winter is here ....

Winter has definitely arrived ... lots of snow on the ground. I will resume posting in the spring.

More tomato sauce - 9/14/10

This weekend I was away visiting James for the weekend, and I came back to SO many ripe tomatoes:


Made another big batch of sauce, and some salsa ...


Canning supplies ready to go ...


Processing the jars ...


Finished!

(Salsa are the orangey ones on the left, and the other redder ones are marinara sauce).

First batch of tomato sauce - 9/5/10

10 lbs of tomatoes for sauce ...


Cooking them down ...


Almost done!

Eggplant parm - 9/1/10

Homemade eggplant parmesan ... made with roasted Ichiban and Gretel eggplants, served with garden tomato&cucumber salad:

Lots of tomatoes

I've been harvesting tomatoes like crazy! Here's the harvest from Sunday:



I made a fresh tomato salsa with part of the harvest ... entirely from the garden with fresh cilantro, jalapenos, and tomatoes. Yum!

Pickles

Made a batch of refrigerator Dill Pickles with vinegar, water, spices, fresh dill, onions, garlic, ... and of course my surplus of cucumbers! Mmmm...

Veggies harvested today

Tomatoes and cucumbers

20 cucumbers harvested to date ...

Fried green (and yellow and red) tomatoes

Today a branch full of green tomatoes broke off one of my tomato plants. I hated to see the baby tomatoes go to waste, so we made fried green tomatoes! None of us had tried them before. We also experimented with frying yellow and red tomatoes.



The fried tomatoes were all DELICIOUS! James and I both liked the green ones best because the red and yellow ones were much tangier / tarter.

To make them, we sliced the tomatoes 1/4 inch thick. We prepared a shallow bowl of flour, and a bowl with an egg and a dash of milk. In a third bowl, we combined equal parts cornmeal and breadcrumbs and seasoned with salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper. The tomato slices were dipped first in the flour, then in the egg mixture, and finally dredged in the cornmeal/breadcrumbs. We deep fried them for a few minutes each until they were brown and crispy, sprinkled with salt, and dried them on paper towels. Mmmm....

Garden Update 8/3

I have so many green tomatoes and none ripe yet!


Here are my Romas:


Romas and Early Girls, side by side:


I'm hopeful that these Yellow Pears will turn yellow soon!


Lots of baby tomatillos too:


I've already harvested ~10 cucumbers so far (in the last week), so they are certainly my most productive crop thus far in the season. Here are a few more on the vines almost ready:


My mum gave me an Ethnic Sweet Frying Pepper plant that she grew from seed out in Boston, and here are a few peppers. They're supposed to turn orange or red when they're ripe.


I also harvested a mutant, 3 pronged carrot this morning:

Very bizzare!

July 25 harvest

Today's harvest:



Looks like roasted veggies are for dinner tomorrow :)

Lots and lots of green tomatoes on the vines, none ripe yet! Cukes are doing great, harvested just 2 so far but there are many more that are almost ready waiting on the vine!

Cukes & tomatoes

Some cucumbers that survived Chuck's hungry rampage through the garden:




Early Girls coming along:


and Yellow Pears just getting started ...


Of course, even my Early Girls didn't outpace my nextdoor neighbor's Big Boys. They have already eaten 15 or 20 beefsteaks! At least I can hope for the first cukes on the block ... haven't heard of anyone else growing any :)

OK ... off to work!

Bell pepper & baby tomatillos

One of my bell peppers is getting pretty big!


and here's a baby tomatillo:

Tomatoes growing

Mmmmm ...

Groundhog day

I have a problem with a groundhog.

I have heard the neighbors with gardens complaining about a groundhog who lives on my block. I'm going to name him Chuck for the sake of this blog. Well, Chuck kept eating my lettuce to the ground as soon as it came up, until eventually (in desparation) I planted something else in its spot. I thought he subsequently found a new mealtime locale. My next door neighbor, who has a large kitchen garden, patrols his garden daily. He has been making frequent groundhog sightings and has updated me a few times on the groundhog's most recent reported "meals". Well, I'm reporting now that Chuck LOVES cucumbers.

Just on Sunday I took pictures of baby cucumbers growing on my seven plants. I probably counted 50 babies. Well, today I counted 5. Every other tiny cucumber had been eaten right off the vine, flower and all! Occasionally Chuck had the audacity to leave about half of the cuke on the vine.



Today I spent my lunch break researching groundhog prevention tactics. Recommended strategies included

- Scare tactics: scarecrows, owl statues, pinwheels, automatic lights, etc.
- Fences: which need to be 1 foot deep and 3 foot tall to prevent digging and jumping
- Smelly stuff: one recommendation was combining 1 tsp hot sauce with 1 gallon water and spraying it all over the plants. Someone else suggested planting mint at the perimeter because groundhogs don't like the smell. I'm certainly not planting mint at the perimeter, it will take over the garden!
- Moving groundhog's home: trapping, blocking his tunnel, etc.

I may try the hot sauce technique to preserve my few remaining cukes and perhaps my sweet peppers in case he might be interested in those too. I did happen upon this article from the Humane Society: Getting Groundhogs Out of Gardens.

Burrows

Groundhogs hibernate from October through February, and their breeding season begins soon after they wake up. If you must evict a groundhog from a burrow under your house, porch, or other building, do so shortly after they've emerged from hibernation or wait until late summer, after the young have been weaned and are living on their own.

These humane harassment techniques will encourage groundhogs to move along:

* Partially dig out the entrances to the burrow (there are usually several) and clear away surrounding vegetation.

* Put urine-soaked kitty litter (the clumping kind works well) inside all burrow entrances. The strong odor often causes them to vacate the premises.

* Place a one-way door at the main entrance to the burrow. This lets the groundhog safely exit but not return.

After the animal has left the burrow, loosely pack the entrances with grass or similar material. If it remains undisturbed for three to five days, you can assume the burrow is unoccupied. Permanently close it by excavating the areas around the entrances and burying square sections of heavy gauge welded wire at least 1 foot deep across all entrances.

Is "humane harrassment technique" an oxymoron?

Garden Progress 7/10

I pulled 9 days' worth of weeds today that accumulated while we were on vacation. The garden exploded in the warm weather while we were away. Here is a "before" picture from June 25, just before we left:



and here it is today on July 10:



Here is the progress of my various plants thus far:

Carrots (Danvers Half Long): Direct-seeded 5/31; sprouted in 2 weeks; greens about 8-10 inches tall now.


Green onions: Harvested 14 so far, all good to eat; planting sets continuously to replace harvested onions.

Radishes: Harvested 16 so far; 10 were good to eat and the others were woody or the roots never bulbed out. Replanting continuously to replace harvested plants.

Beets (Ruby Queen): Soaked seeds overnight and direct-seeded 6/14/10. Not too impressive so far, perhaps 4-6 inches tall.

Eggplant (Gretel): Many leaves, no flowers. Transplanted from nursery 6/13.

Eggplant (Ichiban): 1 flower. Transplanted from nursery 6/20.

Tomatoes (Roma, Early Girl, Yellow Pear, Valley Girl, Rutgers): Transplanted the Early Girl from the nursery 6/10. All the others were grown from seed, started indoors on 4/3, and planted out 6/13. All of the tomato plants have flowers, but only Early Girl has fruit so far. Surprisingly, my Yellow Pear tomato has overtaken the Roma as the biggest plant in the garden.

Pepper (Chili Red): Transplanted from nursery 6/13. Flowers, no fruit.

Pepper (California Wonder): Started from seed indoors 4/3, planted out 6/13. Flowers, no fruit.

Pepper (Bell Boy): Transplanted from nursery 6/10. 2 fruits developing and many flowers (see yesterday's post for a picture).

Pepper (Cayenne): Transplanted from nursery 6/20. 2 long thin fruits growing, plus several flowers.

Tomatillo: Started from seed 4/6, planted out 6/13. I have 2 plants and both are flowering. I need both to survive the summer because they are apparently self-infertile, so you need a minimum of 2 plants. They have cute little yellow and purple flowers all over. Today I saw some bumblebees visiting them!


Cucumber: Direct-seeded in garden 5/31. I have 7 plants in the back of the garden and while they don't take up much space, they try to take over by lassoing the other plants. It's too bad I was away and could not train them up the trellis as well as I'd have liked. Today I carefully unwound their tendrils from neighboring tomatoes and shrubs, and tried to weave the plants gently through the trellis instead. I don't want to do anything too drastic because there are baby cukes everywhere!

Welcome to the jungle!

We were traveling this week and have just returned home after 8 days away. The plants got huge! A plant-sitter came by and watered the garden and it looks like he kept just about everything alive. I'm pretty pleased because it was very hot and sunny the whole time we were gone!

The cucumbers and tomatoes have really grown. The cucumbers each just had a few leaves when we left, and now they each have many leaves, flowers and baby cucumbers. There are also some baby tomatoes and peppers.





Minor weeding and grooming may be necessary tomorrow, but altogether not bad progress during our vacation.

Green onion harvest

I harvested my first round of scallions today:



Yum! That brings my total harvest up to:

16 radishes
9 scallions

Radishes and scallions are all I have for spring vegetables this year, because I started my garden so late and because a hungry groundhog ate all my lettuce ... but I am looking forward to summer harvests: peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, carrots, beets, tomatillos, and cucumbers! The plants that are blooming now are:

Bell Boy pepper (70 days)
Early Girl tomato (52 days)
Yellow Pear tomato (75 days)
Tomatillo (60 days)
Cayenne pepper (73 days)

No flowers yet on these:

Ichiban eggplant (60 days)
Gretel eggplant (55 days)
Rutgers tomato (73 days)
Grape tomato (60 days)
Roma tomato (85 days)
California Wonder pepper (70 days)
Double Feature Hybrid Cucumber (50-57 days)

My Roma tomato plants, in particular, have really gotten huge! I am worried about the one-foot spacing. The leaves of adjacent tomato plants are already overlapping and it's only June. The bed is only 3 feet wide, so hopefully that will help with airflow between the plants. Luckily, the eggplants, peppers, radishes, carrots, cucumbers, and onions have all behaved themselves so far and stayed in their respective squares. I suppose I can always prune the tomatoes a bit if they get too out-of-hand.

My herbs are looking pretty happy in the summer sunshine. Here are a few pictures:

My mint plant, which my mum gave me when I first moved into my apartment, and which comes back every year:


A little pot of basil, with rosemary peeking out from the background:


Dill, which took off as soon as the weather warmed up:


and a little bit of cilantro:

Tomatillos

I just wanted to show a few pictures of my tomatillo plants today. They are forming buds already! Here is one of the plants and a tiny bud:





The bud almost looks like a tiny, papery balloon almost like the husk that grows on the ripe fruits. I heard that you need two tomatillo plants to get any tomatillos, because the plants are self-infertile and can't pollinate other flowers on the same plant. I have exactly two plants, but one has no buds yet. Hopefully it will catch up to its brother soon!