For the Ones That Just Keep on Going and Going

I am so thankful for the flowers and plants that just keep blooming and blooming and showing off their colors.  Without these my yard would seem so drab and monotonous.  So here's to:

Coleus!

Joe Pye Weed

Phlox

Begonias

Black-eyed Susans

Winter Prep

I'm not a canner but I do have a freezer to fill and it's that time of year.  Last week I froze my first bag of tomatoes from the garden.  Today I did another bag plus...


I purchase produce from a local farm stand called Harbin Farms (ironic because Sarah spent 3+ years in Harbin, China).  I buy the produce I don't grow like corn, peaches, eggplants and cantaloupe.  Today there were two boxes of tomatoes for sale and one of them was mostly paste tomatoes.  I didn't consider it long because none of my paste tomato plants survived past germination stage and I didn't find any I considered buying as plants either.  I can make sauce with regular tomatoes but paste ones are the best.  I bought the box and have spent the afternoon freezing tomatoes and making sauce which is now cooling before freezing.

Inside view.

Here's my harvest of basil for the sauce though I won't use it all this time.

What was under the basil.

Here are three bags, one of which is tomatoes from my garden.

After freezing the regular tomatoes there is this layer of paste tomatoes.

With that many I must pull out my biggest pot.

Olive oil and 4 onions chopped.

I cut off the tops and quarter them.

Add them in stages to the sautéed onions.

The pot is full.

Under the paste were more regular tomatoes so another bag for the freezer.

The sauce cooking down with basil leaves added, some sugar, some salt, and because I sweetened it a bit too much I added a whole head of garlic coarsely chopped and dried oregano.

After a good cook down I used my stick blender to puree it all.  It's nice and thick. A taste test proves it's just right.  I think we'll have spaghetti and meatballs with sauce tomorrow for dinner.

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Here's an update.  For those who read about the deer eating the geraniums from the pots on the deck I think I owe the deer an apology.  They were not the culprits because I caught this ground hog out front eating petunias and geraniums from the pots.  Now the deer did eat plants but not everything I attributed to them.  He heard me open the door and was just leaving when I got him in this photo.

Surprise! Surprise!

Several years ago I spotted this pink lily blooming in the wetlands near the bottom of our driveway.  I made a point of noting the location and when the green leaves showed the next year I dug it up and moved it to our sign at the end of the driveway.

This year the green leaves came up just fine and then died down but I let the bed there get very weed-filled and the mower guys whacked the weeds back so I thought any chance of having lily blooms this month was unlikely.  I did pull the weeds and heavily mulch the bed and I was rewarded last week with the shoot coming up.  I'd seen others in the neighborhood blooming so I knew it was time.  And now mine is in full bloom.

Can you spot the pink in the woods below?

The original is still sending up blooms.  

I may just have to dig it up next spring and move it somewhere it can be seen better.

It is a surprise every year.

A Fellow Blogger Needs Your Help

Susan of Squash Blossom Farm and her husband Roger have a Kickstarter campaign to raise $25,000 to put in a commercial kitchen into their barn to expand their operations of their farm.  Read about it here.  They live in Minnesota and have been farming only since 2008.  Here's what Susan writes on her blog:
"In September 2008, we dived into our dream of creating a small, sustainable farm.  Neither of us has previous farming experience, but we have enthusiasm and many ideas for this little 10-acre farmstead."

This is the final week of the Kickstarter campaign and if they don't get pledges equalling the amount need they don't get anything.  Give their campaign a look by watching their video and then open up your heart (and wallet) to a fellow blogger.

 P. S. She has some lovely thank you gifts if you do pledge.