In July, we are in the thick of harvest season. There has been adequate rain, and growing conditions are almost ideal. 2025 will be one of my best gardening years ever. Among the benefits of a productive garden is frequent donations to area food pantries.
One measure of abundance is Zestar! apples. It was the first large harvest from a tree I planted a few years ago. The taste is sensational: juicy and tart. They will make great applesauce. This year I decided to can applesauce in pint jars instead of quarts. One main use is as a binding agent in my Iowa vegan cornbread and the pint is more likely to be used up before it goes bad.
Use of apples goes way back on my father’s side of the family. Stories survive of family working in the apple canning plant in Appalachia in the early 20th Century. I am happy to have four varieties of apples growing in our back yard. Calling it my heritage is not wrong. I don’t spray, so they are not perfect. Boy howdy! Do I use them up!
When the garden is going gangbusters, the challenge is to use up or preserve as much as possible, as soon as possible. Two of the crates in the photo above have celery in them. Celery gets processed into four different things: I keep “hearts” of celery for cooking fresh, ending up with ten of them this year. The various outer stalks are separated from the leaves. The stalks with some size to them are chopped into small bits and frozen to add to soup. All the very small pieces of stalk and stem are roughly cut, bagged and frozen for use in making vegetable broth. Finally, the leaves are rough chopped, bagged and frozen to add to soup. I use the whole plant. All of this takes a bit of work, yet the flavor makes it worth the effort.
Another big project ahead is using garlic scapes before the garlic harvest. I have a good crop of basil, so I expect I will make garlic scape pesto. I already have plenty of half pint jars of pesto in the freezer, so I don’t need many more. Will see how far along with that I get.
Growing a large garden ties a person to home. There is so much to do in July, if we don’t pace ourselves, we may be tuckered out for the August tomato season. Can’t let that happen.
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