Harvest Monday - August 29, 2011

Fortunately, the hurricane was not so bad in charm city. The wind was quite strong, but not much damage near us. The balcony garden survived with little damage (just some slanted plants). I think the tomatoes are done though. The leaves are all getting brown and dry. I harvested the last of the tomatoes - many of them had split (probably because of the rain?). I plan to pull the plant this weekend and hopefully transfer chard, bok choy and chinese broccoli. Here is the harvest this past week.

Not so giant, Giant chinese peppers

The last tomato harvest, most likely - some sweet 100s and early girl 50s

Rosemary to dry

Handful of thyme

I am linking to Harvest Monday hosted by Daphne.  Its amazing to see the harvest from other's garden. It makes me excited to expand next year:)

Harvest Monday - August 15, 2011

It rained over the weekend and some of the tomatoes were starting to split so I quickly picked all the ripe tomatoes.

from left: Homestead, early girl 50, supersweet 100 (including the tiny tiny ones on the far right)

I think I will have a couple more harvest of tomatoes but most of the plants look like they are nearing the end. The supersweet 100 definitely do better in full sun - you can clearly see the difference in the size of the tomatoes from the plant growing on the balcony versus the plant up front in the shade. The taste of the tomatoes from the balcony is also better than the ones from the front of the house.
     Here are the first set of not so giant, Giant chinese sweet peppers. They are small but they are beautifully red.

The hot peppers (thai and jalapenos) are still going strong. I'm not sure if the jalapenos will produce more peppers after this harvest. But I'm really happy that I discovered pickled jalapeno. I'm really liking the salad dressing made using the jalapeno-infused vinegar.

I also had a small harvest of eggplants. So I used some tomatoes and thyme from the garden to make some pasta sauce.

Fairy tale, gretel, ichiban eggplants, thyme and early girl 50s

The gretel and fairytale eggplants just get very mushy. I have yet to discover the best way to use them....maybe fried. But unfortunately, I probably will not get any more harvest this year.
     I also made some oven-dried tomatoes using supersweet 100s.

I definitely over-dried them, but the ones that dried just right taste wonderful. I'm going to try to make one more batch.

I'm linking to Daphne's Harvest Monday and Wendy's garden to table challenge! Thank you both for hosting every week:)

Harvest Monday - August 8, 2011

Here is my harvest from last week. First for the red veggies:

There are actually more thai peppers, but I'm not sure what to do with them. I think I will try to dry them. I've been munching on the tomatoes (the larger 2 on top are early girl, and the rest are supersweet 100).

The first 2 homestead tomatoes - I haven't tasted them yet. I still have 3 more ripening on the plant. They just aren't doing well on the balcony. The supersweet 100 are doing well. If I can find time I would like to make oven-dried tomatoes. If not, i will probably try to snack on them or freeze them.

I'm not sure if the eggplants are almost done. I don't see any more flowers, but again, maybe it will have another go. I'll just see how it goes.

I'm linking to Daphne's Harvest Monday - farmers all around the world is harvesting many beautiful fruits and veggies.

Tomatoes all tangled up!

I think the early girl 50 plant is on its last leg. There are still a bunch of green tomatoes - hopefully they will  ripen before the plant dies.

I've been having some problems keeping the tomatoes from falling over. I've been using bamboo sticks to prop them up but as the plants get bigger the weight is too much. I've been adding more bamboo sticks and tying them together every which way.

I have exactly 4 homestead tomatoes growing on one plant and 1 on the other. They are ripening which is great! I don't have much hope for more homstead tomatoes on the balcony. I have one plant in the front of the house that has more fruits so hopefully that will give me some harvest.

Supersweet 100 on left and homestead with 4 tomatoes on right

The thai peppers are getting red. The stinky bugs seem to like this plant. Besides the fact that they are nasty they aren't doing any visible harm to the peppers (which by the way are SUPER HOT). I think they like it because the plant is bushy and they and they can keep out of direct sunlight. I'm getting may red beautiful pepper and I have no idea what to do with them...

The jalapeno plant is amazing. It is still making tiny jalapenoes. Maybe I'll try making poppers as Ben suggested in my previous post. Another thought is to make some base for curry.

The chinese peppers are doing well in the shade. There are about 4-5 peppers in each plant (I have 3 plants). Next year I would like to grow a variety that produces more fruit. But I'm still looking forward to eating these peppers:)

July 18, 2011 - Harvest Monday

The basil was starting to flower and needed trimming to make pesto. The sweet and purple basil pesto tasted pretty much the same - the purple may be a little milder than the sweet basil.

Some of the thai peppers are turning red - and it looks like many more will be turning red too. I'm not sure what I want to do with them, so I will have to do some research.   The jalapenos also looked like they were starting to turning red too. There was definitely some stink bug damage on the jalapenos. I'm thinking of making pickled jalapenos.

I was also able to harvest some eggplants. I'm thinking of grilling them tonight.

The early girl 50 tomatoes are getting really sweet. They make a great side salad!

Linking to Daphne blog for Harvest Monday!

GTTC - eggplant, zucchini and tomato curry

I decided to attempt making a eggplant curry that my mom makes (we call it indonesian curry but I'm not sure if it is really indonesian).  I don't have the exact recipe but I tried to guess based on my memory of watching my mom make the curry. I used all three types of eggplants and supplemented the curry with the zucchini.  I also used the jalapeno and the early girl tomatoes.

The curry tasted very good, not as good as when my mom makes it but good. I think I prefer the dish without zucchini so next time I'm going to just use the eggplants. Out of the three eggplant, the ichiban fit the best for this dish because it had better texture than the gretel and fairtale (I couldn't really tell these two apart) which were more creamy. I'm going to try to grill the gretel and fairytale next time to get a better taste of the eggplants.

Linking to Wendy's blog for the garden to table challenge!

July 4, 2011 - Harvest Monday

Happy July 4th! I hope the weather holds up so I can go see the fireworks! But the sky is looking like it wants to rain.

In the garden I've been getting some more early girls which is very exciting! The summer squash continues to produce, but I have to pick them small since there were no male flowers blooming (I finally saw one today).

The jalapenos now have a little kick to them. I like them sweet, but spicy is delicious too! I see some salsa in the future!

I want to restart some dill since the first batch was starting to get brown. I thought they would get bigger and bushier. Maybe the pot is too small. I am thinking of trying the dill that Granny sent me.

Linking to Daphne's blog for Harvest Monday!

Insalata Caprese

One of my reasons for starting the balcony garden was to make caprese salad. If you have good tomatoes this salad is just absolutely delicious. The first early girl tomato was a little bland but the subsequent picks have been very sweet. The only downside is the skin that is a little on the thick side. But the taste is really good. The combination of tomato, basil and mozzarella is just fantastic!

Linking to Wendy's blog for the GTTC challenge.

This is just SO cool!

I was a little low on vegetables and I really wanted a salad tonight. The only thing I had was romaine lettuce and I needed a little more color but I was too lazy to go to the store. And then I remembered, I HAVE TOMATOES GROWING ON MY BALCONY!!! My second tomato was ripe (maybe could have used an extra day) so I went out and picked the tomato. This tomato was definitely better than the first. The skin was little thick, but it was very sweet. This is just so awesome.

Sweet early girl 50 tomato salad

My stevia is looking very punk rock with big heads of leaves. I'm thinking of cutting off the top to root it and hopefully promote more leaf growth near the bottom of the plant. I'll start with one to make sure that the cuttings will root.

June 27, 2011 Harvest Monday

I got my first tomato...although I think I may have picked it a little too early. Here is an early girl 50 and an ichiban eggplant.

The taste verdict...well...it was a little mediocre. I could taste the a hint of sweetness but it really lacked flavor and the skin was really really thick. The next time I will let it ripen a little longer.
        The eggplants are doing quite well! There are flowers on all three eggplants with fruits starting on the fairy tale. The plant isn't growing very much vertically, but there are quite a bit of flowers so I think I will be harvesting some more eggplants soon.

Fairytale eggplant

I am linking up to Daphne's blog for Harvest Monday! Gardeners around the world have really cool vegetable s and fruits! Go check it out!

turning color...good and bad

The purple basil are turning green. Why? I did a little googling, and it appears that this is not unusual. It seems that the heat can turn purple basil green. I shouldn't be surprised by this by now, but there are so many varieties of purple-leaf basil. I think I have a variety like the African purple basil where the leaves are supposed to turn green as they get bigger. Another site (can't remember which) suggested to pluck off all the green leaves to prevent the rest from turning green....but I don't want to do this and most likely I will just let the plant do what it wants to do. It still looks kind of cool!

On a happier note, one of the early girl 50 tomato is turning red! It happened almost over night. However, I read over on granny's blog that the first tomato is usually not so good...I'm glad I read this because if this first tomato is not so exciting, I would be really worried that the rest of the tomatoes will be bad.  So, we'll see what how it tastes - so exciting!

Harvest Monday - June 13, 2011!!

Please join Daphne and see what people are growing around the world! Here is my contribution from last week. Harvest from Saturday that went into the pasta - ichiban eggplants, jalapeno, zucchini (that didn't pollinate), some peas and basil:

Here is today's harvest...currently transforming into my dinner! The jalapeno plant is full of peppers. They are not spicy so I'm trying to figure out what to do with them. The harvest includes jalapenos, mesclun greens, purple and sweet basil (which are really wanting to flower/bolt), some peas (I think these will be the last since they are just drying up...to bad), zucchini (the biggest one so far) and ichiban eggplant!

I have to post the zucchini on the plant, the biggest from the smaller container! The zucchini plants are now full of female flowers with no male flower in sight...so I suspect I will have many unpollinated zucchini. I'm not sure if there is a way to promote the growth of male flowers. I'll have to google it.

The eggplant flowers continue to drop. Currently there are 2 little eggplants growing, and a few small flower buds but it seems they just want to fall off:(  I think it is the heat since I am flicking them to pollinate.

The early girl is fruiting like mad, but all the fruits are still green. But overall the plant is doing well.

And the Giant Jalapeno is doing well. The Bonnie plant page says this variety is suppose to get to 4 inches...so perhaps I should let them grow a little bit more before I pick them next time.

I am happy with how much the garden is producing! Happy Harvest everyone!