Crops | My Raised Bed Vegetable Garden

Recipe - Tomato Basil Biscuits

Here’s a great recipe to use up those imperfect looking, albeit delicious tomatoes and some of your summer basil.

1/2 cup chopped scallions
1 Tbsp olive oil
3/4 cup chopped fresh tomato (1/2″ dice), seeded & drained
1/4 c. minced or julienne sliced basil
2 cups unbleached flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. fresh ground black pepper
1 – 1/2 [...]

Recipe - Israeli Pickled Cabbage

2 heads red or green cabbage, cut into large chunks (red is very pretty.)
3 or 4 large heads of garlic, outer paper removed, cut in half along equator to expose garlic
2 large (2″) pieces of celery heart, with leaves
2 jalopeno peppers, cut into large slices
medium bunch of fresh dill, roughly chopped
1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes [...]

Seed Shopping

I got another seed catalogue in the mail today from Burpee, one of America’s great producers of heirloom seeds, hybrids and plants. One of their tomatoes, “Brandy Boy” is a favorite of mine, and whenever I start my tomatoes from seed, I always [...]

Sweet Potatoes, Beautiful and Productive

Sweet potatoes are my summer crop. They grow heartily with no care from me, they push out any weeds that are trying to take over, and they produce a large harvest of beautiful spuds after a few months. The vines are so prolific here that they spill out of the beds onto the lawn, where [...]

Recipe - Oriental Chicken Salad

Karen Lynch gets the credit for this great salad. Her recipe has travelled around the USA because it’s so delicious. I first had it when my friend Jeani Zam made it for us; yesterday my friend Betty made it for a pot luck meal. With or without chicken, it always is a hit at parties [...]

Pickle Production

The day before yesterday, I made my first batch of pickles from my brother Bob’s recipe that I posted a few days ago. I thought I’d chronicle the ups and downs of pickle production, complete with my mistakes for your learning.

I’ve never canned anything, so I relied heavily on advice from Bob, but [...]

Tomato Problem: Blossom End Rot

I didn’t even know I had tomatoes out there – and my decision to ignore the plants has resulted in my losing a few to blossom end rot. This is a condition where the blossom end of the fruit, either tomatoes or eggplants, turns black, leathery and often results in the complete loss of the [...]

Recipe - Bob's Dill Pickles

Look at this beautiful dill plant. This is how many blossoms will form on just one plant! These are the seed heads that are used in pickles. My brother Bob has been working on his pickle recipe for years. He generously gave me a quart of them a year ago, and I had [...]

Tomato Trees

Tomato Tree

This takes the upside down growing bag to new heights. I think it’s a great idea. Click on the picture to take you to Gardener’s Supply. They recommend Better Bush tomatoes for growing upside down, and they sell them too, I believe.

There’s room for three full-size tomato plants inside this oversize growing bag. It [...]

The State of Tomatoes

I picked another quart of cherry tomatoes this afternoon. Those Sweet Million plants just keep on producing. I’ve probably gotten 4 or 5 gallons per plant this season!

As I was inspecting my new plants, I pulled off the dead branches at the bottom. I don’t know why they do that, but the big tomato plants [...]