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!

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:)

Supersweet?!

I am very sad to report that the zucchini plant has died:( The leaves started dying at a faster pace and while it was still producing baby zucchinis, it was not as good as the earlier harvest. So I decided to pull out the plant. And sure enough, I found 1 little wormy borer in the stem.

Container sans zucchini plant

Fortunately, I started another zucchini plant so I hope to harvest some more in the fall. The supersweet 100 tomatoes are starting to ripen.

first set of supersweet 100 tomatoes

More tomatoes to come

This is the first...as with the early girl tomatoes, the first was not so sweet. I'm hoping subsequent ones will be as sweet as the name implies.

Cute little supersweet 100

The homestead tomatoes are not doing so well. I don't think they are tolerating the heat very well. I have 2 plants on the balcony and 1 up front in a shadier area. The ones on the balcony are not fruiting much at all, while the one in the shade has many more green fruits. I'm tempted to pull 1 plant that is really bushy but only has 1 little green tomato out and grow something else...but I think I'll just wait to see how the plant progresses.

The homestead tomato on the right is not fruiting at all, the left has 1 cluster of fruit

I am happy to report that the ichiban eggplants are going through a second growth spurt and several eggplants are fruiting. Next year, I'm going to grow more of these ichiban as they are just so yummy!

Right now I am in the process of planting some romaine lettuce, chinese broccoli, bok choy and some swiss chard. I just need to get some composted manure to give the soil some much needed nutrients.