Refrigerator pickling is one of my favorite ways to preserve peppers from the garden. They keep so much more of their crunch, heat, and flavor when preserved this way, as opposed to water bath canning. No matter what tricks I’ve tried, like bay leaves and “pickle crisp,” I’ve found that home-canned pickled peppers (especially when…
As someone who’s most partial to savory, spicy, and salty foods, I have never been a huge fan of bread and butter pickles. Generally, I’m disappointed when I get a helping of pickles at a potluck or family gathering and they turn out to be the weird sweet kind. Old-fashioned, homemade bread and butter pickles…
Squash is one of our favorite summer veggies, and we grow and eat a lot of it every year. While I honestly don’t get tired of having fried or grilled squash as a side dish with dinner three or four (or five or six) nights a week, it IS nice to change things up and…
We grow a lot of tomatoes every year; approximately 35 to 40 plants (that’s rookie numbers for some folks, but we’re a small family). By mid-July, our kitchen counter is lined with probably hundreds of ripening tomatoes that need to be used or preserved. When it comes to preserving the garden harvest, tomatoes can be…
Since I love pickles and everybody in my family loves pickles, I’m always making batch after batch in the canner all summer while my cucumber plants are producing. I make sweet pickles, savory pickles, pickle spears, pickle chips, and sometimes whole pickles and pickle relish. We’ll put up 60 jars of home-canned pickles or pickle-related…
Home-canned pickles are a go-to method to preserve those summer cucumber harvests. Unfortunately, a lot of folks end up disappointed when they crack the first jar open to find the pickles have gone mushy. I’ve had people tell me they’ve switched to only making refrigerator pickles for that very reason. Refrigerator pickles are nice, but…
If you’ve been interested in organic gardening for at least ten minutes, you’ve probably already heard about Neem oil. It’s the gold standard for natural garden pest control, among other issues, and folks will recommend it for everything from bug infestations to blight or fungal wilts. Caterpillars? Neem oil. Leaf spots? Neem oil. Deer, rabbits,…
When we first started growing vegetables, garlic was not really on our radar. It’s not particularly expensive to buy at the store any time of year, so we were dedicating all our time and space to higher-dollar crops. Then, I noticed it was getting kinda hard to find fresh garlic on the shelves in…
Garlic has a pretty long growth cycle from planting to harvest. Cloves or “seed garlic” are planted in the fall, and then you can largely forget about it over winter, until it begins to grow again the following spring. Even during the growing season, garlic is a laid-back crop that doesn’t require much fuss. I’ve…
Growing a good crop of tomatoes can be a bit of a challenge; a fun one, but a challenge nonetheless. It’s not just about getting the soil, fertilizer, and water right for some big, good-quality fruits. Your plants will also need proper support to keep them upright and off the ground. Tomato plants get massive…
