After a spring devoid of garden success (sparrows ate the peas, springs crops like radishes bolted too quickly, lettuces were slow to grow), I welcome summer. Warmer temperatures and less torrential rain will surely help our sustainable garden grow. Grapes, tomatoes, and peppers bend with fruit and hope for autumn harvest. Greens and herbs grow by inches overnight. Insects exchange flower dust for nectar in the symbiotic relationship that creates so much of our food: [...]

The formidable Joan Dye Gussow finished the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association (OEFFA) conference with a speech that included a personal history of the food movement and rabble rousing call to action. “We are well overdue in this country for a revolution!” she incited. I happen to agree though I am not the revolutionary type. I prefer to work at the ground level, tending my small plot of land, eating food from reliable sources, [...]

A carefully dried tomato can carry the taste of summer’s sweet abundance through many seasons.  Dried tomatoes provide a distinct chewy texture and richness to pan sauces and stews.  They can be eaten as is for a quick burst of vitamin C.  Making your own during is not hard at all. Equipment Dried tomatoes are generally made in one of three ways: in a solar cooker or sun dehydrator in a very low temperature oven [...]

Oh, Julia Child, you dear pink tomato.  Your blushing beauty covers your spicy inside, tempting gardeners for decades. Cherokee Chocolate, dark enchantress of the bunch.  That Christmas colored skin of yours yields to a dark juicy flesh, dripping with sunlight transformed to sweetness. Then there’s you, Rutgers.  Your pleats, your bulbous inundations, inspire a thousand delicious thoughts. All together, you are a brothel of diversity, a color, size, and flavor for every preference. Sliced raw, [...]

In Canning Week 2010 day 3, I share a bit about canning vegetables.  View a lesson on pectin and recipe for peach jam from earlier in the week.  Tomorrow I’ll discuss pickles. The massive harvests are starting, and they aren’t limited to sweet fruits.  Something has to be done with mountains of tomatoes, corn, green beans, and more. Canning is one useful option to preserve the harvest.  Vegetables are a bit more tricky to can [...]

Dear chickens, I know our tomatoes are delicious.  Or rather, I would know, if you didn’t keep hen-pecking them before they are fully ripe. Gardeners should never count their eggs before they hatch with regards to tomatoes, and I did initially believe the dogs or squirrels were stealing the fruit.  I was walking on eggshells waiting to witness something eating the ‘maters and suddenly there you were! I fenced in the tomato plants, but you [...]

Rising temperatures find home cooks looking for low-heat meal options. Gazpacho is a refreshing choice that requires only the use of your blender. This version was made with what I had on hand during late spring: last year’s home canned home grown tomatoes, garlic scapes, fresh cilantro, and store bought jalapeno. Later in the season, fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, and fresh peppers would make great ingredients. The process couldn’t be simpler: blend together clean vegetables and [...]