Friday, May 23, 2014

Garden ****Picture Heavy****



Growing your own spinach and using it in a salad, meal, or canning it is just totally awesome.  Maybe I’m crazy, but I love eating spinach.  When I was a kid, I would eat it directly from the can……..I guess I watched Popeye too many times…………..LOL!!!!!

Here’s some of my fresh spinach in one of my garden beds.



Here’s the spinach plants after I gave the plants a haircut.


I used my water bath pot to carry in all the clipped spinach.



Each leave was washed, stemmed, and then cut with a pizza cutter.



Then I blanched the leaves for 1 minute straight, and canned these babies up in my pressure canner.  The end result, 4 and ½ quarts after clipping all of those spinach leaves.
 
Spinach condensed to 1/2 of each bottle. 
 *****

Here are a few more updates on my garden.
The peas are slowly growing this year, and I don’t know why.


Here are the tomato plants planted in the straw bales, looking good with blossoms and some tomatoes.



My lettuce has taken off like crazy; this will be harvested throughout this week for all kinds of salads.
 



These look like button mushrooms found in one of my garden boxes.  I haven’t planted mushrooms; therefore, they will be pulled out and discarded.




Celery is looking good. The other day I needed to spray some of the leaves on a couple of the other plants, because a bug was eating away the leaves.  My homemade bug spray(water, alcohol, and Dawn) worked well.





The corn is getting bigger.


The green beans have taken off, and I can see little blossoms starting to peak.


Here is a picture of just some of my potato plants growing like weeds.


Swiss Chard (red and regular color) both need harvesting and processing, for putting in the freezer.



My onions are enjoying the sun.


Red beets, looking good, and needing a couple more weeks to get bigger.


Rutabaga coming along just fine too.

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23 comments

  1. Looking really good there Sandy... Yuck on the spinach though :)

    And Okra if you have any....

    I didn't see you mention peppers or cucumbers though?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. PP,

      Thanks!!! Another vegetable you don't like SPINACH :P

      No I didn't plant okra, I only like okra fried and I couldn't see frying all the okra therefore, I didn't plant any.

      I have several pepper plants growing, along with cucumbers. They will be mentioned on upcoming posts.

      Delete
  2. Wow I just bought four kale plants and some geraniums yesterday. Wish I lived closer to you:) Great garden. Hug B

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. B,

      If you lived closer to me I would share my vegetables with you :-)
      And we would have to go on a field trip down in the Arbuckle Mountains. I think you and LEO would love it there.

      Delete
  3. Everything is looking great Sandy!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. DFW,

      Thanks girl!!!! I'm enjoying my garden this year.

      Delete
  4. sweet Sandy - your garden is looking beautiful! do you eat your beet greens? you can clip them, the greens will come back and the beet roots will still grow! if you like spinach you will like beet greens....cook them just like you saute or steam spinach - they are delicious! much love from us to you and all of yours,always!

    your friend,
    kymber

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Kymber, I didn't know you could eat beet greens. Thanks! I'll give it a try this week.

      Delete
    2. oh Mike - beet greens are really good and really healthy for you too! like i said to Sandy, if you like spinach, kale swiss, chard - beet greens have similar taste - yummeh! and if you clip a few leaves off a beet, the beet will send new shoots up in days. you can harvest the leaves all season until you harvest the beet root. i like them best sauteed in a little butter until just wilted, then add salt and pepper. simple, easy, and delicious!

      Delete
    3. Sweet Kymber,

      I love eating the green tops off of the beets. After washing the tops, I put them in a frying pan with a little olive oil, butter, salt and pepper and viola...............delicious!!!!

      Delete
  5. Sandy garden looks great, nice variety too. How many quarts of spinach do you think you'll get this year?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mike,

      Thank you Mike!!! Well after picking a lot of spinach, and doing the canning in this post I was surprise to only get 4 and 1/2 quarts.
      I will probably get another 4 quarts, and a few bags to freeze.

      Delete
  6. I'm jealous! My onions are gettin big, my peas are doing good. Just planted beans and cuke seeds. Hoping I can do tomatoes and peppers this weekend. I never have success with spinach :(

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Longtime Wife,

      See your garden is coming along just fine. I don't do anything special when planting spinach. I just make sure the soil is good (from the farm or buy a bag of soil) mix it with a good compost and then plant the seeds. I do water twice a day when the temperature is above 90 degrees, that's it.

      Delete
  7. I love everything but the beets and spinach....bahahaha...I will eat spinach leaves in a salad but nor canned. Weird but I love collards and turnip greens. Things were so messed up here with late frosts only got 2 rows of green beans and a few tomatoes that survived. I have not had the heart to check the potatoes. I am going to plant a fall garden.and try then.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mamma Bear,

      You don't like beets or spinach, lol
      But enjoy your spinach cold and on salad. I prefer my spinach cooked, I don't know why. Maybe it has something to do with the film that is left on my teeth when I eat it raw.
      Take a break, let the temperatures cool down, then plant your garden. Doing it in the fall will be easier I think. I'm planning what I want to plant in the fall as I type this comment.

      Delete
  8. Sandy
    Your garden looks so beautiful!!
    I'm envious...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Kimberly,

      Thanks sweetie. Oh don't be envious, you can still plant a little something there where you're working maybe in pots??

      Delete
  9. Happy to see your garden. As you said i too like to have veggies from our garden for cooking. It gives a different taste rather buying them from the shop.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Weekend-Windup,

      Thank you, I do love home grown vegetables and fruits.
      Everything tastes better when home grown (I'm being very biased here).
      I wish we could grow venison, buffalo, and elk too, lol

      Delete
  10. Your garden is doing beautifully. Every time you named a plant my mouth remembered the taste.

    If those are puff ball mushrooms you can eat them young.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gail,

      Thank you, I'm actually enjoying the garden much more this year.

      I'm not sure if these shrooms are puff ball or not. Therefore, I won't eat them.

      Delete
  11. Wow your garden is looking wonderful!!

    ReplyDelete

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