Planting Garlic and Pickled Green Tomatoes

Hello,

Garlic Fest took over several blocks of downtown Easton, Pennsylvania earlier this month featuring over one hundred vendors hawking everything from garlic-flavored ice cream to garlic-infused beer. October is garlic planting month here in the Northeast and my simple mission was to bring home some organic garlic to sow in our backyard.  Supermarket garlic is frequently sprayed with a substance that inhibits it from sprouting in the soil or your fridge. A farmer from Ohio was selling large heads of organic Turkish garlic that originated in the Turkish Mountains near the Black Sea and is known for its “robust” flavor. The garlic was seven dollars a head and when I expressed surprise at the price I was told they have many satisfied customers. We’ll have to wait nine months, the growing season for garlic, to see if it was worth it!

Garlic requires full sunshine, so it seemed that the time was right to uproot my tomato plants in favor of the garlic. Golf ball size green tomatoes were stubbornly hanging on and refusing to grow any larger, let alone turn red. It was painful to uproot the tomato plants as I had become attached to watching them grow.  During one cold spell, I covered the tomatoes with white, cotton socks at night to keep the cold away. (Seriously). I worked some compost into the soil, dug holes three to four inches deep, and placed the cloves with the flat side (roots) down. They need to be covered with straw or grass clippings for the winter cold, and I will need to find a new spot for my tomatoes next spring.

My green tomatoes were woefully undersized and as hard as rubber balls, but the Rural Sprout showed me how to pickle them. This is a quick process that uses ingredients that you probably have on hand, other than some of the spices, but those can be tailored to your taste. I used pickling spice and made just one 16-ounce jar. I did not go through all the canning steps, so my pickles had to go right in the refrigerator and I’ve been eating them with a sandwich for lunch. The whole process took only about twenty minutes.

Pickled Green Tomatoes

Ingredients

10 ounces green tomatoes cut into bite-sized pieces ( I used a postal scale)

1 cup apple cider vinegar

1 cup water

3 cloves garlic, smashed

1 t. salt

1 t. pickling spice

16-ounce jar and lid

Directions

Bring the vinegar and water to a boil in a small pot. Add garlic and simmer for 3 to 4 minutes. Add chopped tomatoes and simmer for 5 minutes. Put spices in the bottom of the jar. Use a slotted spoon to transfer tomatoes to the jar. Cover tomatoes with the brine. Allow your tomatoes to cool. Cover with the lid and refrigerate. Eat within 3 to 4 days.

Pumpkin and Blackberry Pancakes

In the last newsletter, I wrote about pumpkins and blackberries but in separate recipes. Amie from The Micro Mashup suggested in the comments that both ingredients would work together well in pancakes. It sounded good to me, so we found a recipe and made them last Sunday. They were very good. Thanks Amie!

Grandma’s Cut Glass

Intricately designed cut glass does not seem to be popular today as it once was. I happen to think that it is very pretty and I recently found this method for using it to make monoprints. You will need plasticine, a type of modeling clay used by children, and some ink pads in addition to cut glass dishes. Flatten a piece of plasticine and press it into the textured design of your dish. You’ve turned the plasticine into a stamp. Press it into your ink pad and print. I’m thinking of printing wrapping paper.

All images by Vicki Smith

Thank you for reading!

Vicki