Journey with us as we learn to grow food, raise kids (and chickens!), enjoy home-cooked food, and learn to live more sustainably on a small piece of property in the Connecticut woods. We certainly don't have it all figured out, but we're having fun trying and we hope you'll join us as we learn how to live this life that we love!
I think that would probably work! I’ve never done it myself though, so I would do a search for time and temp recommendations. If you try it, I’d love to hear how it works!
Hello, I think that I can offer some good suggestions. First, though, I think your soil will do well if you worked it deep and added things such as Vermiculite and Perlite throughout the first few feet. I realise this may sound expensive and/or a bother but in the long run it will help your plants avoiding rot. In addition, Vermicompost, Fish, Blood and Bone, Epsom Salt, and a regular tomato feed such as Organic tomato tone will help a lot. As far as tomato suggestions (you haven’t mentioned): Class A: Curtis Cheek Upstate Oxheart Chocolate Stripes Rose de Berne Japanese Trifle Black Class B: Uncle E Sainte Lucie Whittemore Purple Rain DarkStar Yellow Brandywine Paste tomatoes: Pomodoro Cuore Antico di Acqui Terme Coeur de Boeuf de Jerusalem San Marzano Redorta Amish Paste By the way… many people are quite ignorant when it comes to thepurpose of regular San Marzano. They think it’s good because it has little juice (mostly flesh) and few seeds. Other people say that it’s tasty and sweet (which is why they assume it's good). Most of these statements are almost completely wrong. A sweet tomato is a bad paste tomato. San Marzano that isn’t D.O.P, I.e. - that wasn’t grown in Italy on volcanic soil with little intervention, isn’t the San Marzano you’re thinking about in a professional sense since the whole point which makes it unique is it’s stable low PH which in sauce making translates to reliability where they can condense it under high heat to produce natural MSG and recipes are duplicable. So when most people say that Amish Paste is better because it’s sweeter I find it ironic because as I have explained paste tomatoes aren’t supposed to be sweet (sweetness will produce bitter notes under his heat or prologued cooking) or even very tasty. So, in conclusion, most people who grow tomatoes at home will get better results by growing tomatoes that are not the regular San Marzano.
I don't have much to comment, but I'm still doing it to contribute to the video's engagement metric so that fellow gardeners are more likely to get this in their recommended and enjoy the good vibes.
Thank you! I love the bonus harvest I get from my container garden, plus the convenience of having herbs right outside the door while I’m cooking. God bless you too!
Your video was SO helpful and informative!! I harvested about half of my scapes today and hopefully it’s ok to freeze them until the rest are ready to harvest…? I love the scape powder idea and also sautéed scapes! Definitely plan to try both of those 👍🏻
I think the frozen scapes would work well for pesto - I’m not sure how the other recipes would work with frozen, but I’d love to hear how it works if you give it a try! I have added frozen scapes to recipes in place of regular garlic, and that works well too.
For either garlic scape pesto or traditional basil, use bulk purchased unsalted Pistachio nuts. They are around half the price of Pine Nuts and add a richer flavor. We also use either fresh lime juice, instead of lemon, or bottled Key Lime juice. If you're freezing the pesto use ice cube trays and once frozen, store them in freezer bags. It's way easier to control amounts when thawed for use. Try spreading garlic pesto on a grilled cheese sammy. Wowzers. Have fun.
Thank you! I really do love the pods too. This variety makes edible seeds, so I think I’m going to leave at least some seeds to dry out to use for baking, and for replanting next year
This looks like a great harvest. Those poppies look so beautiful! You sure seem to be able to grow a lot of broccoli and kale. We can grow broccoli in fall, but I haven’t had luck in spring. Our kale is always bitter. I’m guessing it gets too hot before I harvest. Some creatures always eat our strawberries too.
Local weather definitely makes a huge difference in what grows well! I’m usually more successful with spring broccoli than fall, but I know a lot of people have the opposite experience.
Yes its that time of the year. These bugs and critters are something else. But i know you can figure it out. Have you tried a beer in a shallow dish to catch them? Thanks for sharing this video. Have a blessed day 😊
I have heard people recommend beer for slugs, but I haven’t tried it yet. If they are a problem when I sow seeds again, I may give that a try! Thank you!
I'm late in getting to my scapes. I've been in the hospital twice since I first watched this video. I harvested some today and decided to cut the flower bulb open since some of them are kind of big. How cool is that!!! They are pre-flower and just like mini bulbs of garlic with tiny little cloves. They taste delicious. I'm going to just go ahead and use them like garlic 😊 Thank you for your video, ideas, and recipes.
I'm shooting 50/50 this year with what is growing, but that's what I let about gardening, plant and what and see what takes. The weather this season has been great for the grow so far
Growing up, my dad gardened a lot and I of course helped him, but this year has been my first year really gardening myself from start to finish. had a ton of failures, especially seed starting and trying to work with my compacted soil, but this has really encouraged me to keep on working on it. Thank you!
Gardening is definitely a learning process! Improving soil can take some time - my soil started out pretty rough and it took several years for it to really be decent soil. I’m still working on improving it! My first garden was pretty sad - I wasn’t on RU-vid at the point so no one saw it except me thankfully. Every year gets better though, so I hope you stick with it!
Great video. I agree with you on both the Cherokee and Abe Lincoln. I also love Mortgage Lifter, Gold Medal, Paul Robeson, Belgian Pink slicers. For sauce, Amish Paste, San Marzano Redorta and Russian Orange Oxheart 117. Blessings to you and your family!
Paul Robeson is one I really enjoy too! I haven’t tried a lot of the others, but I’d like to try them at some point. I bet the orange oxheart makes beautiful sauce!
@@HomesteadOnAPrayer Thanks for your response. I started three plants this year. These oxhearts are actually bicolor. Yellow with red tint. They are absolutely delicious but we typically use all our tomatoes for sauce. I have 26 plants and 16 different varieties. I appreciate your videos. If you would like some seeds to test next year, let me know. I'll be glad to send some to you. Blessings to you and your family/.
I always do, but if you are concerned about the flavor changing you could add the lemon juice when you defrost it. Honestly we go through a lot of this pesto when it’s in season so I don’t end up freezing much!
You did a fabulous job, not only explaining when and how to harvest the scapes, but providing recipes. So much appreciate your presentation and wealth of information which covers just about everything we need to know.
I have not, but they seem really interesting, so I’d love to try them at some point. I’m not sure if I have a good space for them, or else I’m sure I would have tried them by now!
I’m working out in the garden and watching to catch up with you, I could use any tips to make things easier around here, I hope you are doing well. We put mulch down on the pathway this year. It is helping to keep down the grass/weeds.
I’m sure the probiotics would be great for the plants! I have added kefir grains to my compost in the past when I’ve had too many. The kefir itself can be acidic, so if you’re adding it directly to plants, I might dilute with water, unless of course you’re feeding acid loving plants.
I have a 7 year old Heritage Everbearing garden that's about 7 years old and i occasionally would just prune some dead canes. It's now become very unruly. It's now Mid July here in Pittsburgh and my first harvest was very good this year. My question is is there any thinning or pruning I can do now in early summer or do I have to wait until next winter/spring. Also I get confused on the type of canes i'm seeing. I have older brown wooden canes that new growth came from the nodes. I also now have very new green canes that came up from the ground this growing season. Is the brown canes last years new canes that grew in the summer? I'm just confused about what to prune in the winter because everything looks dead at that time but new growth comes from that dead looking wood if I refrain from cutting out. Any help would be appreciated. I would like to get it thinned out for more air.
I am not an expert on pruning, so I can only tell you what I would do, which admittedly would be a little bit of an experiment. At this point in the season, I would personally wait until after the summer fruiting, and at that point I would remove all of the canes that fruited this summer. The older brown canes with new growth should be the canes that produced last fall, and will then produce again this summer, and then they should die after their summer harvest. The new green canes should bear fruit this fall. If you want to make it as easy as possible, you can wait until your first fall frost and mow all the canes down to the ground. You may lose the summer harvest next year if you do that, but your fall harvest should be earlier and larger. That being said, if your raspberry patch is crowded and impossible to harvest, it’s better to thin out some canes now and lose some of the harvest rather than lose more of the harvest because you can’t get to it. I hope that all makes sense and is helpful!
I don’t have a lot of experience growing leeks - I would guess that the flower stalk is most likely edible, but I’d definitely look into it if you’re growing leeks. I’d love to hear how you end up using them!
I haven’t had an issue with moisture after powdering, but that’s a great tip for those who do! It might possibly depend on local climate and humidity while grinding to a powder, or possibly on the amount of heat produced by the grinder. Mine didn’t produce much heat, so maybe that’s why I didn’t have an issue.
There is some difference in the leaf shape, and the catnip leaves are fuzzier than the peppermint. They smell different too. A lot of it comes with practice - the more time you spend with the plants the easier they get to identify. 😊
Thank you for this informative video on what to make with garlic scapes! We planted garlic for the first time last fall and just harvested the scapes. I’ve watched a few videos on what to do with them and yours is by far the best and - because of that - I’ve subscribed to your channel. ❤️
That first tie on a tomato plant you showed is not good, because the branch will prevent it from growing up. My tip is to use a strait stick with a zip tie.
