update on garden September 3, 2014

Who knew Romain lettuce would grow so tall! We harvested the leaves all season instead of cutting off the head each time. We have had a great harvest all season. It has now gone to seed. We will cut the tops off and hang them upside down tucked in a paper bag.  We will try to germinate one or two seeds in the house to test if we dried the seeds correctly. Then we will store them for next years a crop.I won’t need to buy seed for a couple of years. We will have seed packets to give to friends and family as well.

We just planted too much for our private use. Next year we will plant just 2 plants each  (leafy lettuce, romaine lettuce and chard). That should more than sufficient for our needs. We have given away a lot to make sure it does not go to waste.

 

The leafy lettuce is looking good.

The tomatoes are turning red all on their own in the mini green house. We have already harvested the celery and it is in the freezer. The celery is no longer blocking the sun from reaching the tomato plants. It feel like it is starting to rain tomatoes.

 

This is a close up of the Romain lettuce flowering and going to seed. If you look close in the top left side of the picture above you can see how well the leek are doing.

Hubby has cleared and harvested everything out of the wooden raised bed. It is ready for compost dirt, ash and bone meal to be spread out over the top soil in preparation for next spring. We do everything slowly in stages. It is less work intensive. This year we cancelled plans for our fall garden do to my health. It has been a great year in our vegetable garden.

Canned Salt Brine Pickles

  Last year I experimented with different pickle recipes. Each recipe has a little different flavor. All of them were delicious in their own way. The Salt brine pickles were a real surprise how well they turned out. I found in Sweden the only place that you can buy these are usually in a Deli here. They are a treat for us. I thought why not try to make them myself. I made only one batch of them last year. Hubby couldn’t get enough of them. I used table salt instead of pickling salt. The recipe didn’t specify it just said salt. I later found a recipe  using pickling salt. I realized the woman who wrote the recipe assumed that I would know that. I am a newbie  on canning. I didn’t know that. luckily the pickles were delicious. I thought they would be even better if they were a little less salty. That is not to say that I didn’t like them or eat them. He guarded them like they were gold.  I just wanted to tweak the recipe to improve on it for our taste. I could not find pickling salt any where. That is why I cut the salt in half, when using table salt.  Hubby agreed that they would be even better if I cut the salt in half. These were really popular with family and friends. I made these over the weekend. I figure I have one or two more batches left in my cucumber patch, before the patch is done for the season. I will be using pickling them with this recipe.   Canned Salt brine Pickle; 1 cups water 1 cup salt ( I couldn’t find pickling salt, used 1/2 cup table salt) 2 cups vinegar Dill Bring above mixture to a boil. Cool and pour over the pickles packed in jars. Seal. Can boil this and let it stand over night before using. I sterilize jars in boiling water and apple cider vinegar. I stuff a hot jar with pickles and fresh dill while mixture is boiling on the stove. I pour the hot mixture in the jar. I wipe off outside of jars and seal. I continue until all the jars are done. I place hot jars on a towel to cool slowly. I make sure the jars do not touch one another. I then place them in the food cellar for two weeks. They are ready to eat.