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:)

Grilled Eggplants...and the winner is...

Ichiban eggplant, hands down. I grilled the eggplants in the oven whole. The fairytale eggplant actually exploded since I forgot to put a slit in the skin. The picture of the fairytale and gretel eggplant blurred so I don't have any to post but compared to the ichiban eggplant the meat is white and slightly dry.  Compared to the ichiban, the gretel and fairytale lacked flavor. The ichiban most closely resembles the flavor and texture of the eggplants I ate growing up, which may explain my preference for them.

I could tell just as I opened the ichiban that it was different based on the color and juiciness. I ate them all with a little soy sauce and wasabi (I prefer ginger but didn't have any). I still have a couple of the fairtale and gretel left over so I am going to try to make some pasta sauce with it.

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!

Eggplants!

Since moving the containers into the shade all three plants are doing much better. The ichiban eggplant flowers stopped dropping and have begun to set fruit. These new fruits are smaller than the earlier eggplants, but I'm happy to see that the flowers are pollinating. I'm having a bit of a problem with spider mites (you can tell see that the leaves are looking a little brown and spotty). I'm using homemade insecticidal soap - hopefully it be OK.

The Gretel eggplant is also doing well.  I'm seeing beautiful white eggplants. Looks great.

The Fairytale eggplant is still not growing laterally but there are a couple of flowers and a handful of beautiful purple-white striped tiny eggplants. I love the color! We'll see how it tastes.

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!

Fairytale Eggplant flowers

The fairytale eggplant are flowering! They are similar in color with the ichiban eggplant flowers but the fairytale flowers come in clusters. It is so very cute! I hope they don't start dropping like the ichiban flowers !

These plants are supposed to get to 16-18inches, so they stay small. Right now, the plant is only 8 inches tall. The eggplant fruit is supposed to be small, but the flowers are blooming very close to the soil. So hopefully when the eggplants start fruiting I can keep them off the soil.

The zucchini continue to strive. In the larger container, the zucchini is draping to the back of the container towards the railing. I can't turn the container around because then it would be difficult to add water to the reservoir. So, I decided to stake it so that plant will grow up.

While working with plant, I noticed that right under the mulch I saw a cluster of white wormy looking thing. I yelped a little bit thinking it was maggots or something, but it turns out it was a cluster of roots growing towards a little chunk of fertilizer that I did not mix into the soil very well. I do not enjoy working with the fertilizer...it smells like fish food. yuck!

Overall, the plant seems to be outgrowing the pot (so weird because the plant in the smaller pot seems to be OK). I added ~1 gallon of fresh potting mix (with fertilizer and a little bit of coffee grounds). Hopefully this give the roots a little room to grow.

Eggplants flowers are falling!!

I'm really enjoying the ichiban eggplant. I love the purple flowers and the leaves are very soft and velvety - unlike the zucchinis that are prickly. The foliage recovered from the under-watering incident however it seems the plant is in stress. I've been noticing that the flowers are dropping off, the stem and all. It seems that there are 3 possible reasons the flowers fall off - lack of pollination, under-watering and heat. I'm not sure if the heat issue is linked with pollination. There is nothing I can do about the heat, but I could definitely water consistently and try hand pollination.

Poor flowers are dropping....

Its so strange that it is not just the flower part that is falling, but it is dropping from the stem. I originally was looking on the plant for ugly looking insects, but I haven't found anything. My course of action will be to ensure proper watering and when the flowers blossom try hand pollinating (and keep checking for eggplant flower predators). The other "story book" eggplants (gretel and fairytale) are doing good...I think. The leaves are getting much bigger (soft and velvety too) but they are not getting tall. And in fact they are starting to flower - this makes me happy but I'm worried that it won't grow vertically. I'll just wait and see what happens here.

Fairy tale Eggplant

Gretel Eggplant

My zucchini plants leaves are turning yellow. I'm not exactly sure why - the fruits are coming along fine. I'm wondering if I need to up the fertilization (since they are producing a lot, maybe the plant needs more food). I was thinking of fertilizing once a month, but I've been reading that containers need more feeding because it consumes a lot of nutrients to grow.