This year was our first in the house with the enormous vegetable plot. We planted maybe a third of the plot with a variety of vegetables. We had mixed success: the lettuce thrived, but tasted terrible; the broccoli grew in September but was plagued with bugs; the peppers (save SPICY jalapenos) failed to grow; the cucumbers thrived for a few weeks and then died in the summer heat; and the tomato plants produced fairly late in the season.  We just had our first frost this week, and I was forced to pick TONS of tomatoes before they were ready. I’m going to experiment with green tomato sauces and salsas later on this winter and we’re going to try and plant earlier and smarter next year.

For now, I’ll just be a little amazed that I can grow my own food and enjoy it.

1. Pick tomatoes, wash them. Any tomatoes will do.

2. Set up a pot of water to boil. The first step is to blanch the tomatoes. Take a knife and score an X at the bottom of the tomatoes and drop them in the boiling water for 10-20 seconds.

3. Quickly move the tomatoes from the boiling water to a bowl of ice water.

At this point the skins will have burst and will be easy to remove.

4. Remove the skins.

5. Now remove the seeds, while keeping the juice. I found the easiest way to do this was to squeeze the tomato over a strainer and measuring cup. Since I had scored the tomatoes on the bottom, and these were small, this got rid of most of the seeds and juice.

6. Now chop the tomatoes up in whatever form you want. If you want the sauce to be a little chunky, give them a rough cut. If you want the sauce to be smooth, you can use an immersion blender or puree.

7. Now let’s chop a few veggies to flavor the sauce. Here is 1 carrot, 1 stalk of celery, 1 small onion and a bit of garlic.

8. Now (finally!!) let’s get cooking!  Start with some olive oil and all the veggies in a pot. Cook them 10-15 minutes, or until they start to soften/lose some color/cook.

9. Add in your tomatoes. Let the sauce simmer, stirring occasionally, for 30-45 minutes.  If the sauce ends up too thick, add some of the tomato juice you captured earlier during de-seeding. Add salt to taste.

YUMMY!

We made ours a generic tomato sauce. We could put this over pasta as is, or make it more of an Italian spaghetti sauce by adding basil and oregano.  I’m sure you could can this, although I only made a few servings in this batch so I opted just to freeze it. I can’t wait to thaw it out a few months from now when it’s snowy outside and enjoy it that much more because it came from my own garden!

One of the many things I never saw myself doing was starting a garden. Now don’t get me wrong – I have no use for flower beds and I still abhor getting dirty.  But there’s something about growing my own food in the ground that tempts me. Tempts me enough that we planted part of the enormous raised bed that the previous occupants of our house left us.

It is to my great joy and frustration that our yarn is exceedingly fertile. Vegetables = good. Endless weeds and plants that I have to hoe/weed/pull/curse at? Less so.

But then there’s the lettuce:

And the beans:

And the cucumber invasion:

(and there you can see the part of the bed we didn’t plant that I’m still fighting with!)

And even though we started a little late, I’m hoping for tomatoes:

And maybe one day a strawberry patch:

I can’t take credit for it, but I’m super excited about our blackberries!

Now if only I could do something about the “artist” formerly known as the chicken yard:

(for reference, we tilled the chicken yard about 8 weeks ago – what you see is ONLY 8 weeks of growing!)

I’m sorry, you probably can’t see it quite well enough. Let me show you a closeup:

The night after we closed, Wes and I drove down to the house to see how easily the wallpaper might be removed. We peeled a bit and low and behold the vinyl portion of the paper just came right off. Starting to look better already.

Saturday, after a BIG trip to Home Depot we got out our DIF blue goo and smeared it all over the walls. A few hours of scraping and we got all the paper removed. What was underneath? Well burgundy walls of course!

Yeah. We don’t get it either.

Sunday we primed and painted. Our walls our now Cancun Sand, which basically means a nice cream color. Tape comes off tomorrow so this shot will have to suffice for now:

Of course the other fun thing about our house is that the previous occupants were serious gardeners. This means we got lucky and get a bit of the end of the season produce. We watered today, and collected an enormous zucchini, a squash, a couple peppers, okra, tons and tons of tomatoes (the cherry ones are SO good – and I don’t even like tomatoes!), blackberries and concord grapes. YUM!

ETA For more pictures of the house visit the whole album here.

The Pattern: Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Baby Surprise Jacket

The Needles: US 3′s

The Yarn: Artyarns (Teal & Brown), Dream in Color Smooshy (Romeo Blue)

The Verdict: This sweater is a quick knit with an interesting construction. Garter stitch lends itself to movie theatre knitting which is where I’ve been working on the bulk of these! I can also customize each with fun yarn and cute little buttons. I have a few more planned for September and October babies!

In addition to catching up on current movies (Harry Potter 6, GI Joe and Inglorious Basterds!) we’ve also been geocaching. Yesterday we headed down to Paola, KS to visit The BBQ Shack (featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives!) and did some geocaching around Lake Miola. We were kept from a couple caches by Muggles, but we managed to find 2 out of 3! (which ain’t bad!)

The garden is still growing. So far our biggest successes have been the peppers – we’ve had half a dozen green peppers and a bunch of jalapenos! We’ve started the cucumbers again and are just getting some spiky buds. Our tomato plants are finally producing blooms and little tomatoes after we got our act together and got both tomato cages and fertilizer. I hope to have pics of those to show you soon!

Otherwise we’re cleaning the house today, doing loads of laundry, hitting up the grocery store, and one of us is trying to squeeze in some knitting. My current project? Sleeves. Badly in need of sleeves:

I am, however, knitting quite a bit. And I have a new project to show for it. It only took me two weeks which AMAZES me. I present to you, Kiri:

The Pattern: Kiri

The Yarn: Noro Silk Garden Sock, 2 skeins

The Needles: US 6′s

The Verdict: In this pattern the yarn did all the work. Noro is delightfully dyed and the colors are fantastic. I was a bit apprehensive about the bright orange in this skein, but as it turns out I love the finished product. I love that this photo shows that I didn’t make any errors in the pattern, and how clear the lace looks. I’m definitely on a lace kick – you’ll be seeing more shawls this summer!

Let’s see… what else have I been up to? Yesterday Wes spent the day with friends so I spent my afternoon beating the heat and catching up on Season 1 of True Blood. I only just recently read Book 1 of the Sookie Stackhouse series. The book and the TV show are a bit different, but I have to say that I quite like both. Who thought I would be into vampire series?

We’re also still growing the garden. At this point we harvested our big cucumber (it tasted great!), but had to forfeit the rest of the plant. Unfortunately it had succumbed to some kind of root rot or fungus and wasn’t growing well. We’ve cleaned out the container and started with fresh dirt and are putting together another crop! Our peppers are growing great – we’ve got half a dozen in various sizes and our jalapeno plant is boasting one perfect looking spicy pepper. Remind me not to eat that! Our carrots are harvesting sweet and crunchy. Our tomato plants look full and green and leafy and smell great, but so far we have no tomatoes. We’re going to look into fertilizing soon. All told, not a terrible crop for our first foray into gardening!

Hope you’re enjoying your summer!

A growing cucumber.

Some tender green peppers.

A budding squash flower.

Some sweet carrot tops.

Wes and I drove up on Friday/Saturday and checked into our hotel about 4pm. Then we met up with my parents and some cousins for a fabulous dinner at Francesca’s in Edgewater. The food was really delicious, the company was good and the best part is that the restaurant was across the street from the theatre.

We then went across the street and were entertained for two plus hours. The play was really excellent, and we all had a great time. If you’re going to be in Chicago any time in the next few weeks you should catch this one!

Sunday we all met up for brunch, and then the l’il sis went off to her matinee and the my parents, Wes and I went shopping and touring. I caught a few fun photos around the city, and my dad took this one. All we need is a pitchfork!

Now we’re home, attempting to catch up with Mt. Laundry and get ready for work tomorrow. The garden didn’t seem to fare too badly for a few days without water. We’ve moved it outdoors now and we’re seeing some produce! We’re most impressed with our cucumbers:

Some carrots:

And of course, the tomatoes:

I also seem to have developed a fully blossomed cold. Blech!

I’ve been knitting lots, and have plenty of photos to post, but some are gifts to be given, so it will have to wait. In the mean time, our garden is growing.

The cucumber plant has flowered, delicate yellow flowers that I hope will soon turn to cucumbers.

Our new “floor plan” seems to be working out well as the cucumbers are taking over the neighboring planters.

We also have the tenderest of carrot tops.

And of course, the tomato plants continue to flourish.