Sunday, August 17, 2014

Bounty

Slightly over-sunny shot of some of the things coming out of my garden these days: Anaheim peppers, yellow squash, alien spaceship squash (AKA patty pan), bell peppers, lemon cucumbers, and assorted tomatoes. Not pictured: about a zillion other tomatoes, eggplant.

I'm finally getting to the point where I need to start freezing or canning some of the tomatoes. It took a bit, because OH MAN I love tomatoes! I've been cooking a few to go with eggs in the morning, making tomato salads with nothing but tomato, a little sweet onion, salt and olive oil (LOTS of tomato salads), eating them plain, adding to sautéed vegetables at dinner. It's nice to finally have leftovers.

Tomato varieties definitely invited back to the party next year:

  • Sungold cherry tomatoes (in fact, I might need two, because I never seem to have enough--these are incredibly sweet and firm and flavorful!)
  • Cascade tomatoes, because they ripened before all else, have a nice compact bush, and have been crazy productive. Great salad tomatoes, these.

Tomato varieties which *may* come back:

  • Heinz paste tomatoes. They've been really productive, and the tomatoes are nicely meaty (not very seeded or juicy), which should work well for sauce...but I haven't tried yet.
  • Black Prince. These are cool looking, and really tasty...but they've also been very prone to cracking, which makes me sad.

Tomato variety to which I'll bid adieu:

  • Yellow pear. I really wanted to love these, but compared to the Sungolds, they're mushy and bland. The Sungolds are kind of mind-blowing, so it's not really a fair competition, but so it goes.

I need to decide what to do with all those peppers, too! It might be a good time to buy a bunch of tomatillos (or use up some greenish tomatoes) and make me a big pot o' something resembling chili verde.

5 comments:

notagain said...

That's swell! Terrific garden.
Next is the cooking post. can't wait to see that. Now we need to have a potluck type-in.

Elizabeth H. said...

Ooh, I really like that idea, actually!

Anonymous said...

The garden has been a 90 percent success this year. Tomatoes are the stars: we're eating them fresh, making roasted tomato soup (goes great with a grilled cheese sandwich), freezing whole tomatoes and sauce, giving some away to friends, etc. The salad greens have done great and we have the fall crop started. Herbs went crazy. The squash did okay but not as prolific as I hoped. I am a squash fanatic, both summer and winter types. Plenty of bell and sweet banana peppers. All grown from seed.

Two seeds we will order again.

Black Seeded Simpson ELITE leaf lettuce. Much better than the standard Black Seeded Simpson.

Also Wisconsin 55 tomatoes. Good producer, not too big, resists cracking, LOTS of flavor but not too acidic.

I am not formally religious. But when I see the bounty and benefit of a garden that started out as a few packets of tiny, hard, almost weightless seeds, I feel I'm in the presence of a miracle.

Jeff The Bear

Elizabeth H. said...

I really wish I had more squash. I have some--a few zucchinis, that odd looking patty pan, and the yellow, but the plants haven't done as well in containers as I'd hoped. And the delicata is sadder still, though I'll get a few. At least squash is cheap!

I don't think I've seen Wisconsin 55 here, but sounds worth looking out for! I ended up just using tomato starts from the farmers market. The tomato seeds I tried to grow didn't do as well as I hoped, though the squash and lemon cucumbers are fine.

Anonymous said...

We get most of our seeds from Jung Seed Company. I've never heard of the Wisconsin 55 tomatoes offered as plants, only as seeds. They have an enthusiastic following among home gardeners. We intend to plant more of them next season.

Just FYI, The 2015 Old Farmer's Almanac comes out next week. No, we don't plant by phases of the moon but it is always a fun read.

Jeff The Bear