Showing posts with label first tomato of the year. Show all posts
Showing posts with label first tomato of the year. Show all posts
Almost beginning
Ahh, summertime. We're at a pleasant lull here in our garden just before all hell breaks loose. We're getting a steady supply of veggies for meals, but still keeping up and anticipating ripening fruit. I'm trying to take advantage of this lull, before the onslaught! Its amusing to eat all of a given veggie in a day (handful of raspberries, one or two sungold cherry tomatoes, maybe splurging on a baby eggplant) knowing that in a week or two you'll be getting pounds every day and having to form tactical plans for processing them (or unloading them on friends, neighbors, and grateful chickens).
Cucumbers! You can tell by my earlier photo that they have well outgrown their row cover and are overrunning several of my garden beds. I am super pleased with their robustness, as I've had such bad luck with cukes the last few seasons. I am finally learning to research my seed purchases to find the best varieties for my location and gardening style. Either that or we're just having a great season weather-wise :)
I also am fairly on the ball with fall crop this year--I have a flat of greens and brassicas started to transplant as I phase out spring crops. In my garlic patch is also a new planting of beans and beets that are just sprouting. I even have a new patch of cilantro that may be timed properly for salsa season! And here's another round of cukes (am I setting myself up for too much work here?) Now that I know their growth habit, I wisely started these on a trellis.
And lookie here:
While the Siberians from project June tomato are now really kicking into gear, and even the small Romas next to them are getting some color, these are the first full size tomatoes starting to turn red. They are Italian Heirlooms, a big juicy variety. I can't wait!
a notable occasion
First ripe tomato of the year! Well, I've had a handful of cherry tomatoes, and an experimental container plant started way early has yielded a few small fruit here and there to keep us sane while we waited for the main crop. But this is the first full-sized variety, an Italian Heirloom. I know, it's not perfect, and looks more like an amish paste but we can't be critical on such an occasion. I'm just glad the chipmunks didn't take a bite.
Also of note, using Chiot's handy harvest spreadsheet, I added up my produce weights this morning. Last year I didn't seriously keep track until the tomato harvest started coming in. This year, I have kept better records of early crops like greens and cabbage, though I'm not being excessively anal about it all this year. I have a few days with notes like "two zukes" or "gave a big bag of lettuce to the neighbors". Anyways---so far my totals are just over 50 pounds! And the bulk of the harvest is just starting!
Even more interesting is that my list of "crops" is up over 30 items. And that's with a few grouped items like peas, lettuce, and beets, which I have several varieties. It amazes me just how much you can grow in a fairly small space.
Tonight's dinner is a ceremonial BLT, with some sweet corn from the farmers market.
