of veggies.  They all do really well with it now but I would like to increase their taste for fresh veggies.  When I was a kid we spent the summers outside and we would pull carrots right out of the ground, rinse them off with the garden hose and munch away.  And the sunflowers are for Rachel.  This pack has lots of colors.  Now we are busy planning where all of the flowers will be planted.

It is going to be a very busy spring.







Let the Gardening Begin!

Interesting Things to Compost  Check out this site, so many things you can use instead of throwing away.

So composting at our house has officially begun.  Garden will be tilled in under two months.  Seems so far away, I can't wait to eat the produce of our labor.  So composting has begun and in one month seedlings will be started for planting.  I am beyond excited for this. 

I started my garden wish list.  We shall see what actually makes it into the garden.  I think we will be able to fit it all.  Salsa section is a must!  I love making fresh salsa, so yummy.  And up here in Michigan it is extra important since yummy mexican food seems to be hard to find.  So salsa section is going in no matter what.  Complete with tomatillos for my middle guy who loves green salsa.

Have I mentioned how excited I am to be able to have a garden?  So much to do this spring and summer.  It is going to be fun and so worth all the extra work we have to put in.

Anyone want to come up for fresh veggies?  We got plenty of room and are anxious to see all of you.