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!

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!

Herbs in the garden

The hot weather is doing great things for the rosemary and german thyme. The plants are getting lush and look generally healthier than when they were growing inside. I would really love to learn more recipes using these herbs.

German thyme looking strong

Rosemary smelling wonderful!

The basil and oregano don't like the heat as much. The oregano is turning purple and bolting. I've pinched the flowers but I think I need to move it to a shadier area.

Both the purple and sweet basil leaves are narrowing. The plant itself is very strong (ie: the stems are hard) but these are also starting to bolt.

Purple basil turning green?

Sweet basil are curled up and the leaves are very hard

I will be moving them to a cooler area in front of the house. If you compare the basil plant on the balcony with the basil in the container with the tomato plant out front, you can definitely tell the difference. The leaves on the plant in the cooler spot is larger compared to the ones on the balcony. The balcony basil are considerably stiffer.

The balcony basil used to look like this before the heat wave

My only concern about moving the basil here are slugs. So far the slugs have not found their way up to the balcony but last year when I had the basil on the ground floor outside, they slugs feasted on them. EWWW. I will have to keep a close eye on them! The dill is also doing so much better now that it is out direct sunlight. I love dill and hope to use it more in my cooking.

So now I have a little bit of space on the balcony. I'll have to see if there are herbs that are particularly resistant to heat (any suggestions?). I'm wondering if the jade plants would do well in the heat. They are generally unhappy in the house and I saw some of neighbors with HUGE jade plants in front of their homes. I love these plants but succulent tend to die in my hands...

I have a shopping problem

They had a farmer's market today at the parking lot next to our office. I wanted to see if they had any fruits I can add to my Greek yogurt. Unfortunately it was a rainy day so there wasn't a lot of people there, and I was imagining a farmer's market like the on 32 second street, but it was much much smaller and not much produce. There was a food booth, ice-cream truck, 1 small vegetable booth, and 2 vendors selling plants. One booth was selling tomato, pepper, rosemary, and parsley plants. The second booth was all herbs. I spotted a purple basil plant - I have seen pictures of this plant but had never met one in real life. I really wanted to buy from the other vendor since the women manning the booth looked like they took a lot care growing the plants and cared about them (now that I know how much TLC is required to grow plants from seeds) while the herb booth was manned by 2 teenagers that looked like they didn't want to be there. However, I could not resist the allure of the purple basil and bought that (along with an oregano plant). I need to stop purchasing plants, I'm gonna run out of space.




And the Genovese basil at home is growing nicely - looking more like basil. They smell fantastic!
   




 

Check out these seedlings here...look closely, they are so tiny. These are arugula seedlings I sowed 3 days ago. At least that's what is said on the package.

I'm really liking the way the planters look on the balcony. I've decided to leave the peas, tomato (early girl), and zucchini (in the larger pot) outside overnight. I hope it doesn't get too windy and break the young plants. I need to start thinking of ways to create a wind barrier for the balcony.