A couple of weeks ago Muir Glen, partnered with two Philadelphia food trucks (Sum Pig & Street Food Philly) and Philabundance for an event at City Hall.

While I couldn’t make the event I think that the work that Philabundance does is very important and I wanted to share some highlights with you.

The Event

Three hundred red gift boxes with green ribbons—reminiscent of a field of tomatoes—were placed around Philadelphia’s City Hall Courtyard to celebrate the gift of delicious tomatoes to the city by Muir Glen organic tomatoes. Each box contained a can of Muir Glen tomatoes, recipe cards and voucher for recipients to pick up a free meal made with delicious Muir Glen tomatoes at one of two food trucks parked nearby, Street Food Philly and Sum Pig.

How cool is that?

This time of year is a big time for tomatoes in our house. I make chili about once a week through the fall and winter and just about all of my chili recipes call for tomatoes.

Muir Glen tomatoes are all organic and packed within hours of being plucked off the vine. It doesn’t get much fresher or tastier than that (especially since the garden has probably gone dormant).

More than 2,500 cans of Muir Glen tomatoes were donated to Philabundance, helping the hunger relief organization’s need for canned goods this winter. Unveiling the donation was David Oh, Philadelphia city councilmember; Thomas J. Rossomando, Governor’s Action Team (GAT) development specialist; George Matysik, Philabundance director of policy and planning; Carolyn Nguyen, Street Food Philly food truck chef and co-owner; Jessica Iannuzzi, Sum Pig food truck co-owner; and Katie Proctor, RD, social voice for Muir Glen.

Probably the most important part of the event was Muir Glen donating those 2,500 cans of tomatoes. But it’s not going to stop there, Muir Glen will donate another thousand cans between now and November 10th. So many people will be helped by this donation and will be able to enjoy that taste of summer all winter long.

Three hundred free meals were prepared by the Sum Pig and Street Food Philly food trucks as part of the Muir Glen “Picked for Flavor” event at City Hall’s Courtyard.

I was pretty bummed to miss out on the food trucks.

Philabundance

Founded in 1984, Philabundance merged with the Greater Philadelphia Food Bank in 2005 to become the largest hunger relief organization in the area. Don’t let the name fool you, Philabundance services those in need from Bucks, Chester, Montgomery, Delaware and Philadelphia counties in Pennsylvania and Western Burlington, Camden, Gloucester and Salem Counties in New Jersey. That’s a lot of people they’re helping.

What I found fascinating is that for ever dollar donated to Philabundance they can provide two meals. That’s HUGE and proof that every little bit helps.

Philabundance has so many programs to make sure that no one has to go hungry. From old to young, there’s something to support everyone.

My Muir Glen Tomatoes

The folks at Muir Glen were kind enough to send me a couple cans of their tomatoes to try out at home.

We were at a loss for what to have for dinner last night so we used our Muir Glen tomatoes to make a pizza sauce and had homemade pizza bake. It was delicious! So much better than when I made it last time with the jarred pizza sauce.

All photos are compliments of Simon Public Relations. 

The garden has just been just eh this year.

The critters have gotten to the back two beds (peas and cucumbers) despite our best efforts and lots of repellent. It blows my mind how when we hardly had any kind of protection around the garden the animals left it alone. Now that it has all kinds of fencing around it we can’t keep them out. It’s been a frustrating couple of years on The Farm.

New to The Mommyland Farm this year are the strawberries. They have been tasty but we haven’t gotten too many, I think we’ve been averaging about one every other day. I’m hopeful that they’re the gift that keeps giving and we’ll get some more as the summer progresses. I don’t think I’ll be using my own strawberries for my strawberry shortcake any time soon.

Juicy strawberries.

We’ve gotten one green pepper so far and there are many more out there that just need to get a little bigger. The red and yellow peppers refuse to change color though. We had this problem last year, three different colors were planted but we only had green. They all tasted good though so I guess I shouldn’t complain. Anyone have luck with different colors of peppers?

The cherry tomatoes are doing really well. We’ve got more than Logan can eat coming off the vine. It’s nice to not have to buy them at the store for a few weeks.

The beefsteak tomatoes are OK so far. There are a lot of them on the vine but, much like last year, they’re not turning red. So far we’ve only had one red one but it was worth the wait. There’s just something about tomatoes fresh from the garden, they’re not always as pretty on the outside as their grocery store counterparts but they are gorgeous on the inside and tasty.

The other thing we’re waiting on is the carrots. We’ve tried them before but something always ate them before they had a chance to grow. This year they seem to be thriving and Cameron is really looking forward to eating one right out of the ground. Carrots are the only veggie he’ll eat and they have to be raw and he only eats them every once in a great while. I’m looking forward to sneaking them into my meatloaf. HEHEHE

This was our second year with the potatoes and while we didn’t get as many as we did last year we still got a respectable haul. I’ll be making some chips with some of them VERY soon. I guess I should share a few with my Mom too.

Our potatoes. That’s a little more than half a five gallon bucket.

I’ve had some questions as to how to grow the potatoes and honestly, they’re the easiest thing in our garden. We got the bulbs in the spring, cut them in half and planted them cut side down. All you really need to do is keep them watered. The bulb package said to pile more dirt on top of the plants as they started to grow but we never did that. When the plant looks like it’s about to die we pull them out of the ground and go hunting for potatoes.

Potato hunting.

The boys love searching for the potatoes, probably because it gives them an excuse to get dirty.

The herbs? Don’t even ask! The potted herbs blew away and are laying dead on the front porch. Second year of herb failure.

I’ve been hearing a lot of garden success stories this year, how is your garden doing? Do you have any tips for getting my tomatoes to turn red while still on the vine or how I can get my red and yellow peppers to stop being green?

Happy Gardening!