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 July 22, 2013

Wow, I can't believe it has been over a month since posting! The balcony garden is doing well, as well as the community garden raised bed garden. I ended up purchasing the fancy texas tomato cage for the raised bed garden - I feel this has probably made a huge difference in the size of the plant. The supersweet 100 plant is like 6 ... maybe even 7 feet tall. And the tomatoes are so much bigger than what I got last year.

The tomatoes I'm growing on the balcony are mostly determinate or dwarf variety that Carol shared with me. I has been pretty amazing. I've been harvest a lot of tomatoes from both locations. It has been just fantastic! Here are some pictures

Minigold tomato..or is it?

This minigold tomato is very curious. After reading about these tomatoes on Carol's blog, I was expecting them to be bright yellow - but it turns out it is bright orange - almost like a sungold. These taste wonderful - but maybe it is some new hybrid variety. I've saved some seeds so it will be interesting to see what kind of fruit it will produce next year!

From Balcony: More minigold tomato and a couple of bush beans before the plant died...

From Balcony: More minigold (so productive!) and dwarf champion and golden dwarf champion tomatoes

From Balcony: Edamame, semi-final minigold harvest, dwarf champion, golden dwarf, cherokee purple

From community garden: Baxter bush cherry, supersweet 100 and cherokee purple

I am sitting here writing while nibbling on the edamame. This is my first time growing it and it tastes SOOOOO good. I love edamame, but these freshly harvested edamame are the sweetest and most delicious ones I've ever had. I'm going to try to grow some more - maybe I can squeeze one more crop before winter? I have to calculate how many days it has taken to get to this point to see if I still have enough time.

I'm linking to Daphne's Harvest Monday! Now that the harvests are coming in very steadily, I'm going to try to document a little bit better.

Harvest Monday - July 23, 2012

I didn't harvest too much last week. The tomatoes in the community garden is starting to brown but there are still a lot of green tomatoes. I'm going to try fertilizing to see if I can keep it alive long enough for the tomatoes to ripen. I did harvest one mortgage lifter - it was cracked a little from all the rain we got last week but it looks nice and plump. The longhorn peppers are turning bright red. They are beautiful and also really spicy. I don't really know what to do with them. My first thought is to dry them and make pepper powder.

Mortgage lifter, supersweet 100, longhorn pepper

The basil is thriving and getting large. I transfered some of the plants so they have more space to grow. I harvested a bowlful to make some pesto. I just love the smell of fresh basil.

I'm linking to the weekly Harvest Monday hosted by Daphne to share my mini-harvest.

Death in the garden...

The heat and humidity is absolutely terrible! I hope those of you experiencing the heat wave are doing OK. Unfortunately, one of the weak tomato seedling could not withstand the heat. Although it probably would not have survived even if we didn't have the heat wave. Before I went to Japan, my plants were transported to my boyfriend's balcony.

Traveling charm city balcony garden

Plants @ temporary home

The young tomatoes looks leggy

He did a great job taking care of all the plants, but his balcony is shaded throughout the day and only gets a little bit of sun in the morning. My balcony, on the other hand, gets full sun all day. The past couple of days the temperature reached over 120F. The plants are probably in shock with this huge change in environment. I did try to acclimate them, but the weakest seedling (supersweet tomato) did not survive:(

Sad looking supersweet 100

The cherokee purple and pink champion is holding on. I planted a good portion of the tomatoes stem hoping it will produce roots to help it along. Both plants are not very bushy so it I may not get any tomatoes but I'm just going to let it grow and keep my fingers crossed.

Cherokee purple hanging on

Pink Champion tomato

To replace my poor supersweet tomato plant, I started some cucumbers (2 varieties, one is Japanese and the other is a Bush Champion). This will be a little experiment since I think it is a little late to start cucumbers.

Dino kale (left), Japanese cucumber and Champion Bush cucumber

Tomato, pepper, summer squash starts

The tomato, summer squash and pepper starts were screaming to be transplanted and fertilized. The ichiban eggplant seeds still did not germinate but I read somewhere that seeds saved from ichiban eggplants don't do well. So maybe it wasn't me. Whatever the reason, I bought a starter plant so I will have eggplants this year.

Supersweet 100, Cherokee purple, Pink Champion, summer squash, Chinese giant pepper starts

The rosemary flowered beautiful, but now the flowers have gone and the plant isn't doing so good. It is turning slightly yellow and it just looks brittle overall. I need to do some research to see if I should cut back some of the branches - perhaps to promote new growth.

Not so happy rosemary

On a completely different note, I have been obsessed with reading and watching videos about urban farming/urban homesteading. I'm really itching to have a backyard. For now I will continue to live vicariously through other people's blogs and videos. I found some great series of videos called "Grow" from Whole Foods youtube channel. I don't know about keeping livestock, but I love the idea of having a lush backyard with whole bunch of vegetables and fruits. I almost went out to get a blueberry plant, but I know, I just don't have space. Boo hoo!

New seedlings

I have new seedlings! Exciting. I started tomatoes, peppers, and summer squash 2 weeks ago. I also tried using the ichiban eggplant seeds that I harvested but I must have done something wrong while collecting the seeds because it is not germinating. I'll just keep waiting to see it just needs more time but I might just have to go buy starter plants. Oh well, I'll try seed saving again this year - this time I'll do a little more research so I have viable seeds. The tomatoes I started are supersweet 100, cherokee purple and pink champions (from Annie). The pepper seeds (Giant Chinese pepper) germinated a week after the tomatoes.

The empty ones are the ichiban seeds that did not germinate

I also started some cilantro (again from Annie - thanks so much!). I read somewhere that cilantro seeds (aka corriander) contain 2 seeds per pod so it should be cracked before sowing. I'm not sure if splitting the seeds helped but it only took about a week to germinate. Right now they are on the windowsill but I'm thinking once they are reasonably grown I'll transfer them to the pots in front on the house.

cilantro seedlings

Some more cilantro

Fall garden update

A quick update of the surviving plants @ charm city garden. I'm already thinking of next year's garden. The last ichiban eggplant. I'm letting it grow so that I can collect the seeds.

Red romaine is growing, one plant is starting to bolt. The lettuce itself is quite bitter but still pretty good.

Red Romaine Lettuce

I have 2 containers of bok choy. These are very good in stir fry. Next to the bok choy, I also have a container of romaine lettuce that I probably started too late because it is not growing very big.

Bok Choy and romaine lettuce (back)

Bok Choy

I have 2 containers of chinese kale...to be honest I don't know how big they are supposed to get. I should probably just harvest them and some point.

Two container of Chinese kale

The chinese pepper plant is getting bushy and still producing fruit.

Super bushy Chinese Giant pepper

Chinese pepper of varying size

The supersweet tomato still has many green tomatoes but I think it is too cold for it to ripen.

Both the jalapeno and thai pepper is starting to yellow but still has many peppers. The pickled peppers is so delicious! I definitely will make more pickled jalapeno with the remaining peppers. I'm not so sure what to do with all the thai peppers...

This plant fell over after the storm, so now is supported

The jalapeno is starting to turn red

Thai red pepper - so many peppers still!

Thai red pepper

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:)