Garden Salsa recipe
Aug 8, 2009 cilantro, garlic, harvest, onions, recipe, tomato
Big moment this week, I was able to make salsa entirely from ingredients. I normally don;t use cherry/grape tomatoes for salsa but my Early Girls are not that early this year and have quite turned red.
CVG Garden Salsa Recipe
- 2-3 tomatoes (or 12-15 cherry/grape tomatoes)
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 small onion
- green onion
- 5 sprigs of cilantro
- tablespoon vinegar
- 1 jalapeno pepper (seeded)
- sugar
Directions: Coarsely chop tomatoes (removing seeds, though if I few sneak in no big deal), onion, and green onions and add to bowl. Finely chop garlic, cilantro, and seeded jalapeno pepper and add to mixture. Add vinegar to bowl and mix thoroughly. Let sit for 10 minutes and add sugar until salsa does not have a spicy aftertaste (normally 1-2 teaspoons) If you like the spice skip the sugar and seeding jalapeno.
Doing recon at the local farmers market
Aug 2, 2009 corn, farmers market, garden planning, garlic
Your mission, should you decide to accept it is to infiltrate a local farmers market to gain intelligence to help aid your personal garden.
Sure, the farmers market is a great place to find some fresh food you can’t or didn’t have time/space to grow in your garden. It is also a great place to get seeds/starts for your garden. It is also a great resource to figure out how various fruits/vegetables grow in your area.
Even if you are growing everything you want/need in your own garden a quick stop at your farmers market can help you check out your competition and see for example in my case, “hey their garlic grew just as bad as mine this year.”
This is also a good time to try out new fruits and vegetables you are thinking of growing next year. There is nothing worse than growing a bed full of arugula and figure out at that point you hate the stuff. If you are lucky enough you might even get a meal and some seeds to plant with next year depending on you seed saving ability.
Now as always you don’t want to blow your cover while doing surveillance, so make sure you have a good cover store. In my case I used a few people known as “my wife and daughters” to appear less conspicuous. You can even use techniques of taking a picture of your “daughter” to get some recon picture of their products for further analysis.
In the end it looks like my little spy helpers had a good time and we even contributed a little to the local farmers economy and got the secret ingredient to CVG Black Bean and Corn Salsa Recipe (ok, it was corn).
This post will self destruct in 10 seconds (sorry had to say it)
Volunteer potatoes
Jun 28, 2009 garlic, onions, potatoes
Well I wasn’t planning on growing potatoes this year but looks like I have a couple of volunteers from last year. This could turn out to be a fortunately accident since they are currently growing under my onions and garlic. If they happen to stay low enough might actually get two decent crops in the same square footage.
Any predictions?
Finish outdoor seed planting with coffee grounds
Mar 7, 2009 garlic, onions, outdoor seed starting
It has been a blessing that the competition for free coffee grounds at the Starbucks at my work has increased now the weather warmed up and I have freed from the temptation to grab yet another free shiny silver bag of grounds. The reason is, I have put four bags in my compost, worked generous amounts into my vegetable garden and I still have six bags left. Now I am looking at inventive ways to use the rest up. I tried mixing with perlite to make a cheap potting soil (failed still no room for roots) but I believe I have come across one success I thought I would share.
When you are finished planting seeds outdoors apply a thin layer of coffee grounds. This will deter slugs from going after your new seedlings and keep cats from mistaking your nicely loosened and raked soil for their kitty litter.
I have done this for my larger seed plants (peas, garlic, onions, cilantro) but for the small seed plants (carrots, lettuce, spinach) I used the coffee grounds as a seed covering.
So far the results are great. All of my peas/garlic/onions/spinach have sprouted with no signs of pests (four-legged nor zero-legged).
Growing in dirt outside
Mar 7, 2009 cilantro, cucumbers, garlic, indoor grow box, onions, outdoor seed starting, peas, tomato
I haven’t done many posts in a while about regular old gardening in actual dirt so figured a good time to do an update. Though I enjoy indoor seed starting in my LED grow box and computerized grow box, some plants need to be started outdoors. Today my daughters and I planted the last these plants for fall outdoor planting.
A few weeks ago, we planted garlic, onions, spinach, and peas which are doing well. I love growing these plants no matter how late your spring comes these plants are hardy they are pretty hard to kill off.
Today we planted carrots, lettuce, and cilantro leaving a little space left to do some successive cilantro planting in a couple weeks to ensure I have enough for salsa by the time the tomatoes are ready this summer.
Speaking of tomatoes, they along with jalapeño peppers, and cucumbers (actually flowering) are doing great in the computerized grow box. In the LED grow box I have pumpkin, Black Eyed Susan, small sunflowers, and Purple Coneflowers using Grodan Gro-Blocks.
Nice to finally see some stuff in the ground though still hoping the weather gets better before my cucumbers try to escape the grow box.
Garden teriyaki sauce recipe
Jul 4, 2008 garlic, growing challenge
This is the first year I have grown garlic inspired by the Growing Challenge so now I want to find some good uses for this new addition. For Independence Day we are having a typical BBQ (teriyaki chicken burgers) and we ran out of teriyaki sauce seemed like a logical thing to attempt. Must say the improvised recipe was really easy and tasted much better than the stuff we got from the store (much less salty) I have kids so I only used a small pinch of red pepper flakes but with those with a taste for extra spice recommend adding at least a half a teaspoon.
Garden teriyaki sauce recipe
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 1 tsp of chopped or pressed garlic
- 1 tsp of fresh grated ginger (1/2 tsp powdered ginger)
- 1/2 cup soy sauce
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1 cup water
- red pepper flakes (to taste)
Directions: Warm oil is sauce pan at medium heat and add garlic and ginger to oil. Stir for 2 minutes and add remaining ingredients. Reduce heat and stir until sugar dissolves. Make 12 ounces of teriyaki sauce.
