Do you remember my sunflower excitement earlier this summer? I had dreams of beautiful, large, vibrant yellow sunflowers growing against the back drop of this white barn. In between the sunflowers I planted onion sets that were questionably ok to plant.
What with all the rain flowing down the terrace, the onions quickly rotted in the ground. But I still had high hopes for my sunflowers.
Just one… The ground was rich with manure and the sun was abundant, and so was the rain. It has rained so much! Yes, I blame the rain. Who knows the real reason my ladies didn’t make – but I blame the rain. Never fear, though, I’m going to try again next year in a different spot. I WILL have sunflowers!
Our tomatoes, on the other hand have done quite well. Fifteen quarts of salsa is already hidden in the dark bowels of the garage. Fourteen jars of V8 juice have now joined them (I kept one out for drinking – yum!)
Here is the recipe if you are interested:
Jericho Juice
15# tomatoes
1 large onion
1 large green pepper
6-8 stalks celery
6-8 carrots
1 large beet
Cut in pieces, cook until tender, put through strainer.
Add:
4 Tablespoons brown sugar
2 Tablespoons canning salt (optional - I don't)
2 teaspoons celery salt
Boil. Put in jars and seal.
(FYI – I forgot to add the brown sugar and celery salt and it is still wonderful – so if sugar is a no, no, just leave it out)
17 comments:
Fiften pounds of tomatoes?
LOL! How much juice does this make, about 200 servings? :)
I don't get it - the sunflowers around here are/were doing pretty good - the heat certainly set them back a bit when the ground dried out - but there are sunflowers everywhere.
Hmm...
I am sorry but that was to funny. The way you was holding out hope.. then poor little puny flowers. I have planted them and never had much luck.. This year I had volunteers in with my tomatoes and it got Huge! One in the compost pile had 11 buds on it. Then the goats got it and the chickens finished it..
The V-8 sounds grand. I don't know what to tell you about your puny Sunflowers.
The best laid plans . . . on the other hand, the V8 juice sounds great!
My garden was awful this year. Glad you got some stuff. And the sun flowers are pretty, even if they didn't get giant sized.
Hey we have a pumpkin vine you can put where you sun flowers are. It's all vine and not one single pumpkin on it!
Where did you get a beet? Did you have them in your garden? I can't say I've ever seen beets in the produce section, but then I can say I've ever looked for them.
If it was so wet it rotted the onions sets, I'd blame the rain, too. They might grow just fine there next year.
Nice tomato crop, tho!! :):)
That single sunflower is amazing!
Maybe sunflowers like heat and dry ground. I see them in fields around here and we haven't had the rain that you have.
I finally have one reddish tomato- a victory for me.
My little garden hasn't fared so well this year either. It's gotta be the weather...when it's not raining, it's so hot and humid.
The tomatoes are coming along now, but they are not very big. Yours look great and the recipe does, too. I'll have to try it sometime. Thanks for sharing!
So sorry about your sunflowers Punkn, I havent tried to grow those in a long time I never have much luck either but there are some around here that do have lots of them and they are so beautiful. That recipe sounds yummy thanks so much for sharing. I hope you are having a good weekend HUGS
Sunflowers can be hard to rise, or they grow without any help, and i cant tell you why,i do know that if you want to get a good start with them ,rise them inside t ostart and tranplant out side. The one KEY Word....Miracle-Grow..and lots of it.I wated mine everyother day with it.I had some flowers that grew 10 ft tall, and i have some that are well flowes and thats about it.The other thing is there are several Kinds of sunflowers.I got a bunch of tomatoes i wished that penny would can what we could use like selsa.. oh well. HUgs U JR
I'm sorry your sunflowers didn't grow like you had hoped they would, but that one "puny" sunflower looks pretty nice to me. A neighbor who lives a couple of houses away from the feed mill always has a really big one next to her front porch, and I've noticed it's gotten pretty big the past couple of weeks. They must like heat and humidity.
Your V8 juice sounds tasty.
Oh I'll have to give that recipe to my boyfriend, who would completely sympathize with your sunflower dilemma after his disappointed last year. They're strong and good this year, though - keep the faith!
On the Oregon coast it was a cool and wet spring which has been followed by a cool summer. Needless to say, my garden is a disaster! I just picked a few peas last night but I doubt that the green beans will make it before the fall rains hit. Oh well, maybe next year.
Deanna sorry about your sunflowers. That one you have looks pretty and perky :) I swear when I looked at that picture of you kneeling down I thought you were in my yard! Our vegetable garden pooped out this year, don't know what happened :(
That Jericho Juice sounds yummy! Thank you for sharing. Anne
Better luck next year.
At least you have tomatoes. :)
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