Sustainable Gardening ~ Cherry Tomatoes

      My Gardening Theories

        
     Grow Valuable Fruits and Vegetables—choose your favorites that are expensive. Don't pay high prices for food you can bring in to the dinner table right from the garden

 Heirloom varieties can be traded for free that aren’t available at    garden stores. 
     There are many sites here are a few I use
      http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/the-seed-exchange
      http://www.davesgarden.com/community/ 
      https://www.facebook.com/groups/gassp/ 
      http://www.plantswap.net/
        
Local gardening societies are a great place to start. Allow a percentage of your heirlooms to go to seed and trade dried seeds at online seed banks for free. 

 Sustainable gardening is about the big picture without buying lots of equipment. Year over year my garden production varies. One season a glut of zucchini pops up. Then you bake zucchini bread and share, find new recipes for the bundle crop, give them away, add to spaghetti sauce and save the seeds that are desirable to someone else.

 Create a long growing season. Build recycled cold frames. 
     Be creative with plastic liter bottles in a sunny window to start your seeds while it is still cold outside. 
     Build tunnels, cloches and other devices to stretch the season and grow food. That goalie net the team is throwing away plus some plastic make a free plant shelter. With a little recycled materials get a head start on spring salads by at least two months.  Note: be careful using wood that is treated or painted prior to 1978 which may have lead or chemicals that will leach into the soil.
     Extend your fall crops by using row covers to protect them from frost and deer. Old windows tossed by a contractor are useful lean-to shelters.
     Grow crops in the temperature and season they prefer. 
     Cold-tolerant greens and root crops for food production can start indoors in late winter and Fall.
     Find some early-bearing fruit and berries—Grow June-bearing strawberries and early raspberries. 
     Don’t be stuck planting only one type or breed. Ask other gardeners in your area questions about the varieties that are successful. Ask for cuttings.
     There is nothing sweeter than fresh berries picked, rinsed and eaten right away. 
     Berries are God's antioxidant. My family eats them so fast I never have any left to freeze or make jam. 
     Freeze in simple ice cube trays to add to drinks or tea. 
     In the fall, there are late-ripening raspberries that fruit.  
     I’m fond of trading or gifting fresh fruits and vegetables. 
     Once you begin, friends and family reciprocate with things that surprise you.
         
     Grow natives and foods suitable to your climate zone. 
     Some crops will be easy to grow in your area while others can be a challenge. 
     Soil type also determines what will grow where you live. I have two compost piles. They are upright wire cages that I dump all garden waste that doesn't have disease, and any plant material that is not oily or meat kitchen waste. 
     After two years of adding compost I changed my soil to rich earth that doesn't need to be watered as often. 
     I don't add fertilizers. This saves money. My local coffee shop saves grounds to amend my soil.
     Acidic coffee grounds transforms my soil that tends to be alkaline and clay. 
     After two years of digging in compost and rotating, my soil sustains a huge variety of fruits and vegetables with no fertilizer and no chemicals.
         
     Grow beverages—Mints, sage, raspberry leaf and nettles make delicious and healthy teas.  
     Mint is hardy in my climate I have to be careful not to let it take over. Keep mint in pots.
     In Southern California it is easy to have fresh lemons – I have Meyer, Lisbon, Ferminello St Teresa 
     St. Teresa is my favorite for the smell of the fruit and flowers. 
     Picking a lemon off one of my trees and squeezing into salad dressing, a sauce or drink gives me joy. 
     The fruit is never touched by pesticides. Yes sometimes they get bugs but I wash them off with water or squish. Lemons stay fresh on the tree longer than in the refrigerator.
        
     I wish I could grow apples and cherries. I planted them at two different homes with meager success. 
     We just don’t get enough cold. Right now I’m experimenting with avocados because we enjoy them so much. 
     Unfortunately it will take my seedlings seven or eight years to bear fruit. Patience is part of the fun.
        
     Perennials such as asparagus, rhubarb, and bunching onions are easy. These keep paying you back every year.
     Cherry tomatoes in yellow, lemon and red are the easiest fruit producing plants. 
     The seeds of fallen fruit and that which birds nabbed will spread. Cherry tomatoes could save us in a disaster. 
        
     Culinary herbs maybe started from cuttings or gather seeds from friends. Cut off the bottom leaves and put in
     a mild window (not full sun) in sand and cover with a used plastic milk bottle inverted. Keep moist and in weeks you will have new plants. Transplant gently and don't shock the life out of them - move to a bit more sun.
     Thyme (my favorite) dill, basil, rosemary, sage, parsley and mint grow in most any summer garden.
     I cultivate a couple types of thyme and sage. Bees love them. 
     When brushing past herbs in my garden the perfume is heavenly.
     In the summer months I grow enough for my family to have fresh vegetables daily. 
     My kids try anything. They grew up pulling weeds and napping under peach trees. 
    They have the love of gardening. 
    One of life's special things is the taste of a tomato warmed by the sun, rinsed off in the yard and popped into your mouth.

I wish you every happiness. Eat healthy, enjoy fresh.

 Concord and Albarosso grapes above
below some photographs of my children

Follow Caroline's board Organic Gardening on Pinterest.

Jam Recipe

The nights cool.
Bad dog ate a winter melon on Saturday.
The melon was larger than her four pound body.
I brought the last one to my sister - my nephews
ate it in their driveway without a napkin.
Juice running down their arms
Alex says, "I've never had one."
Every year I give them a few.
I hadn't planned on sharing with the dogs.

The last sunflowers
Gave to a friend diagnosed with cancer.
She asked me to talk about the
pros and cons of pursuing aggressive treatment.
The Japanese have an intense chemo and radiation that
either the treatment kills you or you recover.
Transfusions, lethargy, days by the toilet bowl are things
I never discussed before.
Surprised how open I could be.

The French plums
Mosquito netting over trees
Unattractive but effective - or
songbirds steal my crops.
I make balls of peanut butter and millet,
fill the feeders with black niger
and elaborate tricks to keep the mice away.
Funny there is barely enough to make jam.
I'll share the recipe with you below.

winter melon from the garden

French plums, perhaps they are Italian the first seed came from NONI

Wash then Cut in half and toss pits 12 lb of ripe plums
4 cups sugar
box pectin
tablespoon almond extract
8 pint jars - sterilized ( boil for 5 minutes jar and lid)

Put plum and sugar in large pot medium heat.
Allow to slow bubble for ten minutes.
Don't let it roll boil- stir to keep from getting a scummy top of bubbles.
Don't let it stick to bottom.
Use a pot with a thicker bottom.
Allow to cool
You are going to cook four times.
This may require a glass of wine and music
The last cooking add the almond extract.
Examine how thick the mixture is.
If it is dense as toothpaste you may not need the pectin.
There is natural pectin in the fruit -
all depends on the scientific qualities
of your soil, sun and water.
I'm an organic gardener.
I suggest you add half the box of sure jell
for the last bubbling to be certain the jam sets correctly.
Read about sterilization and keeping the jars and lids free of any bacterium or
molds.
(The complete jars can be placed back into near boiling water to super
seal them BUT sometimes they break and there you have claret colored glass
shards and sticky explosion...)
Label the jars and share the rich taste of homemade jam.

You can strain the skins with a colander on the second cook, (sounds
like Walter White lol)
but I prefer to leave them in. By the time you heat the plums the
fourth time the skins are tiny flecks of burgundy.