The Modern Victory Garden

Blog updates were non-existent last week because a combination of work commitments, traveling, and using every spare moment that I had at home to do some canning - kept me away.   There just was not any time left after all of that to actually get out in the garden for much more than ten seconds, or to do a blog post.   My life is like that sometimes.   At this point though, I think the current fever pitch of commitments and canning efforts has come to a conclusion and I am anxious to spend some time in the garden.             

Friday, Saturday and Sunday was tied up in a road trip to Spokane to see my mom.   One of my sisters traveled with me and another sister joined us on Saturday for a further drive up to Clark Fork Idaho to check on my mom’s property holdings there.   It is about an eight-hour drive to Spokane from my homestead and it is a five-hour round trip drive to go from Spokane to Clark Fork and back.   Drove 8 hours on Friday to get to Spokane; drove 5 hours on Saturday to go to Clark Fork; and then turned around and drove another 8 hours on Sunday to go home again.   I really don’t like spending that much time in my car but luckily I had some good company with me on each leg, which made the journey pleasant.   I drive a fuel efficient Honda Fit which is a great little commuter car, but it is not exactly a luxury sedan and by Sunday night my back was telling me to get out of the car and stay out!                  

When I travel to my mom’s place in Spokane, I like to break up the return drive home by stopping in Thorp Washington at the large produce barn just off of I-90.   There is actually two produce outlets located there and if you cannot find what you are interested in at one place (or a good price), you can often find it at the other location.   Both places carry central Washington (Wenatchee and Yakima mostly) produce.   On Sunday I made a stop there intent on getting some pears, apples, and tomatoes for canning.   The peaches are also in season right now but I have decided not to can peaches this year, as we did not go through last year’s supply with much enthusiasm for some reason.   Unlike the peaches though, pears continue to be one of our favorite canned fruit items and I was happy to find several varieties to choose from at really good prices.   I brought home a box of Bartlett pears and a box of Gala apples from the big produce barn.   The tomatoes I found at the second outlet location and the price was less than $0.64/lb with tax for beautiful Yakima tomatoes.  I bought two boxes (50 pounds).   Loaded up with my fruit treasures, I finished the trip home and after unpacking and checking in on everything, decided to tackle one of the boxes of tomatoes that very evening.   I really could not afford to put the processing off as I was going to have to work fast to can both the tomatoes and the pears over the coming few days to catch them at their peak.   The apples would hold in the box longer, but the highly perishable tomatoes and pears demanded more immediate attention.   On Sunday evening, I canned 10 quarts of diced tomatoes.   

On Monday night I had a late evening work commitment.   Tuesday night I dashed home from work and tackled the remaining box of tomatoes.   I added some of my own ripe garden tomatoes to the stash (been ripening off the vine) and from all of those,I processed 10 pint jars of tomato sauce, 4 pint jars of chili sauce, and 5 pint jars of salsa.                            

I repeated the process on Wednesday evening, dashing home and tackling the pears.   I held out about 1/3 of the box for fresh eating purposes, and processed the remaining 2/3rds of the perfectly ripe pears into 7 quarts of pear quarters in light syrup.    

There is still the box of apples remaining but they will hold until this weekend when I have a bit more time to address them.   The apples are destined to be made into applesauce.            

I did some harvesting Sunday night when I got home and again on Tuesday night after work.   The two harvests are almost carbon copies of each other as the current steady producers in the garden are the zucchinis (still!) and the cucumbers.   In addition, I am pulling tomatoes out of the boxes where they have been ripening off the vine and I am getting a steady and ample supply of them at the moment.   

The Sunday harvest of cucumbers and tomatoes were made into a lovely salad of peeled and sliced cucumber, quartered chunks of tomatoes, sliced kalamata olives, sliced red onions – all dressed/marinated in a garlic infused vinegarette.   The Tuesday harvest of cucumbers were cut into spears and used to restock the refrigerator dill pickle solution.   I also added some more dill heads to the jar to brighten up the “dill” flavoring.   The zucchini and remaining tomatoes are sitting on the counter and really need to be used over the next few days.                          

As you can tell, I have only had very brief bits of time in the actual garden itself over the past week.   I intend to remedy that this coming weekend.   The tomato patch is totally dead and the plant debris needs to be removed.   I have several beds that have been waiting patiently for me to layer them with compost and/or seed them with a green manure crop of crimson clover.   And within the next several weeks, it will even be time to plant the garlic bulbs.   Usually I do that around the first week or so of October but the temperatures are actually fairly warm at the moment so I am going to wait a while until the night temps start dipping lower.                        

I think that about recaps what I have been up to for the past week.  It can  best be summarized by saying that I largely spent the week driving and canning.   It is my intention to have a garden update post this coming weekend.   Good to be home - even better to be out of that car!                   

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener