It has been a very long winter!

I can't remember ever wanting winter to be over as much as I have this year. The snow came early, a lot of it came, and it is still with us! I am sick of winter. I am ready to be out in the garden!

Since that is not a possibility for a couple more months, I will console myself with starting my seeds indoors.

The last couple of years I have had a problem with some of my warmer weather seeds germinating in my cold basement. I decided to invest in a heating pad for some of my seeds. If it works, I may buy another one next year.

Starting my seeds in egg cartons last year worked so well that I decided to do the same this year. I just love getting one more use out of thing that I can't recycle (my recycling company does not take any egg cartons). When the seedlings get a little bigger I will transplant them into bigger pots. I used Eggland's Best cartons and poked a hole in the bottom before filling with dirt.

And here are some of the egg cartons filled with dirt. I cut some of them into 2 sections if I wanted to plant 6 of something instead of 12.

I wrote on Popsicle sticks to mark my plants.

After everything was planted, I watered them well and covered them with plastic. I will remove the plastic once the seeds sprout. I lowered the lights down to just above the plants.

I planted Roma and Golden Rave Tomatoes, Sugar Baby Watermelon, Assorted Sweet Bell Peppers, Hot Peppers, Brussels Sprouts, Broccoli, and Cabbage.

Check your seed catalogs for bargains!

The seed catalogs have started arriving in my mailbox.

A lot of them contain offers - they want your business!

Yesterday, I got one from Gurney's that had a coupon on the front for $20 off a purchase of $20 or more! And the $20 comes off after shipping is applied so if your total including shipping is $20 or less - you pay nothing!

I placed my order this morning -

11250 White Onion Sets for $5.99
14880 Mixed Bell Pepper seeds for $2.99
76100 Snow Pea seeds for $2.99
Shipping $6.95
Total was $18.92 before coupon and $0.00 after coupon!

There is more that I will want to order but I am sure I will get other offers from other seed catalogs and I need to make my money go as far as possible.

Harvesting Brussels Sprouts in the Snow

Winter came early this year in Minnesota. I purposely hadn't harvested my Brussels sprouts yet because they always taste better after a frost and I really wanted to serve them on Thanksgiving.

Little did I know that by Thanksgiving, they would be covered with snow! I had read that you could still harvest them as long as you cooked them right away (still frozen). I had even heard that they taste better once nature has frozen them. I wasn't about to waste anything as tasty as Brussels Sprouts so it was time to find out.

I had to dig down quite a bit to get to them. The mound where they were wasn't that high so I thought I would just brush the snow away and there they would be, but no, it just couldn't be that simple. They had actually fallen down and were laying flat on the ground and the snow was more like ice and I had to chip away to get to them, but once I got a look at those beauties I knew I had to keep working to free them!

And free them I did. Here they are laying frozen on my kitchen counter.

And here they are all steamed up and ready to eat. They were very tasty indeed. I can't say they were any tastier than before a frost, I really didn't notice a taste difference at all.

So, if your Brussels spouts get caught out in the garden under snow, do not hesitate to harvest and enjoy them.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

A Typical Day in my Harvest Kitchen

Saturday was a busy day in my kitchen. I didn't take pictures of everything - like the last 2 buckets of plums that we picked - but this gives you an idea.

The cucumbers are coming strong. We are picking this many or more every day. The neighbors are starting to hide when they see us coming with cucumbers to give away!

I made another batch of plum jam.

I made some yummy plum sorbet

And I made a batch of relish

Plum Sorbet Recipe

3/4 cup sugar

1 cup water

Combine on stove and heat until sugar dissolves.

Mix in 1 1/2 cups plum puree and 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum (optional).

Pour into ice cream maker and let it do its thing.

My monkey picking plums!

I haven't shared any photos of Andy helping in the garden in some time so when I caught him climbing the plum tree and picking plums for me, I just had to grab the camera.

He blends in pretty good.

Here he is all serious about picking (he did pick a whole pail full for me).

But here, he is getting a little silly - notice the half eaten plum in his mouth!

The plum tree is having a very good year! That kind of takes the sting away from the peach tree that died - again. I don't think I will replace it again.

Food I put up this week

Here is a load of sliced plums on my dehydrator.

Here is a close up of the same plums.

And here they are all ready to come off - see how much they have shrunk and how far apart they are now.

Canned green beans ready for the pantry.

Plum Jam

I just love taking these

and turning them into this!

This was the first batch I made of plum jam from my plum tree.

Last year we got enough plums for fresh eating and I made some fruit leathers.

This year the tree is loaded and there are going to be plums for lots of things.

I may have to find some new plum recipes - anyone have a favorite they would like to share?

To make this plum jam I pretty much followed the directions on the Sure-Jell box (the lower sugar one). Except that instead of finely chopping the plums, I just quartered them and then when they were soft I used a hand blender to puree them.

Plums contain a lot of pectin so you can make plum jam or jelly without adding any commercial pectin at all - but since I haven't done that in years, I stuck with the sure thing for my first batch.

It is so yummy!