Busy

Since the last post, my attention has been consumed by two things: the garden and the reunion. By the end of June I was able to get all my seeds and starts in the ground and begin the blessedly easy cycle of maintenance: water, weed, repeat. Made even simpler by the fact that my father-in-law takes care of the watering for us, since our garden is in his back yard.

With the garden under control, I was able to turn my efforts to getting ready for the Cottrell-Lindstrom reunion in Grayland. The biggest challenge was packing for me and the kids, because one never quite knows what to expect from the weather in Grayland. So I packed too many clothes and was grateful we mostly used the half of them that included shorts and t-shirts.

We've been home since Sunday night. The better part of this week has been unpacking and shaking the sand out of everything; then sorting, washing, folding and putting it all away.

All that work? So worth it!

Salsa

Finally, finally I got to can something I grew myself!

The growing season here in Kittitas Valley was unusually short this year, but we still managed to get a few more tomatoes than we could eat from our plot in the community garden. I decided to put up some salsa so we could enjoy their sunny flavor during winter.

Tomatoes are one of those fruits (and yes, a tomato is a fruit) with a borderline acid content that makes it necessary to pressure can them for safe consumption unless you add acid, such as lemon juice or vinegar, to the fruit before putting it in the jars and processing. I found an excellent booklet about canning salsa on WSU's website that explains the necessary proportions of tomatoes to acid to prevent botulism.

I used their Tomato/Green Chile Salsa recipe on page 11--with a few substitutions for seasoning and herbs. Instead of six cups of green chilis, I used a single jalapeño pepper (seeds and membrane removed). I also used a combination of lime and lemon juice in place of the vinegar, and added 1/4 cup minced garlic and a half a bunch of cilantro, finely chopped.

Tomato dreams

Did I ever mention I have a passion for tomatoes? Far too long now I've settled for the sallow, flavorless flesh of storebought fruits, except for those rare and precious occasions when a friend with a garden shares. During one of our last summers in Bellevue, I experimented with container gardening but had a difficult time finding a spot near our apartment with enough continuous sunlight. Some neighbor kids stole the few good tomatoes I grew. After that I just gave up.

In 2006, our first full summer in Ellensburg, I had high hopes for a modest garden in our spacious backyard. I planted four tomato plants, a row each of broccoli, cauliflower and peas, a small herb garden and a half-dozen strawberry plants. Unfortunately, I soon discovered the elm trees shaded most of our yard and few parts of it had continuous sun for the entire day. Good for staying cool, but not so good for my poor garden, which produced a few small, sickly looking tomatoes (still much tastier than anything from the supermarket) and a scant cup full of peas. The broccoli and cauliflower never produced. Even worse, the one sunny spot where I had planted the herb garden and strawberries was overrun with ants, which devoured most of the berries and ate holes in my basil.

After my initial failure, I reevaluated and hatched a plan for rearranging the sunny bed with the strawberries and herbs to make room for some tomato plants. When summer 2007 came, though, I was far too busy growing a baby to worry about my garden. Which brings us to this year.

A few months ago I made a big batch of fresh pico de gallo to go with tortilla chips for a girls' game night I was hosting. For someone who claimed (until very recently) to hate cilantro, Jim went crazy about it. Ever since, he's been saying we need to grow some tomatoes so he can make fresh salsa. Really good fresh salsa. So once again I reassessed what went wrong in our garden in 2006 to see what viable options we had. Then what appeared to be a great opportunity presented itself: Jim's dad offered to give us a few rows in their garden, which has full sun exposure all day. We got really excited and purchased a half-flat of eight tomato starts of different varieties, as well as some onion, chive, basil, rosemary and dill starts. I also grabbed some seed packets for cucumbers, summer squash, zucchini and watermelon (Jimmy's particular request).

This is a busy week for me, but I set aside Wednesday to go to my in-laws and do all the planting. The weather here this week has been sunny but breezy, in the upper 50s and lower 60s most days. It was windy but fair, so after lunch I bundled the kids, plants and my gardening gear in the car and we headed over to Grandpa Jim and Grandma Gail's. They live up in the north end of town where the wind comes whipping down the valley from the mountains. As soon as I opened the car, my baseball hat blew off my head, and Audrey's blanket kept blowing away. My father-in-law showed us to the garden and pointed out the rows we could use. The wind was blowing hard and steady and I realized our rows had no shelter from constant gusting. Just in carrying my plants out to the plot, I saw how the wind beat them and started to wither the once-plump green leaves. I felt bad about it at first, but I really didn't want to waste the money and time I was going to invest, so I quickly re-thought where I could plant at home. Jim and Gail didn't take it personally; Gail had lost some of her cucumbers, just planted a few days ago, and already blasted by the wind.

So I packed everything back up, headed home, and dug up some empty laundry detergent tubs stacked in the basement. I didn't have as many tubs as tomato starts, so I weeded out my old herb garden and planted some between the sage and where the strawberry plants were already thriving. The tubs, once filled with soil, a tomato start and a cage, are still light enough for me to move around to keep them in the sun most of the day. At first I thought, what a pain to have move around the containers... for all of five seconds. Then I started thinking about running out to my garden on a summer evening, picking some greens and vegetables, making a big fresh salad for dinner, and biting into one of my own tender, succulent red tomatoes. I'm going to water, rotate, research homemade ant repellants, and pray, pray, pray for good tomatoes.

It will be worth it.

Tightwad tuesday: best bargains

While it doesn't fall strictly under my purview of emergency preparedness, I've wound up as a sort of de facto member of our ward Relief Society's enrichment committee. On Thursday night we've got an enrichment meeting that will be focusing, appropriately for this time of year, on gardening. My contribution is to prepare a little booklet of "tightwad tips" for the ladies to take home with them. This is right up my alley; I'm a long-time penny-pincher.

It was a fun assignment for me because I love the chance to do creative layout and design on my computer, as well as the chance to share the many money-saving tips I've amassed over the years. Some of the tips in the booklet are ones I collected as a teen and have been using as long as I can remember, others I've picked over the years, and a few I found just recently.

Not long ago Motherhood for Dummies visited my blog, and when I checked out hers, she had some great tips for saving money, which I included in the booklet along with the others. All this focus on frugality got me thinking: maybe some of my on-line friends and family might enjoy these tips, too. So I proudly present a new feature at chicklegirl: Tightwad Tuesday. For my first official tightwad post, here's a list of eight of the best bargains around (because by now you should know how I feel about bargains... and the number eight). Please feel free to leave your tips for great bargains, too.

Best Bargains. Ever.

1. The public library. Where information, knowledge, and self-education—and even time on a computer using the internet—are available at no cost.
2. Toothpaste and dental floss. A lot of toothpaste and dental floss can be purchased for the price of a filling.
3. Thinness. Because one simply eats less.
4. A 42 cent postage stamp. The US Postal Service will carry any volume of information under one ounce thousands of miles for the same price.
5. Paper. The best present for a child is a pencil and a piece of paper.
6. Walking. It burns calories, gets you where you want to go, and no special equipment or costly memberships are required.
7. Public places. Places of interest that are free and open to all.
8. A single zucchini seed. Gardening saves on your grocery bill. Especially if you like zucchini.