River City Harvest

Bill Tall, Urban Farming Mentor

I love this article  in the Christian Science Monitor about Bill Tall, a longtime city farmer and mentor to others who want to grow food in their own back yards.

*photo courtesy of Christian Science Monitor

Part 2 of Granny Miller's Canning Tutorial

As promised, here's part two in Granny Miller's video tutorial on home canning.

Fried Green T'Maters

Now, let me state right up front...I am no chef. However, I have been trying to perfect this recipe idea I've had all summer long and I'm pretty happy with the recent results. So, I thought I'd share this with other people who just can't wait for those big round beauties to ripen on the vine.

It combines lightly battered green tomato slices on a bed of homemade cornbread and topped with a slightly sweet homemade remoulade, bacon crumbles and chopped green onions (which we have been enjoying from our garden for months now!). I steamed broccoli this time to accompany this dish, but another really good veggie side is steamed or sauteed asparagus. Of course, if you're a vegetarian, all you have to do is omit the bacon.
It's really easier than I've made it look in these directions :o)

Ingredients: (these are all rough measurements since I usually cook by the old fashioned method; trial & error)

3-4 Green Tomatoes (medium to large in size - preferably as round as possible for easy slicing. young beefsteak or larger heirloom varieties work well)
1 cup Flour
1 cup Corn Meal (not necessary, but a nice addition)
Salt & Pepper or Seasoning Salt (to taste)

Cornbread:
1 box Jiffy Cornbread mix (8.5 oz)
1 egg
1/3 Milk

Remoulade:
1/2 cup Heavy Cream or Milk
1/2 cup Butter or Margarine
1-2 Tablespoon Flour
1 Tablespoon Chopped Garlic
1 Tablespoon Berry Preserves (I used blackberry last night and it was awesome, but you can really use anything)
1 Tablespoon Honey
Texas Pete or other Hot Sauce (if you'd like a bit if a kick)
Salt & Pepper or Seasoning Salt (to taste)

7-8 Bacon slices
Chopped Green Onion

Directions:
1. Prepare cornbread according to instructions on box, pour in greased 8x8 square pan and cook in 400˚ oven for 20-25 minutes.
2. While cornbread is baking, slice tomatoes in 1/2 - 3/4 inch slices (too thin and they will become floppy and too thick won't cook enough).
3. In a medium sized bowl, combine flour, corn meal & salt & pepper

4. Coat frying pan with a thin layer of oil (I love to use olive oil, but you have to be careful because it can burn if the pan is too hot) and heat on medium-high heat (I use a gas stove, so it could be less temp. for electric)
5. Wet each slice of tomato in water and cover in batter mixture. Shake off excess and place in pan.
6. Cook each side until golden brown (try not to fry too long so they don't start falling apart) and place on paper towel covered plate.
7. While the Maters are fryin', cook bacon in your preferred cooking manor
8. Time to start the Remoulade (that's just a fancy word for sauce or gravy); Combine cream or milk, butter, garlic, preserves, honey & hot sauce in a small sauce pan. Heat on medium-low
9. In a mug or small bowl, add tiny amounts of water to the flour for the sauce and stir until it's about as thick as heavy cream (that's trick I learned from my husband's grandmother to avoid lumpy gravy). Add to sauce in pan and let it come to a bubbling state to thicken, stirring often, then turn heat to low or off if you're almost ready to serve.
10. Cut cornbread into 4 sections and plate. Add a bit of remoulade on top. For the next layer, place 3-4 fried tomatoes, followed by more sauce. Top with bacon crumbles and chopped green onions.
11. Eat yourself silly...

Serves 4

Remember that you can adjust any of this recipe to your liking. There's really no right or wrong here.
Take your time, sip some wine, and enjoy the fruits of your labor in the garden... Hope you enjoy!

Curious About Canning? Granny Miller Shows You How

About a week ago I took a look at my pepper plants and realized that I was about to be buried alive in hot peppers.  Now, appealing as that might sound to some people, I know that I won't be able to use all of these suckers while they're still fresh.  I need to learn how to preserve fruits and veggies.  I'm starting with canning, since that seems the most mysterious and potentially dangerous of the various food preservation methods.  Might as well live on the edge, right?  Anyway, after googling around I found a pretty straightforward series of videos from Granny Miller.  This is a five part series.  I'll break this up over several posts over the next few days, but if you're anxious to watch them all at once then check out Granny Miller's youtube page, where you can also learn how to shear a sheep, make a slipcover, or raise chickens.

Home Canning Basics - Part 1: An Introduction

Tricycle Gardens Planning a New Project

Looking for an opportunity to get in on planning a new community garden?  Tricycle Gardens wants YOU!

Tricycle Gardens is heading up the planning and development of a new
community garden, in partnership with Ellwood Thompson’s Local Market
and the City of Richmond, located next to the Humphry Caulder Community
Center, at the corner of Thompson St. & Patterson Ave.

The first planning meeting will be held September 11, 7 p.m., in the community center
and is open to all! Please join us. Call 231-7767 or email
lisa@tricyclegardens.org.

(Thanks to F.T. Rea, AKA my Dad, for passing this along to me)

Now THAT'S What I'm talkin' About

Not just rain, but wonderful, gentle, drizzle all day rain.  Perfect.  I think there's more coming tomorrow too!  I decided to take advantage of the cool, damp, mosquito free conditions to plant my squash seedlings.

City Farmers Around The Globe

CityFarmer.info is an extremely informative site focused on sharing urban garden stories from around the world. It is run by the Vancouver based organization City Farmer whose objective is:

to teach people how to grow food in the city, compost their waste and take care of their home landscape in an environmentally responsible way.

City Farmer is packed full of inspirational articles and instructional videos. One can sit for hours looking through all of the wonderful features like this one that I had seen previously through CNN about a family living in CA who lives off of their family's produce by selling to local restaurants...and it's all grown on a .10 of an acre!

Like I said...inspirational!

Mark Your Calendars

The Henrico Master Gardener
Association
in cooperation with
Virginia Cooperative Extension and
Henrico Recreation and Parks
presents:

The Henrico Harvest Fair Saturday, October 18, 2008
at
Armour House and Gardens
at Meadowview

There will be vendors, demonstrations and classes, including:

• 'Garden to Kitchen: Growing Herbs Indoors Make and Take'
• 'Gardening With Winter Crops: Vegetables, Herbs, Mushrooms, and Flowers'
• 'Build a Barrel Workshop'

*Thanks to Henrico County Master Gardener, Mary Vetrovec for sending me the information about this.

Freedom Gardens of the World

Thanks so much to Mary Delicate for bringing our attention to Freedom Gardens of the World , a social networking site for back yard farmers around the world. 

Think of it as Facebook meets the Farmer’s Almanac: A social networking site for backyard pioneers who want to fight soaring food prices and global warming by growing their own food. On this site, novice and expert growers from all over the world can gather to post success stories, ask questions, and challenge one another to ever-increasing levels of self-sustained living.

A permanent link will go in the sidebar under "Urban Farming and Sustainable Agriculture Links".  Thanks again, Mary.

Tomato Talk

Mark Viette talks tomatoes in this video from the Virginia Farm Bureau. 

Lots of good stuff here, including a nice serving suggestion for all of those yummy tomatoes you've got piling up on your windowsill.   I really like those tomato cages he built with what looks like heavy gauge wire fencing that you can get by the roll at the hardware store.  I sure could have used some of those myself.  I've been doing battle all summer with those plants, trying to keep them off of each other and upright.   I made the typical rookie mistakes of planting them WAY too close together and not setting cages early on.  My attempts to control these monsters have been laughable failures.  Next year, CAGES!