August Tomato Update 2014 and Plans for the Winter Garden

I spent most of yesterday morning pulling up the tomatoes along the driveway.  With the heat, wind and drought this year I didn't get the production off these plants that I had hoped for.  The tomatoes at my community plot also had low production.  We had a total of  23 plants plus 4 cherry tomato varieties between the two locations.  Oh, we had plenty to eat, but I was expecting a mother load from all these plants!

For some reason the 5 plants, plus the 4 cherry tomato plants I have growing in the grove are still doing very well, with no signs of blight.  They reached the top of the 8 foot cages in July, began growing over and towards the navel orange tree which grows behind their bed on the east side.  I will leave these in and continue to feed and water them.  We may still be picking from these 5 plants well into December.  Not sure how long the cherry tomatoes will produce with the sun moving more towards the southwest side of the house, and that may be a problem.  I don't think it will shine on them for more then 4-5 hours.  We will just wait and see what kind of weather we get moving towards fall.  Soon, I will need the raised bed space that these tomatoes are using for my winter garden.

I read on a local garden site that many gardeners had the same problem with their tomatoes; probably due to late season blight.

I did harvest enough tomatoes to freeze 6 quarts of whole, oven roasted tomatoes, some sauce and a few jars of salsa, but that was it.  I still have enough green tomatoes on the counter that will continue to ripen from what I picked off the vines yesterday.

Moving on: I am now planning my winter garden and have started planting in my seed starter trays already this morning. The moon is almost full and a perfect time to start more seeds.

I ordered these seeds from Botanical Interests Seeds, I have a link to their site on the right side of my blog.

I still need to order from Kitazawa Seeds,  I like the Asian greens varieties they have. Plus, they are out of CA which is nice, the order will come quickly.

 Do you save all of your old catalogs?  I do, I actually order online but I love to browse through the pages and I also cut out photos of what I am growing each season and paste them in my journal.  Yes, even though I blog I still keep a garden journal.  I keep it with me when I am out in the beds so I can make notes on what I am planting and what is doing well or not.  Also I am getting old and forgetful so this helps me when checking back from year to year.

Breakfast on the Mexican Patio

We had a beautiful morning, temperatures are a little cooler now that the humidity has left us.  I decided to slice up a bunch of my colorful heirloom tomatoes, toast some homemade Kalamata Olive Bread, squeeze a couple of grapefruits from the tree and head out to my little Mexican patio! 

This bread is one that I make often and it turns out each and every time; I usually use part wheat flour as I did in this loaf.  You can also add a bit of oregano or rosemary to the dough right at the end of mixing.

Gorgeous plate of a few of the heirloom tomatoes we grew this year.  Green Zebra, Big White Pink Stripe, Henderson's Ponderosa, and Dr. Wyche's.  Also a few cherry tomatoes tucked in here and there.  I 'buttered' my toast with some of my pesto sauce, added a bit of arugula and pretty much finished off this plate of tomatoes all by myself.  I know, a lot, but I am a tomato addict and the season will be over soon. 

Saint Francis in the Schefflera, watching over all the little ones.

Our bougainvillea is not as lush as it normally is, the drought and or the extended high temperatures are even tough for this drought tolerant plant.

Siesta Time

My plumeria in bloom and getting bigger each year.  I think it is going on 2 plus years now. 

Time to Harvest Some Galangal!

It has taken just about 2 years for my Galangal (Alpinia galanga) plant to grow just under 3 feet, and produce enough rhizomes so that I can cut a piece to use in my cooking.  The rhizome, when sliced is that odd, round, firm piece that you find floating in a true Thai Curry dish. It looks a lot like a chunk of ginger root.  It is also an ingredient in curry paste, there is no substitute for it in a recipe.  

Here it is in flower, I didn't notice a fragrance to the flower but the leaves have a mildly aromatic scent. Galangal is a type of ginger and the flower does look similar to a ginger plant that I am growing.  You cut a piece of the rhizome once it begins to flower or just as it buds.  I wanted to wait for the flower to appear since I had not seen one before.  It is spectacular, although small and does not last long; might be the heat we have here.  In Southeast Asia this plant can be grown in the sun but I didn't want to chance that and have planted it where it receives shade most of the day.  It does get filtered sun from the tree overhead and a bit shines on it very late in the afternoon.  We also don't have the humidity found in its homeland, notice the tips are brown, probably from the lack thereof. 

Here is what it looked like when I bought it on June 3, 2012; the one in the center with only one rhizome shooting up.  Now I am off to find a very special Vegetable Curry Recipe!!

Sunset After the Storm

Storm Ending
Thunder blossoms gorgeously above our heads,
Great, hollow, bell-like flowers,
Rumbling in the wind,
Stretching clappers to strike our ears . . .
Full-lipped flowers
Bitten by the sun
Bleeding rain
Dripping rain like golden honey—
And the sweet earth flying from the thunder.

-Jean Toomer

Cloudy With a Chance of Rain, one hopes

Looking East, enjoying the sound of thunder and a few light sprinkles. The air is cool, damp and smells of sagebrush, it feels wonderful. We have had a couple of nice showers, hope it continues through the day.

Today on my list to do:  roast off some tomatoes and get those in the freezer.  I don't feel much like heating up the house, but at least I can keep the windows and doors open. Yesterday I cooked up a huge batch of random tomatoes and made 4 quarts of juice. 

Zucchini spears soaking in salt water.

 Later on  when I get some time I will post recipes to A Table for Rue, Please  for these Zucchini Pickles and the Panzanella Salad pictured below.  The pickles only take a couple of days in the refrigerator and with the daily harvest you and I probably get it is another way to use them; they taste just like dill pickles but without the wait.

Heirloom Tomato Panzanella Salad

Garden Update 2014

My typical summer breakfast.  Toast with tomatoes, a bit of mayonnaise and Spike seasoning. YUM!

A nice batch of Dill waiting for me to add to a jar of green beans for Pickled Green Beans .

Tomatoes are coming in very slow this year.  I guess with the earlier months of high heat it has set them behind.  I have lost a lot of blossoms too with the heat spells, and tomatoes are much smaller this year.  I am not sure that I will even get enough to preserve this year, which is a real disappointment.

Two weeks ago I had to pull out one of my San Marzano plants at my community plot because it had so many leaves that wilted and died off that I just gave up on it and bought 3 more plants and set them out.  They new plants were big and look good so far; already forming tomatoes.

The plants here at home seem to be doing so much better than the ones at the community plot, but still behind in production.  My Henderson's Ponderosa is one that always gave a high yield and  even those two plants are sparse. The plants in the grove are healthy and huge with lots of tomatoes on most, but having said that I did not see that many on Goliath and that one always had a high yield.  Could be that it is not getting as much sun as the rest since it is on the end of the North side.

Cherry tomato plants are doing well, but production is low on them also.  The brown oval cherry is super productive though so I could make sauce out of those.

  German Queen looked terrible the other day and I just gave up on it and pulled it out.  These are the tomatoes (green ones) that I pulled off the plant before I trashed it.  They are far enough along that they will ripen but that was all the tomatoes that were on the plant!

Summer squash of course is doing very well, we have 4 varieties at the community garden.  Aphids did move in and I lost one Crookneck plant to them but I have seeded more of it and also Ronde de Nice.  I pulled out a couple of those plants too that looked like they were getting mildew. Don't want that taking over.  I also sprayed the rest of the plants with a baking soda solution to keep it off them.  You can make this solution by mixing 1 teaspoon Baking Soda in 1 quart of water.  Spray the leaves in the early morning.

 The smaller tomatoes in the back are Southern Night, these were some of the first ones to ripen and the plant does have larger fruit on it and looks like I will get a good yield from it.  Super tasty tomato. This plant is at my community garden. 

 Sad and small San Marzano tomatoes.  I do have another plant here at the house which has some nice sized fruit on it and the plant is healthy and still reaching for the sky.  If we could just keep the temperatures down a bit I think it will set many more fruits.

 Here is a few of Dr. Wyche from my community garden, so small compared to previous years.

On a brighter note, we have been picking Kentucky Wonder beans every-other-day now.  This is from just one of the small towers that I planted.  I seeded more a few weeks back to keep us picking all summer.

Garden Update 2014, Here Comes the Veggies and Pesto, too

Baby Japanese Eggplant, Scallop Squash, Ronde de Nice zucchini (round) Crookneck Squash, Spring Peas and a few cucumbers.

The photos are of the last three days harvest.  I made the pesto over the weekend.  I have more basil than I know what to do with, this is just half of what is ready at my community garden which has 6 plants.   I still have large leaf basil and purple basil to pick here at the house (2 plants each). The pesto sauce will be so wonderful to have in the winter when I make soups.

 I love the Ronde de Nice squash.  I stuffed these on Friday with a mixture of chopped onions, the inside of squash cut into cubes, feta cheese and basil, of course!

This photo shows two Cherokee Purple tomatoes, just coming in now.

This is just a fraction of the summer squash I have been picking this month.  Funny how we forget that by summers end we will be so tired of baked, steamed, sauteed and stuffed squash but for now I am really enjoying it.  I baked a few muffins and a couple of loaves of bread too.  In the freezer they went as I know I will have plenty more squash to bake more in the next few weeks.

Cocozelle Zucchini

A few cherry tomatoes just coming in, my tomatoes seem to be behind this year; crazy weather is to blame.

Nice batch of Kentucky Wonder beans.

Small leaf Italian Basil

Look at the basil, just leaves here.  It took me most of the morning to pick off all of the leaves.
But look how much I made, this is actually the second batch I made already this year.  3 pints are in the freezer.  The plastic containers in back hold 2 cups.  Small jar is 8 ounces and I think the small plastic one is also 1 cup.

Pulling Onions! June 2 2014

 I pulled up a few onions today, some were quite large.  I still have another patch but a gopher decided to move into this patch and got to a few of the smaller ones so I went ahead and pulled up what he left me.  I can let the smaller ones that I pulled (not in photos) dry and replant in the fall.