Garden Love

Now that there's snow on the ground I am really missing our garden. Not the weeding or the work, but the fresh tomatoes. Store bought ones just do not taste good. And we're a good 7-8 months away from that luxury again. My husband is the visionary in our house. He killed half our back lawn in order to put in a big garden. And while I was the skeptic, I love it just as much as he does. Our kids really enjoy it as well. Not so much the weeding, but all the great produce. And they like running up and down the rows playing games.

We had quite a few lover carrots this year. And even a three some. It was fun pulling them all out before it got real cold and seeing all the different sizes and shapes. We need to do better about thinning them next year.

I peeled them all, diced them, blanched them, and then froze them for the winter use.

We got 32 quart sized bags full. They're great to throw in soups or just to eat. And they taste so much better than store bought.

This picture does not really do justice to the size of this bowl. These were what were left over after making spaghetti sauce and salsa. I chopped them up as well and threw them in the freezer. They're great added to eggs or soups as well.

My awesome neighbor gave us some grapes last week for juicing.

He let me borrow one of his juicers so it went twice as fast!

There is nothing like fresh grape juice. My favorite after workout snack is grape juice mixed with 1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder. So good!

We also grew an abnormal amount of basil so I could make pesto sauce. It really doesn't take as much as I thought it would. And toasting and peeling pine nuts sucks.

But the efforts were so good on homemade pizza!

It was my husband's idea to get chickens as well a couple of years ago. It was so nice to be able to go out back and get breakfast.

Spaghetti sauce. I think we're stocked up for the winter.

My favorite way to eat tomatoes is bacon and tomato sandwiches. We grew a lot of different kinds of heirloom tomatoes as well. The yellow ones were so sweet!

And that sweet corn on the cob was delicious! Unfortunately we ate all of it and didn't get to freeze any this year!

Peaches from our tree

More spaghetti sauce. So good with lots of garlic and basil.

These little cherry tomatoes were better than candy. So sweet and everyone's favorite snack!

And beans. Truthfully, I let these go to waste more than I should have. If you keep picking them, they will keep growing. I let some go too long and the plants died at the end of the summer. Next year I will keep on top of them and try to freeze them once a week. We did eat a lot of them during the summer. I just didn't put much away for the winter.

And it's nice that the kids will help too.

Do you garden?

What is your favorite vegetable?