Summer's Bounty is Starting and So It's Time to Finish Up Last Year's Crops

From the sound of it today -- Summer is here!  The dock crews have been busy on our shore all day today. The installed docks are quickly supplied with boat hoists.  Just in time to be ahead of the predicted five days of rain.

The past few days have finally felt seasonable for yard work, too.  Managed to get inside the garden fence to do some digging. This year I hope to stretch the sunny garden space by putting planter boxes and even pots along the edge. That's where the spinach, lettuce, and lunch-box peppers will grow. I've also tried some green beans. It will be much easier to walk around the growing tomatoes to the cucumbers without risk of stepping on those ground-level crops. Tripods are set up to support the pole beans and the peas are getting ready to climb up their own supports. 

If you look closely at the full garden picture you'll see the holes in the background ready for the heritage variety tomato plants and the watering jugs I bury next to them so I can get liquid fertilizer directly to their roots. Six small plants from Seed Savers are hardening off on the back porch ... but I got impatient. So.....

This patio tomato plant, complete with flowers, just happened to fall into the cart while we were shopping at the garden center. Some hearty, yet leggy, basil plants came home with us too, to join the already potted up parsley, rosemary, and lemon thyme. 

Some hearty, yet leggy, basil plants came home with us too,

to join the already potted up parsley, rosemary, and lemon thyme.

But here's the opportunity.  I still have a couple of bags of peeled, seeded, roughly chopped tomatoes in the freezer.  When we've tomatoes in abundance, I just toss them in zipper freezer bags. All winter I pull those out for making soup or chili.  But now I have some fresh produce. So I made a Winter-Summer Pasta. 

Winter-Summer Pasta

1 bag home-frozen tomatoes -- about 8 medium

1 small can tomato paste, optional 

Fresh herbs, finely chopped -- basil, thyme, rosemary -- or your preference 

pasta

Thaw the bag of tomatoes in a large bowl. Drain off the accumulated juices and put into your pasta cooking pot. Add just enough water for the pasta to boil comfortably. You want them to absorb as much of the "tomato water" as possible. While the pasta is cooking, heat the tomatoes, If you want a slightly thicker sauce, stir in a tablespoon or two of the tomato paste. Off heat, stir in the herbs, reserving some for garnish. Drain pasta, plate and add sauce. 

Leftover sauce will keep in the fridge for a couple of days, or can be frozen for the next time winter temperatures come along this spring. Hey!  It's north Iowa.  It happens.