Harvest Monday - August 19, 2013

Now that all the tomato plants have come to an end, I am harvesting tomatoes from the community garden. I harvested the coeur de boeuf, san marzano, and some cherry tomatoes (baxter bush and supersweet 100). I was harvested my first ichiban eggplant.

From the container garden, I harvested one of the last golden dwarf tomatoes, several okras, and caribbean habenero. The habenero is not as spicy as I thought it would be...I might have to try one of the ghost peppers next year.

The peppers are turning red and needed to be harvested. I couldn't use it all so I decided to freeze the majority of it. My freezer is getting filled with tomatoes and peppers - it is wonderful!

I am linking to Daphne's harvest monday!

Harvest Monday - August 12, 2013

This past week, I got a whole bunch of tomatoes from the community garden that I forgot to take picture of. I did take a snapshot the last harvest of coeur de boeuf from the balcony as well as the dwarf champion and golden dwarf. The coeur de boeuf is interesting - they all have slightly different shapes. I had 5-6 that were big and wrinkly like the pictures I had last week, but the majority of them are smaller and more tear-drop shaped. There were some questions about this tomato. This plant was started from seeds that I saved from the coeur de boeuf that I bought because I thought was so pretty. Unfortunately, this tomato tasted, well, like crap. But I saved the seeds and planted it anyway to see what kind of tomato I would get. I was happily pleased to get tomatoes that looked like the original tomato and more importantly, tasted delicious! Here is the what the cross section of the largest tomato looks like - I peeled the tomato because all my tomatoes have really thick skins.

Coeur de boeuf tomato peeled

Cross section of the coeur de boeuf  - it looks like a mitochondria...

The tomato is really meaty and sweet. The flavor as not as dense as cherokee purple (which is still my favorite) but they are a really beautiful and tasty tomato. I wasn't sure if the store bought tomato was heirloom/open pollinated but both the tomatoes grown on the balcony and in the community garden looks like the original tomato so perhaps they are OP. Who knows. I saved some seeds from the tomatoes I harvested so we'll see how these plants do next year.

Here is the basket of tomatoes I harvested from the balcony last week.

Mixture of coeur de boeuf, dwarf champion and golden dwarf champion

I have also harvested some okra. I have been harvested about 2-4 a week. Since I don't get a lot, I prepare it by blanching lightly and flavoring with a little soy sauce and bonito flake.

Okra - these got a little too big

Simple okra dish

I've harvested my first 4 habenero peppers - these are Caribbean red habenero. I have 2 plants, so I think I will be harvesting many peppers soon.

Caribbean Red Habenero

I am linking to Daphne's Harvest Monday!

Harvest Monday - August 5, 2013

Last week was another week of tomatoes from the community garden. The tomato plants on my balcony are on its last leg...I think. Maybe with the weather getting cooler it will pick up again. But after cutting off all the dead leaves it is looking quite...sad. The tomato plants in the community garden are still going strong, so I think I will still have a couple of tomato harvests to go. Here are some of the tomatoes that I harvested last week.

Homestead tomatoes on the left and purple cherokee tomatoes on the right

Baxter bush cherry, supersweet 100 and one roma tomato

Coeur de Boeuf tomatoes

I am linking to Daphne's harvest Monday!