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Category Archives: garden
Tomato Report
I don’t have so many tomatoes that I want to cry, but I’m getting there.
Remember, that was the goal.
The German Lunchbox are small. They’re like Roma shaped cherry tomatoes that are a pinkish color. The Roma are also small. I think I was over-watering because I’ve backed off and they are going gangbusters.
The Early Girl are also on the small side, but perfectly round and pretty.
The one that I grew from a seed and then knocked all the leaves off when I planted is producing big giant tomatoes. I like that one. There’s a gigantic one out there now. I’m going to pick it tomorrow.
I’ve been eating about a half pound a day but I need to make something with them. Probably soup because that transforms a huge amount of tomatoes into a few ziplock bags of soup I can have in the winter.
This is a typical haul. I picked the green one by accident. I try to pick every other day.
The cucumbers are making big leafy vines but producing zippo. The pumpkin patch is sadder than sad. The beets have been doing great. I yanked one of the sunflowers because it was getting in my way and turns out the birds and squirrels missed it because it is loaded with seeds so I brought it into the shop. I need to figure out the best way to de-seed it.
Maybe ehow has a completely worthless article I can consult.
Pumpkin and Puzzle Update
Guess what I got in the mail today?
Another puzzle book.
I finally sorted through my immaculate record keeping system and found a number to call about my subscription. The person who answered the phone was very nice.
She told me that they received my subscription payment and I was fine on that.
She said the puzzles would have been a mail-in offer.
I don’t think I could have done that and forgotten about it.
For a second I thought someone was playing a trick on me but I couldn’t envision how that would come about. Some of my friends doing tequila shots and then saying, “You know what would be hilarious? If we secretly sent Pam a 40-pack of puzzle books.”
After some research she discovered that another order was mistakenly assigned to my account. She sort of laughed and said, “You have a subscription, too.”
I am free to keep the puzzle books I already have, I’m assuming my subscription is canceled and the person who actually ordered them will be getting his soon. Whew!
This is it so far in the pumpkin patch. The yellow one is my usual Cinderella variety and I’m guessing this green one is the Baby Pam. I fretted last year about my pumpkins being so late and they did fine. We’ll see how this year goes.
Did You Hear That Screaming?
This is the plant that I grew from a seed I saved last year and knocked all the leaves off when I planted it.
Not now. It was last night.
I’m setting this to post after I hit the road on Friday.
This is the Early Girl.
I was doing a major watering so my sweetie doesn’t have to worry about it while I’m gone. I was crawling around because tomatoes like to be watered from the bottom and some pink caught my eye.
This is the German Lunchbox. And you know what? I had lunch at the German Deli today. Babe the pig added for perspective.
Then I took a closer look at all my tomatoes. The ripe ones are in the very middle and tough to spot. The same thing happened last year.
Yeah, home grown tomatoes. Stay tuned for me bitching and moaning about how I have too many tomatoes.
Garden Update
I still have plants that haven’t bloomed and I keep finding dahlias I’ve never seen before. I think I say that every year.
Yesterday I noticed that one of my tomatoes (the German lunchbox) was growing so crazy it was pushing its cage over. I propped it up with another cage. We’ll see how that works. I should probably whack back some of the floppy branches on these plants but I’m so greedy I don’t want to.
The cucumbers seem to be major failure. Again. I started about 12 seeds in the house and half sprouted. Then I put them in the ground and half shriveled up. So I started another batch of seeds in the house with similar results. I put them outside last weekend and they are aggressively turning yellow and sad. Next year I’m going to find turbo cucumber seeds and try that.
Future Pumpkins
Whenever I’m running around I always think of a ton of things I want to post about. Then when I’m sitting here I can’t remember. I also have tons of notes but then when I sit here I don’t understand them.
Like this one: “white space”
I have no idea.
Also, I finally posted my photos from the Portland Timbers v. Seattle Sounders game.
You Can’t Have Any Pudding If You Don’t Eat Your Meat
This is the tomato plant that I grew from a seed and knocked all the leaves off when I planted it in the garden. It’s about 4 feet tall and has a half dozen green tomatoes on it.
It is the smallest of my tomato plants. I have two that are as tall as I am with huge branches flopping out the sides of the cage. They are sagging with green tomatoes. The early girl has a few that have gone shiny and yellow-ish. I think I’m going to be eating home grown tomatoes very soon.
I’m convinced that the early settlers stayed alive by eating greens. But you never hear about that. You never find pioneer tested recipes for turnip and beet greens. I don’t even try that hard and I have giant piles of greens that we can’t even begin to keep up with. Especially since I represent about 90% of the greens consumption in my household. The Dining section had an article about all the plant tidbits that most people throw away that you can eat. More garden stuff for the plate.
Last weekend I finally got around to picking some beets to roast. They were soft-ball size with big healthy tops. I saved all the greens plus I yanked up some kale.
The first thing I do with my greens is soak them in water so all the slugs and snails rise to the surface. I know, gross. Better to find them now than later. Then I sauté in olive oil and garlic. Even though the greens shrink when cooked there was a giant bowl which I still haven’t finished. (They taste great with a little ume plum vinegar sprinkled on them.)
The other night I ate about 4 pounds of vegetables for one meal. I didn’t set out to eat that much I just kept finding more stuff in the fridge and thinking, “I want some of this, too.” My digestive system still hasn’t figured out what happened.
White Chocolate – Raspberry Pie
I had two really busy weeks and didn’t have 5 minutes to go out and check up on the yard. When I finally went out there Friday morning it was madness. All kinds of weeds and tall grass. There were flowers tangled everywhere. Some of my garden stuff had bolted. The peas were finished.
I picked about 2 pounds of raspberries and there was at least another pound that was overripe and no good. Raspberries are a part-time job.
But I finally had the time and the berries to do my first invented pie.
Ingredients:
Your favorite 2 crust pie dough.
5 cups raspberries
3/4 to 1 cup sugar
1 T orange zest
1 T lemon zest
2 tsp. lemon juice
8 oz. white chocolate chips (I suspect a dark chocolate would work great, too. I’m going to try that next.)
Combine everything except the white chocolate chips together. Don’t skip the citrus zest, that’s what makes the flavor extraordinary. I was worried that the raspberries would be tart and I used the full cup of sugar. The white chocolate provides plenty of sweetness. Next time I would use less sugar.
I baked the bottom crust for about 10 minutes at 400 degrees and then spread the white chocolate chips in an even layer. Initially I thought I was going to let them melt a bit and try to spread the melted chocolate but I ditched that step.
I kept forgetting that I was documenting my baking process so there aren’t many photos.
Gently scrape your raspberry mix into your pie plate and cover with top crust. This makes a very juicy pie so you’d be wise to set the pie plate on a cookie sheet before putting into oven.
Bake at 400 for 20-25 minutes then reduce heat to 350 and bake another 30-40. If you’re not lazy you might brush a little milk on the top crust before baking to help it brown. I sometimes use foil on the edges of my pie but I didn’t this time and had no problems. Use your judgment.
Those white-bits don’t look especially pretty but the pie is delicious.
Attack of the Peas
If you’re looking at your current pea crop and sad that it isn’t frightening you with its productivity, let me tell you about the seeds I used: Veseys. I can’t remember which one I bought but they all look good. There were so many seeds I split them with co-worker and he’s been harvesting crates of peas, too.
Posted in garden
2 Comments
Berries!
This was yesterday’s pickings. This is about twice what I picked on Friday. Tons more out there. The raspberries like to hide. Every time I looked back at the part I just picked I’d see another handful.
The first post-4th of July summer nice day commute was only 6 minutes short of my all time record of 82 minutes. (11 miles). This is not a record I’m seeking to break.
Posted in doing it wrong, garden
1 Comment
