Fig Waits for No Man

It has been busy enough not to be able to blog, and that makes me unhappy.  Work has some new assignments and training, and I come home mentally exhausted and ready to rest. 

Fat chance.

When you're raising food you work on its timeline. The 2nd harvest, 1st pick of figs happened a couple of weeks ago and from them we made jam. Last weekend twelve more quarts of figs were picked, which became whole fig preserves along with fresh munchies and a bunch brought to work.  And by the looks of an inspection last night, the last of the figs should be ready today. 

Garden Chili Verde sauce

So in spite of intentions, I was canning and preserving continually after work, fell into bed, and was up and at it again the next day.

We have enjoyed a bumper tomato crop - and yes, Heirloom makes a difference in the taste and quality of the fruit - and also the garden has done well with salsa peppers, green peppers, Japanese eggplant and Armenian cucumbers.

We've put up quite a few quarts of Gardineira and dilly beans, plus a jalapeno/wax/green/salsa/garlic medley that looks interesting. It was another disappointing yield with zucchini, and I'm inclined to skip it altogether.  Our tomatillos are fruiting but they are small - we will trellis them next year and see how they do. They made a really good chili verde sauce base, along with some of the green tomatoes and salsa peppers - and we like knowing it has no preservatives.

Garden vinaigrette salad

 The full sun artichoke cannot tolerate full sun. It leaves me wondering why local nurseries sell it with those tag recommendations when they know better.  Seymour is too big to transplant, so I took cuttings and planted his offspring under the shade of the olive trees, where they seem to be doing well. He'll be coming out in the fall.

That little spindly leggy Pomegranate out back turned out to have the only beautiful pomegranate of the season: the other big tree produced a lot of small and dry fruit that opened months early and spilled out for the birds. Nothing gets wasted but we were disappointed.

Pickled raw veggies

We received a 13 gallon kitchen garbage bag of fresh basil and made pesto to share - how easy and delicious to whip that up with a Cuisinart, fresh garlic, olive oil, s&p, fresh parmesan and pine nuts. We traded it for a couple of pickled veggies and a bowl of tomatoes.

I am looking into a good salsa recipe now that we are quickly exhausting the tomato options with spaghetti sauce, freezing them whole, eating them in Caprese salads, and in vinaigrette salads. 

Garden Pesto

I mean, there comes a point ... hey, maybe a bbq sauce ...

These days, I am still tired, but canning seems to relieve some of the day's stress. Now if someone would just clean up my mess!