Harvest

For anyone who’s never been, and trust me it’s a real treat, my Mom and Step-Dad’s home is among many other adjectives, a beautiful secret garden. Here in our brown desert their yard is green, lush and vibrant. Over the years interspersed with the flowers and vines, they have increased the amount of plants that are ‘harvestable.’  There’s:

Fruit and Nut trees: Apricot, apple, pecan, almond, orange, margarita
Asparagus
Strawberries
Blueberries
Grapes
Artichokes
Tomatoes
Bell Peppers
Various hot peppers
Watermelon
Sunflowers

There is also a large mesquite tree that we harvest mesquite beans from to make flower and prickly pear cactus that we harvest the fruit from.

This year, Anthony wanted to help with the planting, harvesting and cooking. He specifically wanted to plant tomatoes and bell peppers since we eat bell peppers every day and tomato sauce at least once a week. The harvest amounts were huge this year!

To preserve the bounty, mom and I have started canning. (Who saw this coming in my 1950’s ways?) All three kids helped pick the tomatoes and peppers. We estimate that we had over 150lbs! We cut, de-slimmed, and cooked them into an incredible pasta sauce. Anthony helped with every step including dicing the garlic, tearing up through the onions and sealing up the cans.

It’s taken two days but we’ve produced 8 quart jars of tomato sauce and we have two large pots full of more sauce that we’ve yet to can. We also made 2 gallons of mango peach salsa that we’re going to can up in pint jars. We were going to make grape jelly with the grapes but I think we’ll have to supplement them a bit with store bought grape juice as the birds had a field day with the vine this year.

Today, amongst the garlic, onions and tomatoes, Mom made fresh cherry cobbler. Hands down, it is the best thing I’ve ever eaten made from cherries. We’re going to a farmers market on Friday and I hope we can buy some more cherries so we can make more of the cherry filling and can it up. It would be such a treat on the Thanksgiving dinner table.

Given my ‘black thumb’ I’m so fortunate that my Mom, Step-dad and G-ma are so talented with gardening so my kids get to experience it firsthand. It’s so rewarding to harvest fresh food and preserve it for future dinners. My kids love helping us cook and now can it and I know they’ll love being able to gift the bounty’s to other family and friends. It’s such a great lesson for them to see the fruits of their labors.
(Cheesy I know, but true)