Jess...Don't know if it matters but my Gramps was a farmer who fed 16 people for over 80 years. He agreed with you that you MUST leave some stem on the cukes so they will last a bit longer after harvesting. The smaller kids weren't allowed to harvest because we didn't do it properly!!! He also insisted on adding some ice to the water they were soaking in because he believed that helped to bring out the crispy for longer. 😊 Thanks for the memories!!! ❤
My mom did too add ice. Specially, when she prepared our dinner salad ahead of time. A couple ice cubes in the bag. Nice and crispy. Fond memories. Thank you for sharing. It is Important. GOD BLESS YOU.
When you make your ratatouille, the best thing you can ever make to accompany it (besides a nice crusty bread) is an Afghani cilantro chutney to drizzle over top of the individual bowls. It takes that dish to 5 star levels. There are tons of recipes out there, but I typically use cilantro, jalapeno, walnuts, garlic cloves, pepper, salt and vinegar. It is bright, acidic and spicy if you use a lot of jalapeno and makes you wonder how you have ever eaten ratatouille without it before. I don't measure but it should be the consistency of pesto or chimichurri and I make it to taste. It stores for a long time so I make it when cilantro is in season and it is waiting for us when the ratatouille ingredients are ready to harvest.
By the way, thanks for returning to producing videos! I try to watch all of your videos because I still pick up interesting things even after gardening for many years myself. We can all always learn something right? Today I learned my peppers have completely failed, and that my fanatic soaking of my harvest has been the right thing to do and I have probably been harvesting my cucumbers wrong. So thanks again! We are in it now!
Got to meet you all Sunday (6/30) at Murray Fest Midwest! It was amazing! Thank you for all you do! Love you both so much and sending you so much positivity! Safe travels home! ❤
Something I loved to cook is a groton, but using eggplant, tomato, zucchini, squash, onion and garlic with plenty of olive oil and herbs. Let it roast for a long time in the oven till the veggies are silky.
The light green zucchini is very popular in the north of Mexico 🇲🇽, I grew those every year here in central Kansas and I like to pick them up when they are small , they are delicious.
Yah I gotta do that with my basil plants. Some of them are getting pretty tall. Picked a bunch of cucumbers today and yesterday. Mostly because I keep wanting the cucumber plant to produce. Been super busy with taking care of kids. I need to process the cucumbers asap.
Jess you are "out of this world" great, smart, sweet etc.... You hit right on que to what I need answers to & pretty much you always do and have 😊 be careful in this heat ❤️💜🙏
Oh my God it is so hot. I can bring Breeze here in Southern California. Get out of the car yet so far. I love watching you get out there and get it all done. You are amazing.
My mom would grate and freeze zucchini on sheet trays then bag up , it went into everything to help bulk it up, make a pound of burger feed our family of 6, went j to cakes/squats and cookies we never knew , could you Grate squash and either freeze or freeze dry and add to everything ?
Girl, my favorite is Silver Slicer! The tree rats, and squirrels, dug up my cukes and left the Chinese Jade plants and only one silver slicer. I think I am going to pull up a few of the China Jade so I have room to plant more Silver Slicers!!!
I'm so sad I'm not going to be able to see you in northern Idaho even though I will be in town up there! I just don't have the money! I was really looking forward to it but sometimes we don't get what we want.
I would love a video at some point on your opening comment. What do you actually do with all the food you produce? And I am asking about ALL the food. I spend as much time processing my produce as I do doing anything in my garden and my garden is large, but not nearly as large as yours. Just a humble ask.
Hi jess! Long time viewer here. Any advice on growing better cucumbers? It seems to be the only thing so far, that i struggle with. My leaves are never dark green, and also never get large. As far as the color, i would imagine comes from lack of nitrogen, or over/under watering maybe? You rock btw =)
Every year, I look for the infamous silver slicer cucumber seeds. I unfortunately can not find them for sale. Where do you get your seeds?? If i had to guess, I bet you've saved the seeds for years 😊
Hey 👋🏻👋🏻 Jess 🤗🤤 What a Great harvest Sweet Lady 😍👍🏻, NaNas here for the Veggies yummy 😋❣️ Makes Total sense to give the veggies a "Straw" to Drink from n 🚫 Thought 😉💭 that give the crispiness we Wanting 😮😅❣️.... I just ❤ your rationale 😊😅So now I know 🌱🌞🌱 at 52 yrs of Age 😅😂❤❣️... I am cooking up some Zucchini n Squash, With terriaki Chicken, n Lettuce Kale I Got, it's smaller n tender like lettuce 🥬 so I'm excited to have It 🤤😋❣️... I'm going to the community Harvest again Tuesday evening ❤😊 n I'm just finishing up my fresh eating veggies I have, I'm growing cilantro, Basil, n onions n tomatoes 🍅🤤 for salsa n some fresh Salads n eating on taco's 🌮🌯 Meals 🤞🏻😍❣️... I ❤the tase of Summer n the smells, I have chives n butter 🧈 for new potatoes 🥔🌱🌞🌱🥔, n corn 🌽 too, so much goodness 🤤😋❣️ Thankful for you n the garden tips, It's Life ❤😅, Bunches of 💞💖💞 Love n Blessings 🙏🏻to ya Beautiful Jess 💫😇💫❣️...
Hi Jess, NY fan here!!! You mentioned a NY seed company... can you please share who that is??? Was that pale squash a kousa squash ? P.S. I love your content and live for your videos here and the Farmers Table.❤ Many blessings to you and your family.
Gardening is such great cheap entertainment. It is great exercise. I lost 20 pounds last year without changing anything else. Having fresh food without the trip to the grocery store is so awesome. It cuts the cost of my grocery store visits too. My husband can pick strawberries every morning for his breakfast. I had tried to get him to eat more fruit for 18 years. Fresh fruit just tastes better. I can't believe that three year ago, I didn't even garden. Thanks for introducing me to gardening. I bless you.
I agree for the most part except I gained with after gardening haha That was the goal for me, though. I learned to cook delicious food with great ingredients
Basil tea is a huge win at our house. Can’t keep enough made. Kids and adults all love it! Thanks for showing how to make it. Now none of our clippings ever go to waste. After we make the tea the strained basil leaves go to the pigs in their feed.
Hi Jess, thought I’d share my favorite recipe for using most of the veggies that you harvested today. It’s called Mediterranean Pie and it’s super easy if you a have 2 pre made or store bought pie crust. Sauté eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash, onion, and bell pepper in butter til tender. Add minced garlic, oregano, basil, salt and pepper. Slice 2 medium/large tomatoes about 1/4 inch thick and grate mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. In bottom pie crust layer sautéed veggies, tomatoes, and cheeses and repeat. Top with another crust , this can be lattice or solid crust with vents sliced into it, to make a kind of pot pie. Bake 1 hr @ 350°. I promise it will be a hit that even your carnivores will enjoy 😊
My mom swears by this so maybe give it a try - slice squash into decent thickness size - like if you were going to sauté them. Lay them out on a cookie sheet on wax paper and freeze them. Then pull them out and put them in ziplocks after frozen. Then when ready to cook them, pull them out and don’t let them thaw, just cook them from frozen to pan. She swears it’s like eating them fresh. I’ll be trying it whenever I can get some squash before the pickle worms take them all.
I am a relatively new gardener and Jess's talk about buying it verses growing it and the cost difference reminds me of something I say every year as I plant. I'm doing it even if it isn't perfect and as long as I get 1 piece of food from a plant, I call it a win!
I add a fresh grape leaf in my pickles and they help keep them crunchy, I also nip off the blossom end . I put up 100 plus pound of Dills and 50 pound of sweet mixed . I just pickled 11 pints of Asparagus this am and last night put up 30:jars of Strawberry jam .
I just harvested around a gallon of different types of green beans. I spent last evening blanching them and putting them into freezer bags for eating this fall or winter. Gardening is a lot of work! But so worth while!
I am gardening this year but am having a knee replacement so it is slow going. I put in 6 raise beds 3 years ago and i have 3 greenstocks. I put a chair in the garden this year so i could take brakes and stay there longer. Should have green beans soon. One of my gerrnstalks has nothing but green beans and i can sit on my chair to pick them. Thanks for your gardening videos. They keep me wanting to garden.
Hi Ms. Jessica. Leaving the tails on the Silver Slicers totally makes sense to me. As a crazy rose person it's popular to re-cut a rose stem under water to prevent an air bubble in the stem. We do this especially when we are showing our roses and need them to keep their form throughout the day. So keeping the cut tails on the slicers and giving the water a "straw" to get back into the cucumber sounds, to me, brilliant. God bless this homestead.
What a harvest! I love to make squash pancakes with yellow or zucchini squash, I grate the squash, add one egg per squash grated, some salt and a little pepper and about 1/4 cup flour and mix. Fry in a combo of a pat of butter and some oil. My grandma would eat them on buttered toast. In Greece they add feta cheese to the mix . They are so yummy, enjoy.
Today, up here in Canada, we just shared our first ripe tomato of the season - it mess a dwarf tomato, so tiny, but was so good. (I started the plants in a hydroponic system way back in March and planted them out in the GreenStalk last month after our last frost.) I will definitely be repeating this process next year.
Cut zucchini slices with the peeler and stick them in the dehydrator. Or maybe sun dry them (I never tried that)? OMG. Super delish. No oil, no salt, no nothing. Just pure zuke goodness. (Same goes for radishes, but I had to slice them with the knife, couldn't use the peeler, they're too small). I wish I had a wall sized dehydrator.
I love eating fresh from the garden, it just feels so much more nourishing knowing how clean and fresh it is. I hope my basil bush out soon. Cool, then hot and dry have left them a bit slow to take off. My scapes are coming in and scape pesto is amazing.
Lov your harvest. I’m curing onions, potatoes & garlic. Plus my volunteer salad tomatoes & peppers r growing up a storm🤗. Cukes & slicers , watermelons & gourds r starting to take off. Oh my gosh the peaches🫠
Great video.I got Hudson valley seeds for Shanghai green baby bok choy, certified organic fun package they have. I I’ve in Hudson Valley. I might try silver slicers❤lovely purple eggplants.
Hey Jess, I was pickling all day Sunday, I have a recipe for pickled squash, hot water bath. Have you or anyone else tried that? I was wondering... 😊 Love your videos!
So happy for you that you are getting cukes this year. my struggle has been yellow squash. i love it, but I haven't been able to grow it in 3 years, and it's usually my most prolific veg. So crazy how that works.
I don't seem to do too well with zucchini either. Dunno why. The vining squash variety worked better for me than the standard. I've gotten one lemon squash and one postal cucumber squash so far this year.
So I had several squash plants self seed this year no clue what kind and I just saw the first baby fruit and it’s yellow and green and I noticed that is what you have as well. So I’m excited to know it’s something have way normal.
I love to hear about your simple meals. I watched 1/2 of this video of you talking about squash. I had nothing planned for dinner. So I went out, harvested a several perfect sized zucchini, sliced them and some very small red onions. Sautéed them in some good pastured raised butter with Celtic sea salt and semi-blackened them. Ate it while I finished watching you harvest goodies from the garden. I know that wouldn’t fly with your large family but for me it was delicious, fast and simple.😊Can you tell me the difference between zucchini and squash? 🤷🏼♀️I always thought it was all squash, zucchini, patty pan, yellow crookneck, spaghetti, acorn, butternut etc. But I constantly hear gardeners say they’re growing squash and zucchini. As always, from CA🏖️take care.
Great harvest!!! I leave my zucchini get very large because they will keep on the shelf longer - and besides, you can do more baking with them...plus Zucchini Marmelade...so good and it's really good on vanilla ice cream too! LOL. I also pickled some zucchini spears last year and they turned out quite nice. Last year, I did a full monetary analysis of what I harvested from the garden - it confirmed what I thought - saves big money....added benefits aside. Great video Ma'am!
Hi Jess! What an amazing harvest! Now I wish I had grown some eggplant this year! I love Spicy Laotian Eggplant with sticky rice or jasmine rice. It is so good!
Have you ever preserved your basil as pesto? That’s my favorite thing to use it for. I’ve made a years batch of pesto and frozen it in ice cubes to use when I need. We love it on chicken, fish, pasta, pizza, BLTs chicken sandwiches 😋
Yes! I garden for ALL of those reasons--my husband calls it my outdoor artist's canvas! And thank you for the Farmer's Table to help me know what to do with my harvest!
