Garden Stromboli

Peppers, Onions and a Hamburger

Peppers, Onions and a Hamburger

Finding something to eat for one person often is very easy, but unhealthy.  This little recipe to pretty easy to work through, and I imagine it’s quite healthy too. The ingredient list is short:

1.) One or Two hamburgers

2.) A chunk of butter

3.) One or Two large peppers

4.) A medium to large onion

5.) One roll of Pillsbury Bread sticks with Garlic.

6.) One small jar of spaghetti sauce.

7.) Shredded Cheese

8.) Olive Oil

9.) Optionally add minced garlic and other veggies such as tomatoes, celery, zucchini, etc.

To begin, cook the hamburger meat in a frying pan with a chunk of butter, carefully crushing the patty into ground meat with a spatula. Add in chopped onions and peppers when the meat is nearly cooked. At this point you could add other veggies and chunks of a garlic clove.

Garlic Sticks

Garlic Sticks

Next, place some aluminum foil over a cookie sheet, and spread some olive oil on the foil. Make sure to spread it around evenly. Unroll the bread sticks mix onto the foil. You may wish to cut the dough along the lines in order to make two smaller Stromboli.

Sauce, Hamburger, Onions, Peppers and Onion tops

Sauce, Hamburger, Onions, Peppers and Onion tops

Spread the spaghetti sauce on the uncooked dough, then add the chop meat and fried veggies, even distributing them. I’ve added some chopped up onion stems to the mixture, as well as lots of garlic salt and a bit of pepper.

Fold Over and Pinch the Dough

Fold Over and Pinch the Dough

Next, fold over the dough, and pitch it together. You may notice in the photo how I had used tomato paste and added Swiss chard to the mix. Don’t do that ! The paste and chard together made these Stromboli taste like a bar of iron.

When you’ve sealed up the pockets, place them in the oven and bake until the dough turns a nice brown. I long ago lost the temperature setting knob from my stove, so I’d recommend you use the same method I did, start with a low temp, and slowly turn it up till the dough cooks.

Light Brown Color Means it's Done

Light Brown Color Means it's Done

You may wish to add additional veggies to your Stromboli, but I’d recommend you cook them before placing them on the uncooked dough. The stove doesn’t cook the veggies in the amount of time it takes for the bread to darken.

Some things to remember:

1.) Do not use Tomato Paste in place of the Spaghetti sauce. It’s gross.

2.) Swiss Chard will overpower all of the other tastes, and in my opinion ruin the Stromboli.

3.) Use olive oil on the aluminum foil. Without this protection, the dough will stick to the foil and make a mess.

Hope you like this recipe as much as I did when I got it right !

Posted in Bright Lights, Chard, Cooking from the Garden, Garlic, Onions, Peppers | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Just Peachy

First Peach

First Peach

I’ve had peach trees in my front yard for at least five years now, and I’ve never noticed peaches growing on any of them. While wondering around this weekend, I noticed one of the peach trees that George ran over last winter had two small peaches on it. These trees always looked as if they were barely hanging on to life in past years, and I’ve sprayed them with Deconil fungicide the last two years. The fungicide seemed to cure a problem whereby the leaves would be deformed, and the plants looked very unhealthy. This year, the leaves look natural, and the plant is just peachy.

Vertical Ant Colony

Vertical Ant Colony

While I was snapping the peach photo above, I could feel something crawling around on my shirtless back. I then discovered lots of little ants running around. After brushing them off, I noticed where they came from, and was surprised by this new to me ant colony method. It seems these ants have decided to turn a 3 foot tall weed into a colony, with what appear to be tiny eggs tucked up on the underside of the leaves. I’ve never known ants to build their colonies in this way, so I thought I would share.

Zucchini White Spots

Zucchini White Spots

I was picking a shopping bags full of produce when I discovered this zucchini with white blisters on the fruit portion. I’ve looked around on the internet quite a bit and have not discovered what this affliction is. Needless to say, I will not be eating this zucchini, but I’ve very curious to know what might have caused this ?

Posted in Bugs, Peaches, Zucchini | 1 Comment

Playing in the Mud

Nieces Weeding the Lettuce

Nieces Weeding the Lettuce

You might notice that I’m not very good at weeding the garden, and I really don’t think it’s good for the soil anyway. I tend to let the majority of non invasive plants grow, so long as they don’t choke out mine. I will let some plants grow unchecked, such as clover, mushrooms, most non clumping grasses, and a good selection of plants I don’t know by name. I’ll pull up any pig weed I spot, as well as a few other difficult to pull weeds. I do this to help the soil retain the nutrients it contains in an active life cycle. I also leave pulled weeds to rot in the rows between my plants.

I believe this lazy method allows the cycle of life to constantly spin, with the decomposition cycle occurring at the same time as the growth cycle. I also believe the weeds will absorb some of the excess chemical fertilizers ( Miracle Grow plant food) and hold them in limbo until the plant is pulled up, and left to rot. The rotting plant matter will feed the soil slowly rather then running off as a pure chemical would.

In other words, I think of the weeds like little catch basins. As the chemicals I spray run off, they can be trapped by the weeds which then grow faster. When I pull the weeds from the ground those chemicals from the fertalizer feed the decomposition cycle, and to make a long story short, more of the chemicals are locked into the soil in a active life cycle. I realize I may be dead wrong in these assumptions, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.

Muddy Hands

Muddy Hands

So here are the junior farmers that helped me pull weeds, and leave them to rot back into the life cycle. The lettuce is one area of the garden I try to keep free of weeds out of simplicity’s sake.  It’s much more difficult to sort out the weeds after you bag up lettuce then to simply keep the area weed free in the first place.

So how did I get that first shot from such a high angle ? I climbed up the side of the greenhouse like Spider Man….. o.k., well maybe not with spider silk.

Playing Spider Man

Playing Spider Man

Kids and Adults, don’t try this at home.

I propped a ladder up against the greenhouse at the same angle as the roof, then carefully climbed to the top.  Now that I know this method works, I’m hoping to find a longer wooden ladder….

Posted in Broccolli, Lettuce, Methods, People | Tagged | Leave a comment

The Farmers on Facebook

I finally took the plunge and set up a Facebook page for my blog. I’m hoping it will increase my traffic as friends with common interests in gardens, farms, construction, and all the people involved; share the link.  As an added bonus, I hope to post many of the pictures that did not make the final cut, as well as more up to the minute information about my projects.

Keeping tabs on the farmer will be easier then ever, just click the “Like” button on the right hand edge of my blog, or visit:

.

I.T. Farmer’s Home Page on Facebook

.

.

 

Thanks !

Posted in General | Leave a comment

Harvest After Dark

Harvest Found in the Dark

Harvest Found in the Dark

I’ve been working on quite a number of things which seem to consume my daylight hours, so I didn’t get to look through the garden till after 10 PM. I have two very small LED lights which I use to navigate my way through the growing micro forest, and locate the treats that fuel my gardening habit.

I’ve finally started getting a good supply of Chablis peppers, and I’m picking them early before they are ripe.  I also found a Brandywine or Cherrokee purple tomato that is beginning to ripen, and I won’t know which it is until the color fills in. These two crops are just beginning to reward me for my hard work tending to their needs, and sprinkling them with nutrient enriched water. I’m still finding more Red Alert cherry tomatoes then I can eat, which always makes a happy gardener while giving away the surplus.

The lettuce just keeps growing as if it’s some sort of magical plant. I give away large zip lock bags full of it one day, and the next day the plants seem undisturbed and taller then ever. I’ve gotten so much lettuce that I’ve been eating it almost daily on my lunch break. Why should I pay $5-$10 for fast food that is no good for me when I can have a free salad that is homegrown, healthy and most of all tastes better ?

The zucchini plants continue to recover from the early summer ground hog onslaught, now that some of these animals have… err… moved on. The small plants which bore the brunt of the attack are beginning to grow very fast, and the zucchini and cucumber seeds that I planted in mid-july are popping out of the ground almost in victorious celebration. I planted far more seeds then usual, hopping to balance out the ground hog side of the equation. Now that the ground beasts are missing in the math, the equation will hopefully be out of balance in favor of lots of veggies for canning and freezing.

Broccoli

Broccoli

While I was wondering around in the moon light free darkness, I spotted something I would have dreaded as a child: Broccoli that looks edible. These days I’ll be happy to try it out, hopefully smothered with cheese and free of those pesky green worms I always seemed to find in store bought heads. Perhaps if I slice them thinly and fry them in butter with garlic and salt they will taste like broccoli chips.

Cabbage

Cabbage

Here is my most promising cabbage plant to date. It is also the one of the very first seeds to find it’s way into the soil this spring. I had planted a row of mixed cabbage seeds, and this was the only seed to poke it’s way through the soil.  As a child, these green leaves would have haunted my dreams like a water sourced monster reaching out to pull me under. The adult however sees this plant as a large bowl of sauerkraut, something I enjoy, and hope to ferment the cabbage from this plant into.

Posted in Broccolli, Cabbage, Pepper - Chablis, Tomatoes, Zucchini | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Late Blight Again ?

Brown Spots on a Red Alert Tomato

Brown Spots on a Red Alert Tomato

I almost fell to my knees and screamed into the air “Not again” when I saw these dreadful brown spots on one of my Red Alert tomato plants. Maybe you would think I am overreacting a bit, but this would be my third large patch wiped out by blight if that’s what this monster is. Planting tomatoes sounds like a piece of cake, but once your sitting out in the hot sun digging holes while friends are jumping in the river, then it becomes that much more of an investment then meets the eye.

Brown Leaves

Brown Leaves

When I discovered these spots, I treated the whole plant as if I were a CDC crew responding to the plague. I got two garbage bags, and ripped the suffering tomato out of the ground, carefully placing every infected limb into the plastic container. I then located my toxic fungicide, and sprayed the whole patch, generously applying the chemical in the area where this plant was located.

Lesions

Lesions

There’s a close up of the lesions left on the leaves, one of the first signs of Late Blight. The lesions will contain a concentric circle, which is then surrounded by a yellowish area. Blight can ruin an entire tomato patch in one weeks time, leaving a trail of brown mushy stems, and lost spaghetti sauce. I may be in luck however, as Mother Nature does not seem so willing to help this plague in 2011. The ideal conditions for this blight are cool and wet days, something that nature seems reluctant to deliver.

If your battling Late Blight, try “Dragoon Dust” or “Deconil Fungicide”, although I should note they are not organic solutions. I’ve also sprayed my entire patch with a solution of Epsom Salt mixed with water.

In a few days time since finding the lesions, and applying the fungicide, I’ve yet to spot another blighted plant. I’ve also picked quite a few green tomatoes, just in case.

Posted in Late Blight, Tomatoes | Tagged | Leave a comment

Blossom End Rot

Blossom End Rot

Blossom End Rot

Blossom End Rot is something that almost never affects the tomatoes in my garden, but seems to be fairly common when the tomatoes are planted elsewhere, like in my compost pile. It’s a condition often caused by a very well growing tomato plant find itself in the middle of a drought, whereby the plant can no longer shuffle water and nutrients from the soil to the growing tomatoes.

I found this tomato growing as a volunteer in my strawberry patch, where I have not been watering the plants during dry spells.I just wish this were the only tomato affliction I’ve had to worry about.

You can read more about Blossom End Rot here: http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell.edu/factsheets/Tomato_BlossRt.htm

 

Posted in Tomatoes | Tagged , | Leave a comment

One of Each Flavor

Zucchini, Various Colors and Flavors

Zucchini, Various Colors and Flavors

I never thought there was much variation in vegetables, and each year I find this assumption to be more and more incorrect. I’m finding out that there is a world of new flavors to be discovered if only you look past the corn based products sold in most grocery stores. (Seriously, find the closest edible product and look at the ingredients list, I bet there is some form of corn in it).

The top zucchini with the dark stripes is a volunteer that grew on it’s own, so I do not have a name for it, but it’s got a very good nutty flavor, and is a great replacement for cucumbers in a salad.

The fat striped zucchini is an Italian Heritage Cocozelle. These have been growing the best so far, and I’m very happy with the taste. I had Zucchini Pizza made from these just last night.

Below the Italian Cocozelle, it a Black Beauty, and a yellow type I’ve since lost the name of. Black beauty are great grilled on an open fire, and they carry a traditional zucchini flavor.

Posted in Zucchini | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Stubborn Progress

Shed Progress

Shed Progress

I made a great deal of progress on my shed over the weekend. I’ve finally completed a fix on the edge of the roof where the overhang was too short, and I got the front portion of the sheeting cut and placed. I’ve called it stubborn progress as it took quite a bit of will power to keep working after the sun had zapped a great deal of energy out of me. I worked slowly, kept a bottle of cool water nearby, and constantly rewarded myself by looking at the progress from a distance.

In order to secure the sheeting near the peak, I had to place the ladder shown against the scaffolding and climb to the top. I tied the ladder to the interior roof joists for added insurance. Maybe it was a bit paranoid to tie it up, but I’ve broken a few bones in the past, and even though the heights don’t bother me, the idea of spending another summer in a cast does.

So now I’m looking at my ever shortening to do list, and it’s starting to feel like I might just be able to pull this off:

1.) Finish the back portion of the sheeting, and roof eaves.

2.) Place drip edge around the perimeter of the roof, and lay down a layer of tar paper.

3.) Place the rubber roofing on the flat portion.

4.) Install the roof shingles.

5.) Cover the base of the roof overhang with OSB.

6.) Add some brown trim

7.) Run a more permanent electrical connection via a buried line in steel tubing.

8.) Add interior insulation to keep me warm while I’m building furniture in the winter.

For now, I’m looking forward to a day free of soreness. I’m not used to climbing up and down a ladder all day long. Oh well, the permanent result is definitely worth the temporary sacrifice.

 

Posted in Building and Construction, Shed | Leave a comment

Finally Cucumbers

Cucumber

Cucumber

I finally snapped a picture of a cucumber forming on Friday. These small veggies were hard fought for, and late in the season. To get this photo I had to battle two foes. First the ever present and hungry cucumber beetles. Second, furry ground hogs which are the size of a small beagle, with an appetite that would put a hound to shame.

Cucumber

Cucumber

Now that I have the chance to see a cucumber I’m left wondering about those tiny spikes on the edges. I’ve tried to do a search online to find their meaning, with no luck.

Cucumber

Cucumber

Spikes or not, I was quite happy to find this larger cucumber latter in the weekend. It’s big enough for salad, and it was quite good, perhaps even more so because it was hard fought for.

Posted in Bugs, Cucumbers, Ground Hogs | Tagged | 4 Comments