Jul4

4th of July Shortcake!

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I hope that you are having a wonderful Independence Day with your family and loved ones.

For dessert, I made a red, white, and blue shortcake. I saw a recipe for Strawberry Shortcake Skillet Cobbler on the awesome blog onehundreddollarsamonth.com. Her easy recipe inspired my dessert.  I hope you visit her blog; she has so many gardening tips, recipes, and tutorials on her site.

Blueberries are in season here in North Florida, so I decided to make her recipe with blueberries instead and to drizzle some warm strawberry jam on top of the vanilla ice cream.  Red, white, and blue!

4th of July Shortcake

4th of July Shortcake

Yummy! I am following her suggestion, and I am scheduling the leftovers for breakfast. With ice cream. 🙂

I hope you remember those who are serving and have served our country today, and those whose loved ones are serving abroad on this our Independence Day.

May we make those brave men who signed the Declaration of Independence proud of what our country has done with its freedom.

Happy 4th of July! Enjoy some fireworks!

Jul4

Easy Two Ingredient Blueberry Jam Recipe (No Canning Required!)

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After I picked so many blueberries at Blue Basket Farms, I was excited to make blueberry jam! Blueberry jam can be quite pricey, but I love it so much, and I think that it would make a fabulous gift.

Making jam is really quite easy. The two ingredients? Blueberries and sugar.

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To make approximately 5 cups of jam, use 8 cups of blueberries and 4 cups of sugar. Try to have at least 1 cup of semi-ripe berries in the mix to help the jam set.

Mash the berries and cook over medium high heat until the jam seems to have thickened. To be sure that it has jelled, use the cold plate test that I described in my Easy Two Ingredient Strawberry Jam Recipe.

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Pour into clean hot jars.

Let cool for about 30 minutes, then cover and refrigerate. Ta da! Done!

Easy Two Ingredient Blueberry Jam Recipe (No Canning Required!)

Easy Two Ingredient Blueberry Jam Recipe (No Canning Required!)

Wasn’t that simple? Mash, cook, cool, store. Homemade blueberry jam in about 15 minutes!

If you’re wondering, that flower is not a blueberry flower; it is from my prized blue vinca, but I thought it looked pretty there. 🙂

If you do wish to can the jam, process in hot water bath for 10 minutes immediately after pouring into the jars.

I really hope that you feel brave enough to make jam at least once this summer. The fresh fruit is so plentiful and I am loving all the jam! You can scale down the recipe to make just one jar. Use one cup of blueberries and 1/2 cup sugar. No canning jar needed, you can store this in a clean jar that you have saved or even store it in a Tupperware container. Try to eat refrigerator jam within a month. That’s not really a struggle in my house. 🙂

Time to make some homemade bread!

If you haven’t read my popular Easy Two Ingredient Strawberry Jam Recipe, I hope you will! Take advantage of the great fruit prices and can some jam! Preserving harvests is another way to save money in your garden. Another great recipe is my Blueberry Peach Quick Jam. Really good fresh flavor.

If you like this recipe but it is not blueberry season for you, pin this recipe so you can find it later!

Know someone up to their ears in blueberries? Share this recipe with them on Facebook!

Jul3

Blue Basket Farms- Blueberry Time!

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Have you ever been blueberry picking? My blueberry-picking expedition to Blue Basket Farms was a great success!

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The bushes were tall and loaded with large sweet blueberries.

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They really were the sweetest that I have ever eaten. I did make sure to pick some semi-ripe berries for jam-making.

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The berry-picking apparatus looks really strange, but it really is a smart idea. Both hands are free to pick the yummy berries. I have about 6 pounds in my container.

I just saw that their prices are down to $1.75 per pound. That’s a great price for blueberries!

Visit them on their Facebook page and at their farm. Time to make some blueberry jam!

I really like blueberry jam – see my blueberry jam post here. I’ve already made some Easy Two Ingredient Strawberry Jam (No Canning Required!).

What would you do with 6 pounds of blueberries?

 

Jul1

July To-Do List

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Florida summers can be brutally hot. This can be a bit of a rest period for North Florida gardeners, as many of the popular spring crops are declining.

However, there are still crops that can be planted in July, and this is a great time for making compost. Keep adding grass clippings and weeds to your pile, and you should have a good batch of compost for a fall garden. If you are new to making compost, you can check out my post on how to make compost.

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The large garden is growing well. The cucumbers are going crazy and the tomatoes are gloriously overgrown.

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‘National Pickling’ cucumber on trellis

I did staple the DIY cucumber trellis in a few strategic spots, but it seems to be holding well. Time to make more refrigerator pickles!

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The teepee has been a disappointment. The pole beans did not do well, so now I have resorted to training sweet potatoes, watermelon, and cantaloupe vines to grow on it.

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I do have a tiny ‘Sugar Baby’ watermelon near the top. There is a larger one on the ground behind the sunflower.

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The shed bed has some basil, green beans. onions, and cucumbers. The arch you see has a cucumber vine growing over it. It was a transplanted volunteer that has been producing very well.

My to-do list:

1. Can some tomatoes.

2. Can pickles. I absolutely love my crisp refrigerator pickles, but I want some for months to come.

3. Plant more eggplant. I have them already started in flats, they just need to go into the ground. I’ve already planted another row of okra. Both of these crops do well in the heat.

4. Propagate marigold for more color.

5. Harvest onions. The tops are dying, but they don’t seem to have made bulbs. Any ideas?

6. Propagate basil from cuttings.

7. Enjoy some of Easy Two Ingredient Strawberry Jam!

8. Make even more jam! My Small Batch Fresh Peach Jam recipe is pretty popular, as is my Easy Two Ingredient Blueberry Jam. A beautiful pairing of the two is in my Blueberry Peach Quick Jam. These recipes use little sugar and canning is optional!

I love to garden, don’t you? What are you doing this month in the garden?

Jun30

Yummy Garden Succotash Recipe

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When I harvested my Jackson Wonder lima beans, I was a bit disappointed by the yield, but I loved looking at the beautiful purple mottling on the beans.

Jackson Wonder fresh lima beans

Jackson Wonder fresh lima beans

I wanted to stretch them, so I decided to make succotash.

I used some ham trimmings,1 tablespoon butter, 1 minced  garlic clove, 1/4 cup diced onion, 3/4 cup chopped bell and banana peppers, 1 cup diced tomatoes, and 1/2 cup corn, and 1 cup fresh shelled lima beans. Remember, don’t throw away the pods once you are done shelling the beans- turn them into compost!

Feel free to adapt the vegetables selections to make the best use of what you are harvesting.

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Saute the onions and garlic in the ham trimmings and butter over medium heat, then add the lima beans and cook until soft, about 15 minutes. Add a splash of water or stock to deglaze the pan as needed.

Your home will begin to fill with smells of yumminess. Never throw away those random ham trimmings, they are great seasoning!

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Add the vegetables and cook until soft. The flavors will begin to mix together. The smoky ham will share its flavor with the sweet corn, and the garden-fresh tomatoes will become even sweeter.

After about 5 minutes, sprinkle with a bit of salt and pepper.

Succotash

In a single bite, you can taste garden freshness-tangy tomatoes, sweet corn, smoky ham, and of course meaty lima beans.

This dish makes all the space that I allotted to grow the lima beans worth it.

I recommend that you serve this succotash with homemade biscuits slathered with  Easy Two Ingredient Strawberry Jam for a garden-fresh summer dinner.

This succotash is savory and easy-I wish that I had some left for you to try. We ate it all! 🙂

 

Jun29

Harvesting Jackson Wonder Lima Beans

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The dreaded pasty lima beans of your childhood are not the same as the ones that I harvested from my garden.

The Jackson Wonder lima beans that I planted in my Florida garden in March have been growing well and producing pods. Some of them have started drying so I decided to harvest.

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By harvesting the pods now, I have some for fresh eating and some for dried beans or seeds.

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I harvested half of my double row to get these. Not much of a harvest for the space, but they are tasty.

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Pretty too. Pale green lima beans and purple-speckled dried beans.

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Some of the soft ones have the pretty purple mottling too. They are the prettiest lima beans that I have ever seen.

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Here are the dried beans. I can use them in hearty soup later or use them as seeds next year.

Time to make some succotash with some of these yummy garden vegetables! Recipe coming tomorrow!

Jun28

Master Gardener Yard Sale and Demonstration Garden-Pictures!

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I managed to snatch a few moments today to go visit the Demonstration Garden and and yard sale at my local extension office. I was able to snap some pictures and to grab a few good deals. Have you ever seen a century plant in bloom?

century plant in bloom

century plant in bloom

It’s very impressive that it can send up a stalk so high from such an unassuming plant.

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Lots of edibles too, a ‘Shell’ apple tree and a ‘Brown Turkey’ fig tree.

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That fig tree is loaded with figs. They will be swimming in figs soon.

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This garden is bird-friendly. I love the placement of flowers around the bird feeder.

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I thought that the herb garden had a neat layout. Don’t you like the design?

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This was perhaps the most striking accent to me. I love the bright black-eyed Susan flowers!

This was just a few of the neat plants and structures to see in the garden and at the Extension Office. They also have a greenhouse, blueberry bushes, thornless blackberries, square foot garden, and a goldfish pond.

Oh yes, my loot from the yard sale.

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Each item that I purchased was only 50 cents! That’s a great price for clay pots! Time to start some mint or share some oregano!

 

Jun28

Easy Two Ingredient Strawberry Jam (No Canning Required!)

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Do you want fresh strawberry taste in a jar? For this recipe, you don’t need any special equipment. Canning is optional.

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I used the recipe from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. I scaled down their recipe for the amount of strawberries that I got from my trip to Akers of Strawberries in Baker, FL. There are many other recipes on their site that require pectin, which will help your jam set.

However, there is a recipe on pickyourown.org that is similar to what I did.

Here’s the two ingredients: strawberries and sugar.

That’s it.

You can adjust the amount of sugar to taste. I  simply boiled the crushed fruit and  sugar together over medium-high heat until it gelled. I recommend starting with 6 cups of crushed berries and 3 cups of sugar.

If you want to test to see if it has gelled well, you can stick a plate in the freezer at the beginning of the process for testing. If you think the jam has thickened enough, take the pot off the heat and put about a teaspoonful on the plate, then stick it in the freezer for a few minutes. You are trying to see if it is jelly-like once it has cooled down for a bit.

If it has gelled, you can either process it in a hot- water bath for 10 minutes(pickyourown.org has lots of pictures of this process) or you can transfer it to clean jars and refrigerate.

So to review: crush fruit, boil until gelled, store by refrigeration or canning. Done.

This recipe should make about 4 half pints (cups) of jam.

This recipe is so easy, but it tastes like strawberries fresh from the farm.

I went to a blueberry farm-a post on that trip and a recipe for easy blueberry jam to follow soon. Yay for berry season!

Enjoy your jam on fresh homemade bread or biscuits. For an especially refreshing snack, enjoy it with some Mint Infused Sweet Tea!

Jun28

Florida Raised Bed Gardening-Monster Tomato Plant!

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very tall tomato plant

Have you ever seen a tomato plant this tall?

That tomato plant is on its way to towering over NBA players.

Temperatures here in North Florida have been mostly over 85 degrees, and tomatoes have trouble setting fruit at higher temperatures, especially the larger tomatoes. They do get a bit of shade, and we are hoping that the plants can hold on through the hot months to come. If they can survive until it starts cooling down a bit, they may get a bumper crop of tomatoes.

What do you think about the height? Should they prune it to keep it under control or should they just let it go and see how tall it can get?

Jun27

Master Gardener Yard Sale

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DO you love yard sales? I read an ad in Bella magazine for a gardening yard sale!

If you in or close to Santa Rosa County, you may want to clear some space on your calender for this sale. Not only will plants and gardening items be available, but Master Gardeners will be there to answer gardening questions that you may have.

The sale will be at te UF/IFAS Extension Office at 6263 Dogwood Drive, Milton, and the sale will be from 8-noon.

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I’m interested in seeing the Demonstration Gardens.

This would be a great way to find plants suited to this area and to get some great tips.

If you live in Florida, the UF website is a great resource.Their planting calender is so helpful. Also, I have written a post with other Resources for North Florida Gardeners.

Hope you find some great deals!