Pinterest Find of the Day ~ Canning Tomatoes

    
     Did you ever wanted how many tomato plants do I need to have a pantry of tomato products for the year? I have. I love the idea of having my homemade tomato sauce on all our food. This will let me know my family is eating healthy and organic food. It will take out BPA, pesticides, and other chemical they add to the food.

Here is my find

     Here is a awesome site I found on Pinterest about knowing how many tomato plants it takes to fill up  my pantry.  According to Kris Bordessa  at Attainable Sustainable, she need 17-25 plants to feeed her family. Looking at what she has canned I think I would need half that amount. Which leads me to plant 9-13 tomato plants for my family. Check out her whole article Tomato Math -How Many Plant is Enough .   

Join me on Facebook at  Pa Gardeners and on Pinterest at Missy Life of a Working Mom to see what I am up too.

Harvesting and Storage - Freezing Raspberries

Harvesting and clean raspberries

     After harvesting so many raspberries, we had to save them for use though out the year. This week we decide to save them by putting them in the freezer. I have 6 easy steps to have raspberries in the freezer. 

Laying out the raspberries and freezing them

How to Freeze Raspberries

1. Harvest raspberry/ or buy them
2. Clean them - soak them in 2-3tbsp of vinegar and gallon of water. I let them soak for about 15-20 minute. This kills bacteria and any bugs in it. 
3. Drain - I drain then and let them dry for a few minutes. 
4. Cookie sheet - Put them on a cookie sheet and speard them out. 
5. Freezer - I stick the whole cookie sheet in the freezer and freeze them for about 4-5 hours. 
6. Freeze Bag - I take a spatula and scoop the frozen berries off the cookie sheet and but them in a freezer bag. 

my 2/3 full gallon freezer bag of raspberries

     It's that easy! Then you have raspberries to cook with or eat frozen. Do you freeze any of your fruit? If so how do you freeze it?

Gardening - Harvesting raspberries

Mmmm raspberries on the vine

          This weekend red raspberries have come in! I was so excited. I love fresh fruit. We try to harvest more then we will eat in a week to freeze and us though out the year. It helps us save money. It give us free organic raspberries. 

I harvest these with Hubby on Sunday

     We had my niece and nephew over for the day on Friday and the picked about a half of pound. It was nice to see them picking them and having fun. 

Everyone helped even the dog 

     Hubby and I went harvesting on Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon. We took the dog with us. He love eating the few berries we dropped. We did find some black berries too. Mmmmm 

Here are the other ones harvested this week. One from cass and one with hubby. 

     We harvested about 2.5lbs of berries this weekend. It was a lot of fun and there are still many berries to harvest next weekend! Are you harvesting wild berries near you? If so what kinds are you harvesting.

Gardening - 6 week after last frost - harvesting mulberries

   

My harvest in the basket

     One of my gardening goals for 6 weeks after my last frost was to Harvest Mulberries and basil- my mulberry tress and basil plants are ready to harvest! This goal was a little trick to get done, because I want to do it as a family. It seemed like every night it rain. I got lucky on Monday and we had a little time before it rained. My little one and I head out and start to pick them off the tree. Then hubby came out with the latter not many were ready to be picked. We did harvest .33lbs so I will take that. I did also harvest some basil for dinner about 15 leaves which wasn't that much but it was something!! 

I weighed them. 

Gardening- Asparagus



Green Asparagus need to harvest Asap



Asparagus usually up in early spring between the last two weeks of April and the first week of May. 

Asparagus seems to be an easy crop the grow. I've planted the roots in the fall,  and then the asparagus comes up in spring. Many books that I have read say do not harvest the first year's crop. The asparagus is too little to eat and it doesn't give enough time for the roots to grow. I don't know how true this is a new people that have harvest the first year's crop but I've always just let it go the first year. 

Picking her Favorite Veggie

As soon as my little one finds Asparagus the garden; she is normally picking it and eating it raw. I'm lucky to get any in the house or even have a chance of weighing  it. 

 

Harvesting them with Scissors

It isn't very hard to harvest your asparagus.  All you really need is scissors and you should be good to go. We cut the asparagus at the base and then go inside rinse it off. 

I think the best part about asparagus is it the one time buy, because it is a perennial plant!!  Yes that initial $4.00 for one root is worth it in the end. 

Do you grow asparagus? 

Gardening and Cooking - Sautéed Asparagus

One of the best things that having a gardening is to be able to harvest your vegetables fresh!  I personally believe that freshly picked vegetables always taste better!

This week we're harvesting our asparagus spears out of the garden. Because my little one loves to just eat them raw. I don't always have a lot to cook with. So convincing her to leave me the pound was a hard thing to do, but she did. 



Love this picture!

I'm going to divide it in half and make two different recipes. The first one is sautéed asparagus!

Sautéed asparagus isn't easy recipe! All you need is about a tablespoon of butter and a half a pound asparagus. 

Mmmm

Melt the butter in the pan and sauté up the Spera guess about 5 to 7 minutes. Then you can add salt and pepper to taste, and serve. 

My family loves this recipe! How do you cook your asparagus?

Dinner is waiting to be harvested!

Gardening & Harvesting - Kidney Beans

My kidney beans

I planted kidney beans this year right before the last chance I could. So I wasn't excepting to get a lot out of them. I was excited though! I got about a cup. Which is enough to save some for seeds for next year and to cook with some!

Here how I harvest them! 

My kidney beans drying on the plant 

I let them dry out on the plant. I wait until they are starting to spilt. 

Cutting the pods off

After they are dry out I cut off the pods. I you cutter so I don't ripe the pods and have some fall out. It seems to help. 

The kidney beans in the pod

Then I open the pods and pick out the good kidney beans! Look how red they are. 

All these pods for one plant 

It was that simple. I felt like I got a lot off one plant but could have gotten more if I planted them sooner. I'm defentaly going to plant them next year!!

Did you plant any this year? When do you harvest them? 

Gardening & Harvesting ~ Pinapple Sage

This year I bought two pineapple sage plants from Black Creek Nursery. One the dog dug up. The other you're into this huge plant! I let it grow until it's brown and flowers picking occasionally for tea.

Sorry bad Picture, we took it at night before PA 1st frost! Little one with pineapple sage and Loofah

The whole reason for buying this plant though was to turn it into jelly and use it on our hams! 

Pineapple seeds seems to be one of the easiest things to grow! All I did was into it and the rain watered it. To harvested all you do is pick the leaves. Mmmm they smell so good, and makes great tea.



5 cups of Pineapple sage

I did try to be cuttings out of it to see if I can regrow it in they did not work. I will try one more time and hopeful this time it works. 

What was easiest plant you grew this year?