Author Archives: cathyboettner

It’s still PLENTY hot, so it’s hard to think about getting ready for the cooler months ahead, but now is your chance to get a big thank you from your future self for putting in a fall garden. I pulled up almost all of my summer garden a few weeks ago so that I couldContinue reading “The fall garden”

I have recently pulled up all my tomatoes, squash, and peppers to make room for my fall plants. I have started my fall plants, and I had some that I needed to get in the ground, but my primary garden needs to have some additional landscape mix put on it (which is supposed to beContinue reading “The Beginning of the Fall/Winter Garden”

I planted Beauregard sweet potatoes which are fast maturing–in about 110 days. The last time I grew sweet potatoes, I had some real WHOPPERS. The question is, will this be a repeat since I am harvesting about 45 days earlier than last time. This is what the garden looked like when I started: So, ofContinue reading “Taming the Sweet Potato Jungle”

I am working on a fundraising event and we are making up several bar-themed auction baskets. My friend in Atlanta found me some great little cutting boards at thrift stores that were a great price, but needed a little TLC. (But you can do the same process for your own cutting boards that have startedContinue reading “Refurbishing Cutting Boards”

My basil plants have done REALLY well this year. I have three giant pots with about this size plant in each of them–they are more like basil bushes than plants. So, I thought that I would make some basil pesto for pizzas, pastas, and a pesto quinoa dupe for the First Watch Pesto Chicken powerContinue reading “Basil Pesto”

Yet another purchase from the farmers market. I bought two baskets of squash from the Mennonite market and a bunch of huge onions. My guess is that is was about 8 lbs. I sliced up the squash and onions and it looked like this: I sauteed them with a stick of butter. Now I hadContinue reading “Squash Casserole for the Freezer”

I have to admit that by the time it was time to can tomatoes, I was pretty much over canning tomato products, but I had about 35 lbs of tomatoes that needed to be dealt with. I set up the blanching, coring, and cutting operation in the laundry room. I scrubbed my laundry sink soContinue reading “Canning tomatoes”

Next up with my roma tomatoes was to make marinara sauce. I make mine a little differently. Here’s how I do it: I started by washing and quartering my roma tomatoes, and chopping up my onions. I sprayed two quarter sheet pans with cooking spray and added the tomatoes and onions and sprinkled some peeledContinue reading “Roasted Garlic Marinara”

I went to the Mennonite market today and their canning and roma tomatoes were on sale–$15/box, and I might have gotten a little carried away, because I bought 3 boxes. That is a LOT of tomatoes. My plan is to make Bloody Mary mix, Roasted Garlic Marinara sauce, and to can a case of tomatoes.Continue reading “Spicy Bloody Mary Mix”

I didn’t get a subscription bouquet this week because I used so many over the past few weeks for parties, house guests, and birthdays. I picked a lot of flowers last weekend for all the festivities, but the zinnias have come roaring back. I also had quite a few dahlias. The funny part about theContinue reading “Zillions of Zinnias”