Summer of Adventure: #10 My Garden

This adventure is definitely more my adventure than the kids. This last spring I decided that I would turn one of the flower beds in our backyard into a small vegetable garden and I have to say that I have been very pleased with how successful it has been. I am still learning, but have really enjoyed having my own vegetables to cook with and eat.

I planted bell peppers.

Lettuce...
More bell peppers...and you can see a tomato poking behind the pepper...
And basil and cilantro. My basil has taken off and turned into a tree. I have never seen a basil bush so big.
I also planted several tomato plants. I do have to say that this is where I was a little disappointed, but I think that it has to do with my inexperience and I will fix it for next time. My tomato plants produced a TON of tomatoes. (I was eating them for breakfast, trying to keep up.) Then my plants started to turn black and then died. After some research, I think that they got some sort of fungus. (There was a fungus amungus...That was for my dad, I know that he is thinking it.) Before I plant anything else, I think that I may need to do some dirt therapy to treat whatever is in the soil. Shane patiently listens and quietly tunes me out as I talk to him about dirt.

So...one of the plants is still alive and I am hoping that it makes it to the end of the summer.

Whew! That was a long boring story. If you are still with me...

I had a ton of tomatoes in the fridge and I decided to make tomato sauce. Now, this is nothing new to me. As a kid, making tomato sauce was part of my mom's annual torture regiment called, "summer." She would set my sister, Miriam, and me up in the kitchen with a hand crank juicer clamped to the kitchen table, a cutting board to cut thousands of tomatoes, and huge pots boiling on the stove full of tomato sauce and boiling water. The water was where hundreds of jars were waiting to be dunked for the water bath that is part of the canning process. Sounds terrible, right?!

It was really hot, but not so terrible, I guess. After all, there was lots of quality sister time happening in that kitchen, and I'm not afraid of canning things in jars.

So, I pulled my tomatoes out of the fridge and started chopping.

Shane got me a juicer for my birthday and I have to say that I may be in love. No hand cranking or clamping to the kitchen table here. This baby works like a dream!

After I juiced all of my tomatoes, I cooked my sauce on the stove and it made my house smell like an Italian momma. (Not that I really know what that smells like...I'm just imagining.)

I took all of that tomato goodness, along with my bell peppers and basil, and made a big pan of lasagna for dinner. It was quite wonderful.