Gardening: 2013–2015

[Shelby]

 "Rats in sportcoats"

 

We don't have chipmunks around here.  I'm not sure why.

 

Lots of this going on.  Lots of picking.  A lot of loss of counter space (I'm NOT complaining).  Really good tomato year (so far).

 

 

Okra plants are happy because the weather has gotten extremely hot and humid.

 

 

Discovered this happened to one of my ears of sweet corn.

 

[KennethT]

huitlacoche?

[Shelby]

huitlacoche?

I think so     I asked on the huit. thread.  I'm currently in google land so I can figure out what to do with it.

[Okanagancook]

Be careful with that stuff, Shelby!  Nice looking tomatoes and so many on that plant.

 

I just picked 6 cucumbers and ANOTHER gaggle of zucs.  

Current green beans are just about spent and the new ones are flowering.  Good timing.  

Harvested some beets and am making southern style beets:  roasted then marinated in a ginger, clove, bay leave, cider vinegar sugar syrup.  

More cherry tomatoes so I think another batch of Elaina's sauce is in order.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

A beautiful summer day and another otherwise wonderfully ripe tomato, half eaten on the vine.  However I did pick the most pretty eight inch okra.  I hadn't harvested since yesterday.  Offered the happy dispatch to what seemed like scores of Popillia japonicae.  Satisfying somehow.  But I'm sure they and the okra will all be back tomorrow.

 

And, if I'm not mistaken, I just saw a mosquito fly past my monitor.

 

 

 

[liuzhou]

I've had to chop a couple snakes up with a shovel 

 

Yes, but how did you cook 'em?

[Shelby]

Pretty much the haul I'm getting every morning.  Tomatoes are on most surfaces of the kitchen lol.  I'll be making some spaghetti sauce to freeze today and then by Friday I'll be canning 'maters.  I picked some basil to make more pesto and a few ears of corn to cut and and freeze so that we have a taste of summer when it's snowing.

 

[Smithy]

I spy an eggplant amongst those lovely tomatoes, Shelby. Whatcha got in mind for that beauty?

[Okanagancook]

I harvested all my corn the other day.  Poor crop this year we think because it has been so hot and dry they have just not gotten enough moisture.   Small cobs.  Ad hoc has a recipe for creamed corn....quite involved...didn't have the energy to do all of that but did take his idea of juicing some of the kernels and then I cooked the remaining kernels in that juice with added chicken stock and butter.  Wow.  Turned out very 'corny' and creamy without the use of any cream.  Four pouches in the freezer and we'll have the remaining spoonfuls tonight with our baked chicken and okra.  Hopefully I can remember to take a pic for the dinner thread.

 

Shelby, those tomatoes look nice and firm.  That'll be a lot of work if you are going to skin them before making your sauce. 

 

I recently processed ten of my large Cherokee Purples.  I like to skin them; deseed over a sieve then cut the flesh into large chunks; the seeds are pressed to extract as much juice as possible and then that juice (plus the juice that has come out as I deseed) is reduced to 1/3.  I then put the tomato chunks into the juice for a quick three minute boil.  This way I find the sauce has a very fresh feel to it.  They are frozen and if I want to simmer them more later I can.  

[hummingbirdkiss]

I am just standing under a fully loaded fig tree eating them as fast as I can they are beyond good and every year I am a glutton until they are done .

about a gallon of blackberries a day and lots of tomatoes on the verge and more tomatillos that I have ever had ! . ..it is a battle between me and the deer we had a set of twins in our back yard and the cuteness has really worn off now 

 

I caved and both a small freezer I could not keep up with my harvest and neither could the dehydrator wow this is a good year ..we are now officially on water restriction. I have put myself on it for ages but the city is now ..so I am closing all the beds down as soon as I harvest and not going to do a fall garden this year…I have so many pumpkins and tomatoes I can trade for what I want if I do not have enough of something ..

 

 

my bee hive is not supposed to be harvested until the second year but the bees have filled it up and I can see honey already (I have a top bar hive  and this is the first season ) ..I did not have to hand pollenate a thing this year everything had honey bees and bumble bees I have seen no yellow jackets at all ..knock wood! 

 

ETA none of my corn pollenated  so I take that back not everything was successfully pollenated.. it just grew to a rocketing 20 feet with not a single tassel 

 

my ducks started laying the odd egg and we butchered the two male muscovy  they were getting too ambitious about breeding and thought I was a duck .….god that is amazing meat! I roasted them outside  and  now  I am making duck pho from the bones ..best ducks I have eaten in my life 

Edited July 29, 2015 by hummingbirdkiss (log)

[Shelby]

FIGS OH FIGS.  Hummingbird, eat one for me....the best one of the bunch and savor it.  

[Shelby]

I harvested all my corn the other day.  Poor crop this year we think because it has been so hot and dry they have just not gotten enough moisture.   Small cobs.  Ad hoc has a recipe for creamed corn....quite involved...didn't have the energy to do all of that but did take his idea of juicing some of the kernels and then I cooked the remaining kernels in that juice with added chicken stock and butter.  Wow.  Turned out very 'corny' and creamy without the use of any cream.  Four pouches in the freezer and we'll have the remaining spoonfuls tonight with our baked chicken and okra.  Hopefully I can remember to take a pic for the dinner thread.

 

Shelby, those tomatoes look nice and firm.  That'll be a lot of work if you are going to skin them before making your sauce. 

 

I recently processed ten of my large Cherokee Purples.  I like to skin them; deseed over a sieve then cut the flesh into large chunks; the seeds are pressed to extract as much juice as possible and then that juice (plus the juice that has come out as I deseed) is reduced to 1/3.  I then put the tomato chunks into the juice for a quick three minute boil.  This way I find the sauce has a very fresh feel to it.  They are frozen and if I want to simmer them more later I can.  

I skin them all before canning and making sauce.  I do the quick flash dip in the boiling water method.

 

 

Ohhhhh your corn will be great like that.

[Shelby]

I spy an eggplant amongst those lovely tomatoes, Shelby. Whatcha got in mind for that beauty?

I roasted it over the gas burner on my stove and put it in spag. sauce.  Gives it a nice smokey flavor.  BUT, I swear the next ones I get are gonna be babaganoush.

 

Froze some Silver Queen yesterday, too.

 

Edited July 29, 2015 by Shelby (log)

[Shelby]

So, we've all seen Grumpy Cat.  The other day I saw Grumpy Dog.........

 

 

Now, we have Grumpy Tomato

 

 

 

 

 

His expression never changed....no matter what group of peers I put him with......

[Anna N]

Oh, Shelby! He is just too much.

[ElainaA]

Shelby - You just can't make all your tomatoes happy, no matter how hard you try. I really hope that isn't late blight - it's showing up here and it's disastrous. So far, I've escaped - I only have early blight and septoria, both epidemic here. With these, the plants usually survive. 

 

 

I grew purple peppers for the first time this year. Unlike red, yellow and orange sweet peppers these are purple from the start. The bad news is that when you grill them they turn a very unappetizing grey. I think this is there first and last year for my garden.

 

 

Here is yesterday's harvest - including my entire tomato harvest to date. It's still early here. I usually can tomatoes Labor Day weekend. 

Elaina

Edited July 31, 2015 by ElainaA (log)

[FauxPas]

Shelby, maybe he saw that recent tornado near you and it is an expression of tomato angst.   

[JoNorvelleWalker]

At sunset I went out to pick the okra and tomatoes.  I turned around and saw this...

 

 

 

Once in a blue moon, the moonflower finally bloomed.  It rather shocked me.

 

Here is the little okra plant, with the cucumbers behind (not particularly visible)...

 

 

 

And of course the main okra patch...

 

 

 

[ElainaA]

At sunset I went out to pick the okra and tomatoes.  I turned around and saw this...

 

 

 

Once in a blue moon, the moonflower finally bloomed.  It rather shocked me.

 

 

 

 

That is so beautiful!

Elaina

[Shelby]

SO beautiful, Jo!

 

Your okra plants look different from mine....healthier!

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Here is yesterday's harvest - including my entire tomato harvest to date. It's still early here. I usually can tomatoes Labor Day weekend. 

Elaina

 

Elaina, I should know this by now, but where are you that your tomatoes are coming in so late?  I thought mine were late this year but now I am running out of counter space.

 

I have been quite satisfied with the grafted Rutgers plants from Burpee that I'm growing this year for the first time -- but I must say they were in no hurry!  It didn't help that someone (I suspect the chipmunk) got the first two fruit to ripen.  If I had to choose I think I like Mountain Magic better.  Mountain Magic is relatively early and the flavor is superior.  But the Magic Mountain fruits are tiny compared with Rutgers.  Golf ball sized on a good day.  Rutgers have proved nice slicing tomatoes and much, much better than the local, mealy, store bought.  I brought in a couple truly beautiful ones tonight.  They are not beefsteak size but pretty big.  I'm thinking I can cook up some for sauce.

 

Once I get my new pot later on this week.

[ElainaA]

Elaina, I should know this by now, but where are you that your tomatoes are coming in so late?  I thought mine were late this year but now I am running out of counter space.

 

 

I'm in zone 5A - about 35 miles south of Syracuse, NY, at a fairly high elevation (The local weatherpeople refer to this area as "the southern hills". Southern only if you are in Syracuse.). We often have frost into June so tomatoes never go in before June 1 - and this year I lost almost half of them (and all my peppers) to frost. Right now I have lots of green tomatoes but also still lots of flowers. It'll be another couple of weeks before I can harvest much. We spent yesterday examining a friend's greenhouse - no blight and ripening tomatoes! I think  my husband agrees that it's a good idea. So next year maybe I'll be making sauce now!

My daughter lived in southern New Jersey for several years - I was amazed at the difference in climate in a less than 4 hour drive. 

 

I've never grown any of the Magic group. They are listed as blight resistant but I have heard the flavor isn't too good - it sounds like that is not your experience? I grow Defiant and Legend (also supposedly blight resistant) but I'm always looking for new varieties to try. 

Elaina

[JoNorvelleWalker]

For some reason even with Rutgers, which is an old variety, I've not had trouble with blight this year.  Except for chipmunk blight.

 

Mountain Magic looks and tastes like Campari to me.  (That's Campari the tomato.)  I've seen Mountain magic described as low acid, but to me it tastes pleasantly acidic.

[Shelby]

This year the garden is like it was years ago.  A good producer.  Especially the tomatoes.  My peppers?  Not so much.  Too much rain?  I dunno, but they are not doing well.  I've gotten some nice jalapeños and a few bananas...not one bell.  But, I'm not complaining.  I'll take the tomatoes over peppers any day.  My counters are full.  I've canned 13 quarts of 'maters and 4 quarts of juice so far.  

 

 

 

 

 

It must be perfect tomato growing conditions because we are getting HUGE ones.  From all different plants.  This one is the biggest weighing in at 1.66 lbs.

 

[Toliver]

Shelby,

 

Your tomatoes look wonderful! I imagine they taste great.

My mom decided to forgo planting tomatoes (in containers) this year due to the California drought.   Perhaps she'll have them next year if the El Niño happens like it's supposed to this autumn.

 

edited for the heck of it.

Edited August 3, 2015 by Toliver (log)