Harvest Monday, 7/26/20

Tomatoes have come on strong this week. There's 45 tomato plants in my garden with 15 of them being small or cherry types. We'd been talking about drying the garden produce this year, which is why there are so many cherry tomato plants. I told my husband two weeks ago that we needed a game plan worked out because they were going to start ripening en masse.

On Sunday we processed about 40 pounds of tomatoes which are in the drying tent with a dehumidifier as I'm typing this. My husband is a ceramic artist and he uses a similar setup to quick dry newly made clay pieces in preparation for a kiln firing.

We've actually eaten a couple tomatoes the week before, but I've been kind of overwhelmed by the garden to post pictures. It's the weeding. The weeds have been going to seed and I couldn't let that happen, so between torrential rain showers I've been weeding like an insane person.

More tomatoes were picked on Saturday but aren't shown here. The small and cherry tomatoes include Juliet, Sungold, Fat Cherry, Black Cherry, Gardener's Delight, Taxi, and Juanne Flamme. The large tomatoes shown include Green Cherokee which have a yellowish skin color although the interior is very green, Giant Australian, and Brandywine. We've been eating tomatoes everyday this week so not shown are Marianna's Peace, Carbon, Oaxacan, and Goldie. The standout of the large tomatoes was Marianna's Peace, unless I'm confusing it with another tomato, it was delicious with a distinctly salty flavor. And for the cherry's, Juliet is just lovely, nice firm meaty texture with a sweet flavor that reminded me of a good grape tomato.

Also, you can see where I avoided the squash and zucchini beds because of all the rain and then was greeted by massive squashes. Must not put off visiting the squash beds. Once the tomatoes are dried, we're going to dry the squashes as well.

I've had a couple good pickings of snap beans. The first picking, the snap beans were sautéed with strips of carrots in a little olive oil with salt, pepper, and dried herbs till they were caramelized with a good bit of color. Then I added chicken stock and cooked it down until most of the liquid was cooked off.

A picture of the second picking of snap beans, right before cooking. I'm only growing 3 varieties of beans this year, Merveille De Piemonte, Purple King, and La Victoire bush bean.

The second batch of green beans was prepared in a similar manner to the first but I added orange juice at the end, instead of chicken broth. Then finished it with a Pico Fruta spice blend that includes chili pepper and lemon peel.

The tomato bed with Giant Australian, Oaxacan, Carbon, and Brandywine are dying from disease. Most likely fungal because of the very wet weather we've had this year. I'm leery of using tomatoes from diseased plants, so am pulling that bed this week.

I've already cleared the lettuce bed and one of the squash beds. The plan is to plant peas, more bush beans, rutabaga, endive, and chicory in the three beds.

Please join us for Harvest Monday, hosted by Dave at Happy Acres. A place to share what you're harvesting and the fun things you might be doing with your produce because eating goes hand in hand with gardening.

Harvest Monday, 7/2/18

June 25th was the first picking from the bush bean beds. The earliest and most prolific bean so far is Triomphe de Farcy beans, too bad it's the stringiest bean ever. The strings are so tough and difficult to get off they actually make my fingers sore. Thank goodness Landreth's Stringless is making up for it.

Dark Brandywine is the first large tomato I picked. (Berkley Tie-Dye would've been the first ripe but a critter ate half of it.) On the left are three Jaune Flamme tomatoes, they produce large trusses of fruit.

On June 27th I only got half the bush bean bed picked before it threatened to rain again. A mixture of Triomphe de Farcy, Contender, and Tendergreen.

I started picking the tomatoes early just to keep them from splitting too badly with all the rain we'd been getting.

The other half of the bush bean bed got picked on the June 28th. Mostly Landreth's Stringless and Derby.

In the back is a Berkley Tie-Dye tomato and a small Green Zebra.

Out of the 4 cucumber varieties I'm growing, only Salad Slicer and Heike have produced. The other two have yet to make female blooms.

On Sunday, July 1st, I harvested more green beans, cucumbers and tomatoes.

I mad a chicken, onion, and green bean dish yesterday using Aldi's Harissa Simmer Sauce and it was fabulous. Spicy and delicious over a bed of rice with fresh herbs and a dollop of homemade cucumber yogurt sauce. Yum.

A plate of homegrown Mrs. Burn's Lemon basil, Siam Queen basil, Gigante d'Italia parsley, and cucumbers with some store bought cilantro. This was served with the chicken and green bean harissa sauce dish.

We got 8 days in a row of heavy rainfall. The wind was so bad on June 28th it made me worry about a tornado. Lots of tree damage in the neighborhood and power went out for a little bit. But it looks like that stormy weather pattern has finally broken. All this rain means disease is running rampant in the tomato beds, and half the onions were lost. I've decided I'm done growing onions, it's a lot of work starting them so early in February only to have most of them die or not do well because of the amount of water we tend to get.

The bush bean bed will probably be done in another week or two, Gilfeather turnips will be directly sown in that bed. Broccoli and Brussels sprouts will get planted in the early Buhl sweet corn once it's done in few weeks. It'll probably be late before the Morado corn is finished so fava beans/broad beans probably won't be planted until October or November in those beds.

I might try a planting of peas along the fence in the Buhl corn bed. The only reason I've been able to keep up with the weeding this year is because the kiddo is vacationing with the grandparents. They've been going to the beach and out cherry picking, so lots of fun stuff.

Join us for Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres. A place where garden drama unfolds as gardeners share their trials and triumphs, as well as their weekly harvests.

Harvest Monday, 7/18/16

A mixture of Black Cherry, Sun Gold, and Fat Cherry tomatoes were picked on Tuesday.

 There was also a cucumber, zucchini, and handful of green beans picked from the pole beans. 

 On Sunday the first eggplant and Ginkaku melon was picked. 

Golden King of Siberia weighed in at 0.902 pounds and there are also two Black Prince tomatoes in the front.

From bottom left counter clock-wise: Black Prince, Goldie, and an Italian Red Pear.

A few of the tomatoes had split from the heavy rains but luckily they weren't so bad. But the squirrels have definitely gotten a few big ripe tomatoes. I found three still hanging on the vine with bites taken out of the bottoms, three were dropped in the yard where they tried to carry them away, and two were in the ally where they managed to get them over the fence.

It's so unbearably hot and humid here, I can understand why people don't garden in this area.

Please join us at Harvest Monday, kindly hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.

Harvest Monday, 6/27/16

Viola Francese garlic. I planted garlic in styrofoam boxes at the end of November last year and went ahead and harvested them today, a couple of the heads were starting to split open so it was time. They're not large but they seem ok.

Rossa di Sulmona garlic. I also planted a couple of  unnamed varieties but they perished during the winter. The garlics are currently hanging out under the carport out of the sun.

A handful of green beans were harvested from the pole beans. The snap pole beans are infected with rust which is inexorably killing the plants.

Honestly only the Smeralda romano type pole bean is setting pods and it's the bean that's heavily afflicted with rust. That's about 10 different varieties of pole and bush beans that are not setting beans at all. I truly think it's the unbearably hot weather. We grew Cherokee Wax and a bunch of the other bush beans last year and they set lots of beans, but then again last year was much cooler and wetter.

Come join is at Harvest Monday, a place where gardeners share what they've been growing and harvesting in their gardens.