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Harvest Monday: Overdrive

Jul 12th, 2010 by Villager

The garden seemed to go into overdrive this week. The kitchen island has been loaded up every day with goodies from the garden, and the freezer is filling up fast.

The blueberries and blackberries are hitting their peak, even as the tomato harvest is just beginning. We picked about 3.5 gallons of blackberries, and a gallon of blueberries. We got several quarts of the small-fruited varieties of tomatoes this week, plus a few of the slicers. The dehydrator has been busy drying some of the tomatoes.

We got our first sweet pepper this week, Carmen, from a plant growing in a large pot. I’m continuing to experiment with peppers and eggplants in containers. It does seem to be a worthwhile way to give us an early taste of both of these summer vegetables. This Carmen pepper looked more like a bell pepper, but the others coming on show the more tapered shape you would expect from an Italian bull’s horn pepper. It was juicy and sweet on a salad.

Sharon cucumbers and Carmen pepper

From the greenhouse I continue to get cucumbers, plus the occasional lettuce plant. Anything growing in the greenhouse here in summer has got to love the heat! The Sharon cucumber variety is supposed to be cold-tolerant, but it seems to love the heat as well. I made some cucumber salsa with it one day, a simple mix of diced cucumbers, some salad burnet flavored vinegar, mint and onions. It made for a cool side dish on a hot day.

cucumber salsa

And the lettuce has amazed me. I planted heat tolerant varieties in the greenhouse back in early June (New Red Fire, Loma, and Magenta). While the outside temps have reached the upper 90s, it has gotten over 120F in the greenhouse. None of these lettuces have bolted. New Red Fire and Magenta don’t color up as well in the greenhouse, but that’s ok.

New Red Fire lettuce

We are happy to have any lettuce at all in this heat! We used some of the Magenta leaves for BLT sandwiches one day.

Magenta lettuce

It was our first BLTs of the season, but I’m guessing it won’t be our last. I even baked a loaf of whole wheat Honey Flax bread for the occasion.

BLT sandwich on Honey Flax bread

I couldn’t wait any longer and decided to dig one of the Caribe potato plants. It rewarded us with almost a pound of new potatoes. I cooked them up with some green beans. This was one of the plants growing under straw in the new lasagna bed. I hope the rest of the plants do this well!

That’s a sample of what we’ve been harvesting in the last week. The total harvest for this week was 69 pounds, the largest yet of 2010. To see more gardener’s harvests, visit Daphne’s Dandelions.

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Evicted

Jul 10th, 2010 by Villager

Today’s post is written by a guest author, Freddy.

I gotta tell you, I was living the good life there for a while. I had a roof over my head, a nice swimming pool, and plenty of peace and quiet. I had no rent and no worries.

All that came abruptly to an end today. All of a sudden it got blindingly bright. I was awake in an instant. I was out in the sunlight. It was hot and scary. ACKKKKK!

I was hanging on for dear life, when all of a sudden something BIG started chasing me around the pool. I managed to climb on to the ladder to the diving board.

I heard voices, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. It sounded like “now we’ll have to drain the tub” or something like that. Next thing I know, some metal mesh thing was scooping me out of my happy home, and I was unceremoniously dropped out on the grass.

That’s ok. It was fun while it lasted. But I know how to get back in, and I don’t need a key either. I think I saw Them putting fresh water in the swimming pool. Oh joy! A place like that is hard to find – I think I’ll be back!!!

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Posted in Nature | 9 Comments »

Rest and Rain

Jul 9th, 2010 by Villager

This has been a busy week here at Happy Acres – busier than usual, and that’s saying something! But last night we got much needed rain, and today I am trying to get some much needed rest. I won’t be able to rest for very long though.

For one thing, harvest season is in high gear. We’re harvesting the church garden 3 times a week, getting 25-30 pounds of squash and cukes every time. We slogged through the mud this morning, one of those times when you have to be careful that the mud doesn’t suck your shoes right off your feet! I had to hose down our shoes when we got back home. At least we remembered to take a 2nd pair of shoes. Last time we harvested in the mud I had to drive home barefoot.

The green beans there are blooming and it won’t be long before the tomatoes start to get ripe. I don’t even want to think about the acre of sweet corn we planted! Don’t get me wrong, the project is going well and I am glad I took the initiative last year to get it all started. I just need a little break.

And at home it seems everything is coming on at once. The kitchen island is a resting place for whatever comes in, and this week that has included a lot of tomatoes. My wife dehydrated the first batch of cherry tomatoes this week. We’re freezing blueberries and blackberries galore. The summer squash plants are seemingly in overdrive, plus there are beans to pick, shallots to dig, yada yada yada – if you have a garden I’m sure you get the picture!

We had friends in town this week, here to plan for their retirement home (2 doors down from us), and our schedule included a 4th of July cookout here plus a few dinners out. Eating out actually gave me a break from cooking, which was nice, and gave us time to visit and our friends time to sample some of the eateries around town. Yesterday we went to our favorite falafel place and I got my fill of fine falafels (say that three times fast!).
So now I am ready to relax for a bit. There is a lounger on the porch with my name on it. I’ve got a book I want to read, and today seems like a good time to get started on it.

Now I just hope I can keep my eyes open long enough to actually read!

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July Harvests: Eggplant and Tomatoes

Jul 5th, 2010 by Villager

I tell you, nothing says summer like ripe tomatoes! We had the first taste of slicing tomatoes yesterday. These Early Girls and Moretons in the photo below aren’t real big, but they sure were tasty. The next early tomatoes to ripen should be the Champions (1&2), and they are larger. Of course, bigger is not always better, even when it comes to tomatoes!

I also harvested the first eggplants of the year. These are Fairy Tale, a small eggplant I have growing in containers. We grew this variety last year in our MG AAS Display Garden, and they were positively loaded with these 3-4″ long little beauties.

Fairy Tale eggplants

Last year the MG’s were encouraged to take some home and try them out. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with them, so I sliced them in half lengthwise and slapped them on the grill. They were done in no time. We liked them so much I decided to grow them here this year, and I’m glad I did.

They are giving us our first taste of eggplant. The plants are about a foot tall now and covered in blooms and fruit. Fairy Tale is a 2005 AAS winner. I’ve not been real impressed with the AAS vegetables in the last few years, but this eggplant is worth trying in containers or in the ground. Its mild tasting white flesh is not bitter and has very few seeds.

We also continue to get a lot of blackberries. Last week I picked about 12 pounds/2 gallons of them. Apache continues to be our best performer. My wife has decided it is the best tasting of the blackberries, but I can’t decide on my favorite just yet. I know one thing – it is sure easy to fill your bucket when the berries are so big!

We’re getting quite a few pole beans also. I’m having to make at least two trips a day to the beans to hand pick the Japanese beetles from them. It seems they have turned the pole bean area into a giant swap meet.

These Japanese beetles seem to be interested in two things only: eating and mating. The photo below shows the damage they have done to the bean leaves. You can see through many of the upper leaves.

Japanese beetle damage on pole beans

The same thing happened last year. The plants survived the onslaught and produced a lot of beans for us to eat. This is the only thing they have attacked this year, though I’m keeping a watch out on the blackberries because they do seem to like them too.

I used some of the beans and some cherry tomatoes in this Walnut Green Bean Salad. The recipe is here and this dish is one of our summer favorites when we have fresh beans and tomatoes. We love the taste of the bulgur in this dish.

We also got blueberries, onions, summer squash, cucumbers, lettuce  and broccoli in the harvest bucket this week. The total haul for the week was 37 pounds.

I also got the third possum of the year in the live trap. This one was kinda cute, in its own possum way, so I got a snapshot of it before it went to the retirement village a few miles from Happy Acres. I don’t know where all the possums are coming from this year, but I know where they are going, and that’s elsewhere!

For more harvest funvisit Daphne’s Dandelions.

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Posted in Gardening | 19 Comments »

Four For The 4th

Jul 4th, 2010 by Villager

Just in time for our burgers today, we have the first ripe slicing tomatoes of the season! Two Moretons are in front and two Early Girls in back.

We’re having some friends over later to celebrate Independence Day. Our menu will feature homegrown and local foods, with green beans, broccoli salad and cucumber pickles from the garden. I baked a batch of burger buns yesterday, and my wife is making blackberry cobbler for dessert.

I hope everyone enjoys their day!

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I Can’t Say No To Tomatoes

Jun 30th, 2010 by Villager

Tomatoes are without a doubt the most popular vegetable grown by backyard gardeners in the U.S. And it’s easy to see why: they are reasonably easy to grow, yield well, and taste so much better than any tomato you can buy in a grocery store. They also come in a mind-boggling array of colors, sizes and shapes. And that’s where the problem begins for me, because I want to grow them all!

This year I am growing 36 varieties of tomatoes. I know, it’s crazy, but that’s what I just counted. About 2/3s of them are hybrids and 1/3 are open pollinated heirlooms. I’ve not really gotten into saving tomato seed myself, though I know it’s easy and I’ve certainly done it from time to time. I’m more interested in experimenting.

I’m not going to go into how to grow tomatoes here. For one thing, I don’t consider myself an expert, even though I’ve been growing them for some 30-odd years now and have likely planted a few thousand along the way. There’s a lot of good books that cover the subject, and one of my new favorites is “The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible” by Edward C. Smith. It’s a good reference book for most vegetables.

A good book about heirloom tomatoes is appropriately called “The Heirloom Tomato: From Garden to Table”  by Amy Goldman. This large book is filled with 200 lovely photos of heirloom tomatoes, along with descriptions and history. This would make a great coffee table book, if we only had a coffee table! I know a lot of people are interested in heirloom tomatoes these days, and here’s a great online resource for information about these varieties.

And I also urge everyone in the U.S. to call their friendly county extension agent if they have questions about growing tomatoes, or have problems with growing them. Those folks are well versed on the problems unique to your area.  Plus, it’s your tax dollars at work, so why not take advantage of their services! I would also caution against believing everything you read on the web, or in blogs (including this one). While there’s a lot of good information out there, there’s also a lot of misinformation too.

I’ll divide the tomatoes I’m growing into three categories. The ten varieties with an asterisk (*) are being grown here for the first time. First we have the slicers – those big juicy tomatoes that are perfect for eating by themselves or for putting on sandwiches. Several of these are being tested to see if they are suitable for our food pantry gardens. This year I am growing:

  • Better Boy
  • Brandy Boy
  • Brandywine Sudduth’s Strain(OP)
  • Brandywine OTV(OP)
  • Celebrity
  • Champion
  • Champion 2
  • Druzba(OP) (*)
  • Early Girl
  • Giant Belgium(OP)
  • Golden Queen(OP)
  • Jetsetter (*)
  • Jetsonic
  • Magnus(OP) (*)
  • Moreton (*)
  • Ramapo
  • Whopper

I know that’s a lot of slicers, but remember this is also a test garden. I need to see how a variety is going to do before I plant 100 of them! And the only way to do that is to grow them out here in our climate. I did plant a few Mountain Spring plants for trial at the church garden, but I ran out of room to try one here.

Next we have the small fruited varieties, which we use for things like salads and snacking, but then we also dry a lot of these. Juliet, Principe Borghese and Golden Rave are our favorites for dehydrating. All three of these are even better dried than fresh, in my opinion. If you haven’t ever tried drying tomatoes, you might consider experimenting. We find the smaller ones to be quicker to dry and better suited overall for this use. My wife had a post about the dehydrator last year.

  • Black Cherry(OP) (*)
  • Fox Cherry(OP) (*)
  • Green Zebra
  • Golden Rave
  • Jaune Flammee(OP) (*)
  • Juliet
  • Jenny
  • Princepe Borghese(OP)
  • Sapho
  • Sungold
  • Sweet Baby Girl

Finally we have the paste varieties, which we use for cooking, sauces and freezing whole.

  • Amish Paste(OP) (*)
  • Big Mama
  • Health Kick
  • Opalka(OP)
  • Pompeii
  • San Marzano(OP) (*)
  • Super Marzano (*)
  • Viva Italia

We’re already harvesting some of the small fruited varieties like Sungold, Sweet Baby Girl, Jenny and Juliet. The early slicers (Early Girl, Moreton, Champion 1 & 2, and Jetsetter) won’t be far behind. I’ve been eyeing a couple of the Early Girls. They should be ready for our 4th of July cookout.

Early Girl

Mmm, I can almost taste them now! The Moretons are also starting to turn. This was one I got from Rutgers when I ordered the Ramapo seed last year. I may have grown it years ago, but I can’t remember. It will be interesting to try it, as it seems to be as early as Early Girl and a bit bigger. Early Girl is often our first and last tomato each year though, so it is doubtful it will be dethroned anytime soon.

Moreton

Of course, in the end it’s mainly about the taste. Red, yellow, gold, pink or green, every variety tastes a bit different, and some do better in one year than they do in others. That’s part of the fun of gardening to me – experimenting and trying new things. In fact, I’ve already got a list started of varieties to try in 2011. I really can’t say no to tomatoes!

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