Find our recipes for summer's luscious produce all in one place
We have 15 tomato-centric recipes to share in Taste Summer! including this Cherry Tomato Focaccia. Kathy Morrison
Summer is such a glorious time for fresh produce. Tomatoes, of course, but also cucumbers, corn, peppers, zucchini. And the fruit! Peaches, nectarines and plums are just the start of summer's bounty.
Here at Sacramento Digs Gardening, we have published five summers of recipes, one each Sunday of the season, Debbie and Kathy alternating. Each recipe features something we've harvested from our own gardens, or found at the local farmers markets and farm stands. Each recipe is tested and proven in our own kitchens.
Those 60-plus recipes are now together in one place, debuting online in "Taste Summer!" It's our second e-cookbook, following the publication of Taste Spring! in April, and it's just in time for Fourth of July celebrations.
Because Sacramento summers can be so hot, many of our recipes are designed for minimal or no cooking. Chilled peach soup, anyone? We have two versions, including a vegan one. We have some cool cocktails, too.
Tomatoes, not surprisingly, account for 25 percent of the summer recipes, ranging from cherry tomato focaccia to tomato tart, tomato pilaf to tomato clafoutis. We have an easy slow-cooker sauce for now, and tomato jam and chutney to preserve for later. We even have a recipe to make tomato powder from the leftover skins: It's great sprinkled on salads or popcorn.
Summer produce works so well in both sweet and savory recipes. We put pluots in salad, cantaloupe in gazpacho and white nectarines in salsa. Squash gets into the act with Kathy's popular chocolate zucchini bread.
Then there are the delicious surprises: Baked cucumbers! Tomato crisp! Roasted grapes! Zapped pickles! (That one uses cukes or zukes.) Debbie also has an easy salsa verde that makes terrific use of fruit from a tomatillo plant on overdrive.
Whether you harvest your own fresh summer produce, or indulge at the farmers market, you'll find delicious and useful recipes for fruits and vegetables in Taste Summer!
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Garden Checklist for week of April 21
This week there’s plenty to keep gardeners busy. With no rain in the immediate forecast, remember to irrigate any new transplants.
* Weed, weed, weed! Get them before they flower and go to seed.
* April is the last chance to plant citrus trees such as dwarf orange, lemon and kumquat. These trees also look good in landscaping and provide fresh fruit in winter.
* Smell orange blossoms? Feed citrus trees with a low dose of balanced fertilizer (such as 10-10-10) during bloom to help set fruit. Keep an eye out for ants.
* Apply slow-release fertilizer to the lawn.
* Thoroughly clean debris from the bottom of outdoor ponds or fountains.
* Spring brings a flush of rapid growth, and that means your garden is really hungry. Feed shrubs and trees with a slow-release fertilizer. Or mulch with a 1-inch layer of compost.
* Azaleas and camellias looking a little yellow? If leaves are turning yellow between the veins, give them a boost with chelated iron.
* Trim dead flowers but not leaves from spring-flowering bulbs such as daffodils and tulips. Those leaves gather energy to create next year's flowers. Also, give the bulbs a fertilizer boost after bloom.
* Pinch chrysanthemums back to 12 inches for fall flowers. Cut old stems to the ground.
* Mulch around plants to conserve moisture and control weeds.
* From seed, plant beans, beets, cantaloupes, carrots, corn, cucumbers, melons, radishes and squash.
* Plant onion sets.
* In the flower garden, plant seeds for asters, cosmos, celosia, marigolds, salvia, sunflowers and zinnias.
* Transplant petunias, zinnias, geraniums and other summer bloomers.
* Plant perennials and dahlia tubers for summer bloom.
* Mid to late April is about the last chance to plant summer bulbs, such as gladiolus and tuberous begonias.
* Transplant lettuce seedlings. Choose varieties that mature quickly such as loose leaf.
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