The Wednesday Weigh-In : Week #39

  

We're at 1072.3 Pounds!

    

     Cool temperatures are definetly in the air and there is no doubt that summer is behind us.  We are still enjoying some of the bounty of summer but know it will end before long.  Fall crops like leeks, brussels sprouts, and cabbage are starting to be ready for harvest.  This week we harvested 44 lbs of food.  From that total only 1.7 pounds were eggs.  Our chickens laid a meger 13 eggs this week.  With the shortening days they seem to be taking a break.  We just turned the supplemental light back on in the coop to encourage them to lay throught the winter.  

     The remaining 42.3 pounds was produce.  Here are the top produces of the week: 

       17 lbs of tomatoes

       4.0 lbs of summer squash

       4.0 lbs of watermelon

       3.7 lbs of celery

       3.7 lbs of green beans

       2.4 lbs of leeks

       2.4 lbs of chard

      

    

 Only 967.7 Pounds To Go !

  

Saving Heirloom Tomato Seeds

       

     While we don't save seeds from every annual crop that we grow, we do strive to preserve the genetic material for a signifigant portion of what we grow.  Amoung the easiest seeds to save for the following year are tomato seeds.  The complete flowers of tomato plants almost never cross polinate (except currant varieties) so you can save seeds without isolating plants. 

     To save tomato seeds the first step is to ferment them.  After separating a bunch of seeds from the flesh of a tomato one will notice they have a clear coating around them.  This coating inhibits growth and can be removed quickly through fermentation.  The process of fermentation only requires putting the seeds in a jar with a little water for 3-5 days until a white mold forms on the surface.   

     After the mold forms the seeds are ready for drying.  We usually pull off the moldy surface and discard it, then add a little more water to the solution stirring it around.  Next we put a coffee filter in a colander and pour the tomato seed solution into the coffee filter.  After a couple hours the liquid has run through the filter and all your a left with is the seeds (and a little pulpy crust).  

     We leave the seeds on the filters to dry more completely for a couple days.  Once the seeds are dry we divide them into piles of 20-25 seeds and put them into coin envelopes.

     Each small seed pack has more than enough seeds to start plants for that variety the following year.  By keeping our seeds in the freezer the germination rates remain high for 5-10 years.  This enables us to keep the extra packets for future years so we don't have to save every variety of tomato every year. 

    

Sunday Supper

     

     This week we are featuring a garden veggie frittata we made a short while back while on vacation at a friends lake house.  We brought all the ingredients from our garden and served a frittata for 14 people!

     Using two dozen eggs from our chickens, 24 ounces of tomato, 18 ounces of swiss chard and 10 ounces of leeks this this was by far the largest frittata we've ever made.  

     In the end it did not take much more work than the small ones we often make for ourselves.  Combined with bacon and some watermelon this was a wonderful meal.  While veggie frittatas are a great go to breakfast or dinner meal they really shine when cooking for a large group.  Here is our basic recipe:

     Ingredients:  

     1.  Approximately 2 eggs per person being served

     2.  Choice of fresh veggies usually 4-6 ounces per person chopped into small pieces

     3.  Grated hard cheese (Romano or other) 

     4.  Spray oil (grape-seed or olive)

     5.  Salt and Pepper

     If using chard, leeks, kale, onions, beet greens, spinach or squash sauté first.  For tomatoes, peppers, basil, or broccoli there is no need to cook first.  Combine all eggs and whisk together.  Spray entire surface of pan with a coat of oil.   Add 1/2 of veggies followed by 1/2 of the eggs to the pan.  Next add the remaining veggies followed by the rest of the eggs.  Begin to cook on the stove on medium heat until the top edge of the eggs begins to harden (about 5 minutes).  Add a thin layer of the grated hard cheese to top and salt & pepper to taste.  Move to oven and finish cooking uncovered at 350 deg for 30 minutes, or until the top just begins to turn golden.  Let cool for 10 minutes and serve!

     

The Wednesday Weigh-In : Week #38

  

We're at 1028.3 Pounds!

    

     Apologies to all our readers for the lack of posting this past week.  We have been out of town visiting friends on the east coast.  Only being home for a couple days of the week resulted in pretty light harvesting from the gardens.  In total we produced 25.8 lbs of food with 2.1 lbs coming from 18 eggs and the remaining 23.7 lbs coming from produce.

Here is the list of the top five items for the week:

       9.6 lbs of tomatoes

       3.9 lbs of cucumber

       2.9 lbs of summer squash

       2.4 lbs of sorrel

       1.9 lbs of chard

      

      We expect the poundage next week will be much larger as there are many ripe veggies awaiting harvest, and we wont be out of town at all.  Will we make it to 1100 lbs before the end of September? 

 Only 971.7 Pounds To Go !

  

The Wednesday Weigh-In : Week #37

  

We're at 1002.5 Pounds!

    

     WOW, we've made it half way to the urban ton!  Over 1000 pounds, holy smokes!  For the week we produced a total of 44.2 pounds with 2.1 pounds from eggs, and the remaining 42.1 pounds came from produce.  

Here is the list of the top ten items for the week:

     16.5 lbs of tomatoes

       5.1 lbs of cucumber

       4.1 lbs of chard

       3.5 lbs of watermelon

       3.2 lbs of leeks

       3.2 lbs of summer squash

       1.4 lbs of horseradish leaves

       1.2 lbs of peppers

       0.8 lbs of okra

       0.7 lbs of eggplant

      

 Only 997.5 Pounds To Go !

 

 

Berkley Tie Dye Tomato

    

     Tonight we feature another of our favorite tomatoes: Berkley Tie Dye.  This one we discovered this year through one of the members at Seed Savers.  The green fruits have been up to one pound each, but average between 8-12 ounces.

     The tangy sweet flavor of this tomato alone makes it stand out enough to be one we'll grow year after year.  But it's flavor is not even as intoxicating as the color variations across the tomato as it ripens.  When immature, they are a solid green, but as they ripen they begin to get light yellow streaks followed by red splotching.  It truly lives up to the tie dye name!  What a beautiful tomato.

     

Fall Seed Sowing

    

     The weather here in Minnesota took a sharp turn last week from highs in the 90's with a summer like feel, to highs in the 70's with that distinct crisp fall air.  Some trees have even started to show signs of color, led off by our neighbor's maple who's display is already near peaking!

     We have been busy harvesting and enjoying hundreds of pounds of produce over the past few weeks but even as the primary growing season is starting to draw to a close we're still sewing another round of crops for late fall harvests.  

     Having harvested the rest of the potatoes, the onions, and artichokes we were left with several areas ready open for planting.  Between these areas we sewed fall crops of spinach and several variates of lettuce.  With their fast germination, and growth, we are really looking forward to enjoying salads and spinach again in a few weeks!

Sunday Supper

  

     A few weeks back we featured our garlic scape basil pesto for the Sunday Supper.  This week we thought we would share our classic pine nut basil pesto recipe.  If you remember the weekly weigh-in last week we harvested 5.4 pounds of basil, well it all went into making pesto.  

     Just like in the garlic scape pesto, this is also made to taste rather than with exact quantities.  The ingredients are:

     1.  Basil

     2.  Olive Oil

     3.  Pine Nuts

     4.  Fresh Ground Pepper

     5.  Sea Salt

     6.  Red Pepper Flakes

     7.  Graded Romano or Other Hard Cheese

     8.  Garlic

     While we made pesto from five lbs of basil a more reasonable starting point would be with about a pound.  To make all five pounds we had actually had to do it in 3 batches anyway (the photos are of one batch).  Using around a pound of basil you will need about 2 cups pine nuts, 1.5 cups olive oil, 3 tbsp salt and pepper, 1 tbsp red pepper flakes, 1/2 cup graded Romano or other hard cheese, and one or two medium heads (not cloves) of garlic.  

     Add whole garlic cloves into food processor and blend until chopped.  Next add basil and start to blend pulsing a few seconds at a time.  While pulsing begin to slowly pour in olive oil until basil purees well into even consistency.  Next, add the pine nuts, cheese, red pepper, salt, and pepper mixing together well.  Taste and adjust as necessary.

  

     

The Wednesday Weigh-In : Week #36

  

We're at 958.3 Pounds!

    

     It was another week of solid food production.  We exceeded our personal consumption of produce, and in total for the week produced 80.1 lbs of food.  Thats nearly 11.5 pounds per day (down about 3.5 pounds per day from last week)!  With the Minnesota state fair and our folks in from out of town we did not eat every meal from the garden but came close.  We were able to make some dried tomatoes, can some salsa and gardenia, and freeze some kale and chard for the winter.  From the total, only 3.0 lbs were from the 24 eggs our chickens laid (they slowed down production with the change in temperature from the 80's to the 60's).  The remaining 77.1 pounds was produce.  Here is the list of the top ten items for the week:

     21.8 lbs of tomatoes

       8.1 lbs of kale

       6.9 lbs of beans

       6.3 lbs of chard

       5.4 lbs of basil

       5.4 lbs of horseradish

       5.1 lbs of watermelon

       5.0 lbs of summer squash

       4.9 lbs of cucumber

       3.3 lbs of celery

 Only 1031.7 Pounds To Go 

   

Growing Shiitake Mushrooms

  

     Earlier this spring we decided to try growing shiitake mushrooms.  They won't add anyting to the Urban Ton this year, as it takes nearly twelve months before they produce, but we thought we would share the process of getting setup to grow them.  

     Shiitake mushrooms prefer to grow in oak or other hard woods, that are freshly cut, and with the bark still attached.  One of our neighbors has been custom cutting his own lumber and had some outer planks from an oak tree leftover that he gave us to use.  To innoculate the wood with shiitake mushroom spawn we purchased plugs from Raintree Nursery but they are readily available from many commercial sources. 

     We drilled holes into each log spaced approxametly 5 inches apart, and one inch deep. Once all the holes were drilled we tapped one plug into into each of the holes with a hammer. 

     The plugs were then covered with a layer of wax to seal them.  This keeps air out as the mycelium begin to spread thought the wood.

     Over the course of the next year these mycelium should spread thought the entire log.  To maintain proper growing conditions the temerature needs to stay above freezing, be humid, damp, and dark.  By keeping them in a corner room in our basement we are able to very closley replicate these conditions.    In another 8 months we will soak the logs in water for 2-3 days which encourages the mycelium to start producing mushrooms.  We inoculated 5 logs and if all goes well when they start producing next year we should have a continuous supply of shiitake mushrooms for several years to come!

    

The Wednesday Weigh-In : Week #35

   

We're at 878.2 Pounds!

    

     While this was not our biggest week on record we still produced quite a lot of food.  In total for the week we produced 101.0 lbs.  Thats just over 14 lbs a day!  We ate all our meals with at least something from the garden and still were able to freeze some tomatoes for the winter, dry a bunch of herbs, and get another batch of half sour pickles started.  From the total, 3.3 lbs were from the 26 eggs our chickens laid.  The remaining 97.7 pounds was produce.  Here is the list of the top ten items for the week:

     39.5 lbs of tomatoes

     10.3 lbs of cucumbers

       9.0 lbs of pineapple sage

       6.6 lbs of sorrel

       5.1 lbs of celery

       4.8 lbs of chard

       4.6 lbs of squash

       4.3 lbs of lemongrass

       4.2 lbs of watermelon

       3.5 lbs of radishes

 Only 1121.8 Pounds To Go