Harvest Monday, Sept 19, 2011

It's hard to believe that gardens around the US are wrapping up for the season. The boys and I are extremely fortunate to live in SoCal, earthquakes and all. Our harvest this week? Basil, Super Sweet 100 tomatoes, Jalapenos and Black Beauty Eggplants.


We have been neglectful in photographing our harvests, but here are the  ones we have.

We had 2 come from the garden the past 2 weeks. One was 13 oz and the other was 1 pound 3 1/2 oz. Not to shabby. And no pictures of tomatoes, jalapenos or basil. Ah well.

We also found some tomato hornworms.....

I will admit, I screamed like a frightened girl when I found this one, and I wasn't much better with the rest (my camera is acting up and I can't download the pictures of the rest). They creep me out when they are this big, they remind me of the aliens from the movie... well.... "Alien"....     I really need to be more diligent about checking the plants.  I glanced at the Yellow Brandywine plant that has toppled over it's 5 foot tall tower.... and I am afraid of what I might find in there.... I look, and we get the little guys.... but some always escape... and I always scream like a girl....

I'll think good gardening thoughts, but I really need to go take a peek at the Brandywine. And I'm nervous....

Pop on over to Daphne's site and see what others are getting from their gardens.

Harvest Monday(s)

 Welcome to Harvest Monday, a lovely idea hosted by Daphne.  Head on over and see what others are growing.

We've been a little hodge-podge on recording our harvests lately.  This past week we were out of town  exploring wonderful San Francisco. One of my absolute favorite places to visit.  The hubs needed to be there all week for work, and the rest of the family decided it was a good time for a little vacation.  But living in a hotel room for a week with two rambunctious boys, no matter how luxurious, is TOUGH!

Last Sunday morning was a flurry of activity as I put away things I had been planning on using during the week.  We had 2 small bell peppers that I julienned and tossed in the fridge.

 Some beans and cukes were made into fridge pickles.

Some nearly ripe cherry tomatoes were picked and left for my friend who would come by to feed the fishies.

2 enormous zucchini were shredded and tossed in the freezer.

And of course we had to pick more stuff... some Cherokee Purples, a Green Zebra, more cherry tomatoes, cukes and some beans.

A week of garden neglect produced some figs (so delicious!), some Roma and yellow wax beans,  a jalapeno, a big cuke.....and...

2 pounds 9 oz of tomatoes.

We also finally had some fruit set on our Yellow Brandywine tomato.  It has been shooting up to the sky, but we have had all blossom drop. And I came home to find 5 little green tomatoes.

And that's all for now, but stay tuned to see what we managed to do in San Francisco last week!  Happy Gardening.

Harvest Monday August 8, 2011

Well, we missed Harvest Monday last week again, but we have been utilizing the garden! And of course I have no recollection of where I recorded the weights.  We had a nice variety of things from the garden.

Scarlett Runner Beans

 Favas were a last minute addition to our al fresco dinner one night, it is so nice to be able to step out the door and pick what I need to get some vegetables for dinner.

Fava Beans - I can't believe they are still going strong.

 I think I did a bad, bad thing.  I enjoyed our stuffed zucchini dinner last month, but the giant zucchini was from my girl friend's garden, so i decided to try my hand at growing a "big boy". We have 2, from 2 plants, but now the plants are pretty sad looking. And we haven't had a single additional zucchini from either plant in a while. Good thing we have 1 more plant!  One came in at 4 pounds 15 oz and the other at 3 pounds 13 oz.

Pickles, Japanese eggplant, Super Sweet 100's, Cherokee Purple tomatoes, and 2 mammoth zucchinis

We also harvested some pickle fixings.  All from the garden. Now I have to try and get a recipe that I like. Trial and error period starts.

Home grown cukes, grape leaves (pilfered from neighbor, but growing on my
side of the fence!), dill, jalapeno, and garlic = YUM.

Finished product.

 And some more yummy yummy goodness.

More Scarlett Runner Beans, SS 100's, cukes, and my first Yellow Pear tomatoes.... and my first FIG of the year!

So visit Daphne's Dandelions to see what people are harvesting!  Happy gardening all!

Harvest Monday 7/18/2011

Harvest Monday, hosted by Daphne's Dandelions, is an opportunity to see what gardeners around the world are growing.

This week we managed to have a lot of green come from the garden. Our main harvests consisted of Fava Beans, zucchini, and our first Super Sweet 100 tomato.  We have used about half of the zucchinis and gave away a fair amount, due to the fact that we had to consume the mammoth Ambassador zucchini that the husband brought home.

Zucchini (duh)

Favas, SS100 tomato, pollinated and unpollinated zucchini



More favas

 I forgot to photograph it, but we are also including 13 1/8 oz of garlic into the harvest this week. I can't wait to use up the store bough garlic and try our home grown ones. YUM!

Happy Gardening all!

Stroll in the yard... erm.... Garden....

One of the first things Gray and I do every morning is to check out the yard/garden. He can usually wait until after breakfast, but some mornings he just wants to be outside.  This morning he decided it was time to pick tomatoes. He alerts me that it's picking time by shouting "ea' ea'" before heading towards whatever has caught his eye at that moment.  It is usually the strawberries or the sorrel. This morning it became apparent he was hungry for tomatoes. Cherokee Purples in fact.

So I went and started groping tomatoes. After giving a lot of them the touch test (and only smooshing 1 too much), we picked 2 pounds 7 3/4 oz of Cherokee Purples and 13 oz of the German Stripes!

We purchased a couple of cucumber seedlings from a local nursery because ours were getting nibbled by the bunny.  They are recovering ok now, so now we are growing 4 kinds of cucumbers... I am excited by this!

Purchased seedling of "Bush Champion"

Look at that cute gerkin!

And we started some Super Sweet 100 seeds this spring, planted the best, gave away one and had one as a back-up. Well, it is 2-3 inches tall and obviously thinks it is a lot bigger than it is, because it started flowering. So we gave her a bigger home and decided we would see how she does.

The yellow pear tomato plants doubled in height in 2 weeks, so they are now 6-7 inches tall. And no flowers. So maybe we get some this year and maybe not.

Our bean bed is finally starting to break ground.  We planted edamame, yellow wax, Roma, and asparagus.
The seeds for the edamame, yellow wax and Roma were planted directly into the bed, and the asparagus were started earlier.

Edamame bean breaking ground. Look how lush the bean pod looks.

The asparagus beans aren't much farther along than the yellow wax or Roma's.

 For fun Ryle was allowed to plant some pumpkins, mammoth sun flowers and watermelon.

Ryle's pumpkin

And yet another bean in the garden.... The volunteer Scarlett Runner already flowering.



That's all the fun stuff going on. The rest is every day stuff. Happy gardening all!

What gives? And something new.

I always wonder why two plants grow so differently.  These two plants were started on the same day and kept in relatively same conditions (watering schedule, size of pots, fertilizer, etc). Yet the Super Sweet 100 plant is 11 inches tall and starting to produce. The Yellow Pear is still 3 inches tall and not a flower in sight.







My SS 100 plant, she even has a teeny tiny baby tomato on her






My teeny tiny Yellow Pear plant

I am pretty excited by the SS 100's first little teeny tiny tomato.  It will be the first tomato that we have produced from seeds we planted. We have done other plants, just never tomatoes. I've always been too impatient and just buy from a nursery

And now for something new.

Every visit my mom makes to California she shows me something new and wonderful at our local Asian market. Last time it was Chinese Okra aka Luffa.  It does seem weird that you can eat a luffa, I mean, you use it to exfoliate, right? You shouldn't be able to eat it. But if you pick it young it is sweet, tender and delicious.  I am hoping that this:

Chinese Okra seedling



 Will produce lots of these:

Store bought Chinese Okra

One of the ways I prepare the okra is peeled (you don't have to, the skin adds a crunchy texture that I like) as  much or as little as you want. Then chop it into bite size pieces.

Inside of the okra

All chopped and ready to be cooked

And stir fry it with some pork or chicken and garlic



Yum! 

I would have taken an after picture, but we were too hungry. The little one likes the okra, the big one doesn't like to try anything new so he never tasted it.

I hope this works!!!  Happy gardening all =)