Preserving... my way!!!

Ahhh summer!!! My second favorite season after spring. But for me, it is a fleeting season. Everything in it seems to happen all at once. For a gardener as myself, summer gets to be hectic in such a short of time. A season of beauty and abundance, summer magnifies all the fundamental joys of a gardener: garden-fresh food; postcard-perfect scenery; a rainbow of flowers in bloom and an outdoor-living mindset that begs for spontaneous picnics. When spring comes, my lusting for summer starts. A reading perfectly describes what summer is for me ... "Like a torrid love affair, my relationship with summer goes through predictable cycles: We crave each other, passionately adore each other, then mutually burn out in the end".

Summer means working hard but having fun. More than any other time of year, the average summer day offers a buffet of options and possibilities. Mow, weed, harvest, repair, and process. Summer’s to-do list never ends. A celebration of seasonal abundance!!! One way I cherish the summer's abundance is preserving its yield. Although I downsized my garden 2 years ago, I still get quite a bit of produce. I resort into drying and vacuum-sealing/freezing so that I can enjoy the yield of summer throughout the rest of the year.

Tomatoes are one of those summer abundance that I have learned to preserve. I enjoy it as much as I can during the season by indulging in tomato sandwiches - smashed avocado on the bread, slices of tomatoes then lettuce and more smashed avocado on the other bread, some freshly ground pepper and eat away. It's heavenly!!!

Sometimes. I take some sliced up tomatoes, put them on the grill, top them with slices of mozzarella cheese then freshly picked Basil leaves, a dab of EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) and let them grilled ... great appetizer, snack or sandwich.

Dried up tomatoes, if you look at them at the grocery stores, are expensive. And yet so easy to make at home. After I wash and dry the tomatoes, I slice then cut them at least halves, or three slices if they are "fat". I try to squeeze out most of the seeds. then lay them on my dehydrator. I open all the vents of the dehydrator and plug and leave it be. I check once in a while to take out the ones that are dried up and to rotate the dehydrator plates.

The stages of drying ...

After drying the tomatoes, I divide them into 3 piles. One pile is vacuumed-sealed in smaller quantities so that I can use them in recipes that require tomatoes. When I want to use them, I soak them in water until plumped up then use as the recipe calls for. One pile gets chopped finely and put in a jar with EVOO. The other pile gets chopped in bigger slices then in the jar with EVOO as well. The finely chopped is used for more delicate recipes and the bigger chunks get to be used in sauces and soups and the like.

One other way I preserve is by vacuum-sealing then freezing. I first blanch the tomatoes - boiling the water in the pot, putting the whole tomatoes in and let it quickly boil again until the skin is peeling off. Scoop them out and into a container of iced cold water to stop the boiling process and maintain that natural red color.

Relish summer while it’s here and sing along with Sandy and Danny from “Grease” while sinking in your teeth in those juicy, tasty tomatoes: “Summer lovin’, had me a blast. Summer lovin’, happened so fast.”

Fleurs de Eden

I was admiring the flower entries at Nursy Fe's blogspot and gave me the idea to share the flowers I have in my garden. The summer might be winding down but the flowers in my garden keep showing off. Do you recognize them???

Summer picture blog... in E's Garden

Summer here in my part of the world has been cool and even breezy at times!!! It is great for a walker like me. Sometimes it is so nice that I end up walking my doggies early in the evening, too. I walk in the morning most of the times. Yep, I still drag myself to the gym for my Pilatis session and my badly needed abdominal tortures... hehehe!!! But in the garden is where I get my most enjoyable work out... wrestling with the weeds, weight lifting with bags of mulches and potting soil and bark chips and buckets and buckets of cuttings.

And my garden definitely is getting more TLC lately because of that wonderful summer weather. Here are some pictures...
















But then you really have to come and visit to enjoy the fragrance in the garden...

The world of blooms and fruits and yields...

I am one busy person. I get into crazy work schedule wherein I work in stretch of many days. And of course my profession can be mentally exhausting beside physically strenuous. To keep my sanity intact, I step outside my yard and play... yep, with the dirt... gardening. I can download many frustrations and bury many stresses when I start gardening. I can't even imagine me not having a garden to play with. I probably will just make a garden out of anything just to have one.

By the way, the garden of this Eden does not have any of those snakes or sinful apples... nor you'll find any Adam or Eve... just so you know...

For me, gardening is a continuous process of learning, always a trial and error deal. When I think I got the perfect blend of soil, something or some fungus or some disease or some creature will let me know that it is not quite right. Or when I think I perfected the method of planting a certain plant then it dies on me. Which is not really a big deal. Although frustrating at times, I just get my hands back in the dirt and deal with it.

Spring of course is my favorite season because I know that is when I can enjoy all those flowers, fruits and vegetables. I can spend all day in the nursery looking over those plants they have there. I do visit them quite often in the spring and summer just to check if there's any interesting "new" flowers or plants. It is so relaxing to me to just be around plants and flowers. That is why I enjoy those walks in the woods. Have you been to Yosemite around those giant Sequoia trees or inside the Redwood forest... amazing!!! Someday, I would really like to experience being in a Rainforest, I think it will be incredible.

As in my cooking, I am also adventurous with my gardening, always trying out those rare, wild, unusual flowers or plants. Two flowers that I can not seem to grow no matter how much I try to follow the suggestions of the experts... gardenia and fuschia. This spring I found out that fuschia is not going to survive here in our region, sooooo why do they even sell them? The master gardener I talked to said that they shouldn't even sell them here. I know not to buy any more of that flower. Now, I only have one challenge left, yep, gardenia. And I do have one out there in my patio that I am closely watching. We'll see!!!

I always have to have roses. I do have roses, the bush kind and the tree kind and even the miniature kind. I like to keep up with pruning off the old flowers because I know that the more I prune the more flowers there are. Someday I would like to have one big particular area in the backyard where it will just be a rose garden. My ex-father-in-law taught me to prune off on the branch where there are at least five leaves of the plant and that is how I have been pruning my roses. I have yet to research on the reality of that and the significance. In the summer I like to bring those roses in the house and enjoy them some more, the smell is just wonderful.
Lavender is another plant that I always grow and plant them in abundance all over the yard. I like to make potpourri, oil, and sachets out of them. If you notice at the store, these are expensive items and yet they are easy to make at home. I like to give the lavender a gentle kick when I go by them because of the smell they emit, so sweet!!!

Begonia is another flower that you will always find in my garden. I like their hardiness while producing those gorgeous flowers. As in my roses, I keep up with the pruning so that I can enjoy the flowers. And I plant many varieties of this. Nowadays they even have the scented begonias which I think are neat!!!

Most of my plants are perennials so that I always have them. What I do in the spring is plant some annuals in front of the perennials. This way it adds up some dimension to the garden and break the monotony of the "always there, always the same" perennials.

Another garden habit I have is using containers in the mix of the planted plants. I do use those unusual, interesting containers like an old wheelbarrow, an old barbecue grill or my son's old red pulley cart. Just to put some conversational pieces in the garden.

To keep them alive and healthy and generous of their flowers, I water them with water soluble fertilizer about every two weeks. I throw in those slow release fertilizer once in a while. And my vegetable garden get the steer manure beside the slow release fertilizer. Of course I try to nurse their problems as I see them as in fungus, bugs and other diseases. No I don't go out there with my stethoscope and try to diagnose what is wrong... hehehe!!!

Two years ago I decided to downsize my garden because I have been busy. To prevent weeding, I covered my whole yard with weed block material and put thick layer of mulch all over the place. It works!!!

I have a few fruit trees , all dwarf or semi-dwarf. I found this dwarf avocado tree which unfortunately fell victim to the frost last year. I was afraid that it died but so happy to see it growing like crazy this spring. There is a dwarf nectarine tree. A semi-dwarf apple tree with four varieties of apples. A semi-dwarf pear tree with five varieties in it. A semi-dwarf cherry tree that has four varieties of it. A semi-dwarf persimmons tree. A dwarf Satsuma tangerine tree. A dwarf Meyer lemon tree. A calamansi tree.

Then there is my herb garden which is a lot smaller now but still has the varieties that I use a lot of... basil, thyme, parsley, oregano, rosemary, chives, dill, sage and tarragon. When in over abundance, I dry these herbs and jar them. This is another grocery item out there that cost quite a bit and yet so easy to do at home.

Then there's my orchid collection that my sister started me on. They are of different varieties that bloom diffent times. It takes a lot of patience to take care of these plants. In the winter I divide them up and repot them. Incredible flowers!!!

As soon as it warms up, you would not find me inside the house. I am almost always outside pottering around or pruning or weeding or trimming. And getting tanned. So now you know where to find me. And one amazing thing, I can get really busy but I always seem to find time to garden. I hope you like having your hands dirty...

When you do find me inside the house, I am probably tending to my bonsai plants. I have a few of these interesting plants.