Garden in July and Freezing Peas

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This is the time of year when the garden starts to produce many vegetables. The zucchini, crookneck squash and yellow straight squash a long with the peas and are ready for picking. We have random raspberries growing and a few strawberries. The onions and garlic are ready to be used in cooking a long with the herbs.

I’ve applied my second application of Ammonium Sulfate on the corn, I put on three tablespoons of Ammonium Sulfate for this application on each grouping of corn there is about 5 corn stocks in each grouping of corn.

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These are Lincoln Peas and Victory Freezer Peas from the garden. I shelled about two cups of peas and boiled them in 1/2 cup water and boiled them for 2 minutes, this method is called Blanching you do this so the peas can be frozen and not go slimy when thawed and it enhances favors.

After boiling you need to get them into cold water to shock them cooling the peas down quickly.

I use freezer Ziploc pint size bags labeled with name of peas and the month and year.

Drain the cold water from the peas and place into bag, remove as much air from the bag using a straw and then freeze the peas in the freezer.

*I usually have small batches of peas at first and then I do larger batches as the more peas are ready to be picked.

** If you are doing large batches of peas make sure you only cook as many peas as you can handle by being able to get them cooled down quickly and into bags to be frozen.

You can learn more about blanching vegetables allrecipes

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See plantingarden2013 to see the progress of the garden.

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Hollyhocks

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Hollyhocks ————— Fuchsia and Petunia Hanging Baskets

I hope your gardens are doing well.

Enjoy Gardening!

Lindy

Blueberry and Strawberry Fruit Salsa

Jessica made this yummy Salsa for our Fourth of July dinner everything turned out great and everyone at the dinner had a fun time.

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Blueberry and Strawberry Fruit Salsa

*1 cup Blueberries
*1 cup Strawberries diced
*1/4 cup Cilantro
*1/4 cup Onion, Red or white
* 1 Jalapeño Pepper, cleaned from seeds and finely chopped
*Juice from one Lime or about 2 tablespoons of Lime Juice
*1/4 teaspoon Sugar

*Salt and Pepper to taste

Mix together and enjoy with Tortilla Chips of your choice.

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Recipe adapted from twopeasandtheirpod

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Enjoy!

Jessica and Lindy