Harvest Time at Carol's house

Lettuce and kale for fresh from the garden salads

This is my herb garden, planted in a raised bed on wheels so that I can move it into shade or even inside when it gets hot.  We will see if it lasts the Phoenix summer.  I have regular Basil, Cinnamon Basil, Parsley, Chocolate Mint, Thyme, Rosemary, Parsley, and Chives.  It's great fun to experiment adding them to dishes.  The chocolate mint makes wonderful tea.  The container is from a company called FoodMap Container.  It is pretty deep, so I put pots upside down in the bottom as I was adding soil and planting. 

Tomatoes.  I have several kinds growing.  There is nothing like a garden tomato.  Nothing store bought tastes as good.  I have some yellow cherry tomatoes also which are great for salads or for stir fry.  One of my favorite lunches is toasted peanut butter, bacon and tomato sandwich or a toasted cheese and tomato sandwich.  I will try to keep these alive through the summer, but they will probably not last the heat. 

I'm  experimenting with several kinds of sweet peppers this year, yellow, orange and black! 

Some of my many apricots.  They ripened so quickly, almost overnight.  I made apricot jam yesterday.  I need to give some away and/or can some.  We had apricot trees when I was a kid and we would always can a lot.  I Love the taste of home grown apricots.  The store bought ones are tasteless and very expensive.  I used to sit up in one of our apricot trees when I was young, reading a book and munching on apricots. 

I have 2 different types of peaches, one ripens in May the other in June, so I have 2 months to enjoy fresh peaches!

Here you see tomatoes, peaches, an apricot and oranges.  I still need to pick the high oranges.  Anyone want to come and help yourself??  I have juiced, enjoyed, shared with friends and filled my freezer up with OJ to last the summer and fall till the oranges are ripe again in January. 

Peach Jam in progress.  You have to drop them in a hot water bath so the peals will slip off.  To the left you see my kitchen compost container which I put all non edible vegetable matter to turn into black gold (compost)

Ginger for the ginger peach jam

Strawberry Jam we made because strawberries are cheap and delicious now and people love strawberry jam.  I actually have wild strawberries in my garden, but they are small and tasteless. 

Slightly blurred self portrait before my helpers arrived

Mom and Elisa cutting up peaches for jam

We have the process down.  I was taking off peals and Mom and Elisa were cutting up fruit.  Then we measure exact amount, add dab of butter, lemon juice and pectin mixed with 1/4 cup sugar, bring to boil, add rest of required sugar (we always use the low sugar pectin and recipe because it is plenty sweet), bring back to boil, boil for exactly 1 minute (smells wonderful), take off heat stir for 4-5 minutes so the fruit doesn't float to top, pour into boiled jars, put on lids, place in a canning pot and boil for 25 minutes.  This is quite the process, but we love it.  I can do it alone, but done with friends is the really fun.  We love jammin!

 

Some of our jam (strawberry, ginger peach, plain peach and apricot).