Green Tomatoes

Since we are hopefully leaving our current home in the next few days, I'm picking tomatoes! While I do have several ripe or almost-ripe tomatoes, I also have quite a few green tomatoes. Can't leave them behind!

I had lots of green un-ripe tomatoes last year, and didn't know what to do with them, so I sliced and dehydrated them. When I wanted some nutrients with a little tartness, I crushed the dried slices into a powder and sprinkled that powder on whatever I was cooking. Good alternative to green tomato chutney or relish or something similar.

Luckily, we planned ahead and potted most of our tomatoes. Picked a big bowl of ripe red and orange tomatoes yesterday. I'm thinking I'll freeze these. Well, after we've eaten a couple! Yum!

The Victory Garden show on PBS

I wonder ... I love watching gardening shows, but I'm very much into growing edibles much more than non-edibles. And since the Victory Garden concept was created to provide food for people during World War II ... well, here's the entry from :

During World War I, patriots grew "liberty gardens." In World War II, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Claude R. Wickard encouraged householders to plant vegetable gardens wherever they could find space. By 1945 there were said to be 20 million victory gardens producing about 40 percent of all American vegetables in many unused scraps of land. Such sites as the strip between a sidewalk and the street, town squares, and the land around Chicago's Cook County jail were used. The term "victory garden" derives from an English book by that title written by Richard Gardner in 1603.

Anyway... almost every time I turn it on, the show is about shade plants or other non-edible plants. What the hell? If we want to see gardening shows about non-edibles, we'll go to a different gardening show, like P Allen Smith, but come on! Somebody from the Victory Garden pbs show needs to understand that people are having troubles feeding ourselves, and that gardening for food is increasing by leaps and bounds.

Give us more practical information about growing our own food, especially on a very tight budget and in small spaces. Ya hear?

Permaculture Crash Course

This is a 4-minute vid I found on YouTube but it has great information. Discusses a 4-hour crash course but I don't see the link... anyone? This 4-min vid discusses birds, year-round cherry harvest, artichoke, potatoes, etc.

To-Do-List for September and October

September - October:

• Choose to use this mild weather to plant or transplant the following: beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, collards, lettuce, mustard, onions, radishes, spinach and turnips.
• Plant your second planting of fall crops such as collards, turnips, cabbage, mustard and kale.
• Save seeds from your favorite plants, especially tomatoes, squashes, eggplant, etc. Let some of the root veggies like carrots go to seed, and collect those.
• Refurbish mulch to control weeds, and start adding leaves and other materials for the compost pile. Store your manure under cover to prevent leaching of nutrients.
• Water deeply and thoroughly to prevent drought stress. Pay special attention to new transplants.
• Harvest mature green peppers and tomatoes before frost gets them -- it may not come until November, but be ready. Preserve 4 for every 5 eaten fresh - or preserve them all!
• Harvest herbs and dry them in a cool, dry place.