A Garden Hoe-In!

Checking in on your garden progress  :)

Challenges Facing Preserving ALL the Harvesting!
I have made just about every Squash and Zucchini recipe I can get my hands on, and I still have it coming out of my ears.  Rachael Ray's August Every Day magazine has a lot of mouth watering recipes that I am also going to try - like Squash - a - mole. But I still want to preserve some of it for when my tomatoes and eggplant are ready. (Why can't they all get on the same schedule? Who didn't get the memo that I wanted to make Ratatouille?)

Well, I am trying something new this year.  I am blanching it (boiling for thirty seconds and then submersing into ice water) before freezing it. Hopefully this will allow me to thaw some semi-fresh and semi-raw vegetables for recipes later in the year.  My thinking is that freezing raw vegetables will not work as well because both squash and zucchini tend to sweat a little when they are cut into. By blanching them, I stop the sweating process before they go to the freezer. 

Now the big question I had was how to cut them. If I wanted to use them for lasagna or the grill, flat circles are best. But, if I want chunks for ratatouille or zucchini bread, spears are best. So, as an experiment, I cut some both ways and placed them all into a bag together.  

The mistake I may have made (only time will answer) was that I placed them into the bag together to freeze. A friend suggested that I should have frozen them on a cookie sheet first and then placed them into a bag together. This is how you should freeze fruit - so maybe I should have done my veggies the same way. We shall see.

The big point is: I no longer feel pressured to use up my produce before it goes bad. I have just bought myself about another three months to cook it up.  This process should work with any abundance you have hawking at you from the kitchen counter, screaming as it starts to go bad....All that hard work...All that hard work...Don't lose me....

Time to Plant!
Time to plant Pumpkins, Butternut Squash, Acorn Squash, and Spaghetti Squash. This is my favorite food group and one of the reasons I love fall cooking - the sweet starch group. (Sweet Potatoes fall into this group but wait about two to three more weeks before starting those.) Most of these plants start from seeds so they will need longer to germinate. So, if October is the date you are seeking - plant now! I planted mine about a month ago so they will be ready in September.

All of these plants are vine growers so they will need are large area to spread. Work while they are young to keep the grass away - you will appreciate this once the vines go wild in September.