September 2011

Today's Garden Delight

We've roasted a lot of tomatoes over the last couple months. Today's garden delight is masala chana with chicken, made with our own beautiful tomatoes. This selection was paired with one of my fermented concoctions, ginger/lemon sparkle (with a whey base).

21 August 2011

We got rain this week. It has made all the difference.








I hate to confess that I've had a bit of garden fatigue this week. Maybe this is where it's important to have more variety of plants, because it's just a little boring to go out and harvest the same ol' tomatoes again and again and again. It's fun and boring at the same time. I think I wish I had 3-4 more things out there to keep track of.
The every-day water was getting pretty oppressive, especially when we go to the pool every evening. But this week's rain was a godsend.


The greens really respond to rain. We just harvested a batch on Monday, and here they are again a week later.












































But now, I'll need to air some dirty laundry. There's some kind of plague affecting the big heart-shaped tomatoes. For the last few weeks they've been growing with a funny, spotted color, and the bottoms of them rot while they're on the vine.





























Yuck.










The regular round ones continue to get some kind of ring around the top, and a slit down the side.


















Lots of dead leaves, but the tomatoes continue to grow.











The plums have been fine, but the leaves seem to have some kind of problem.














Sad little carrots.









Basil's fine.

























And now, more of these awesome red plants. I can't stop taking pictures of them.
















































Keep the rain comin'.

31 July 2011

It's D R Y here right now, so this is what I'm working with. I feel awful for how much water I've had to use to keep these little plants alive.








I had much less plant death this week though, somehow. The tomatoes are thriving.



















I don't know why I took all these pics of these red plants. I just think they're pretty. I think they're called Colleus Red Ruffles or some such. I got two of them to hang on our building's front awning, and I keep rooting them and making more.







There's a pointy version that has darker accents.








And then a rounder version that has pink and green accents. This particular one is going through some phase I haven't seen before. It has seeded, which happens every couple weeks, but it also has some kind of intense green middle growth going on. It looks sort of cool.

















Here's what the seed thing looks like on the plant.















They say you're supposed to pinch it off, otherwise the plant will be done for.











The plant hadn't had this much green on it before.











And the pink is just vibrant.













But, as always... back to the tomatoes.











Here's a funny pic of my little rogue tomato. I didn't plant this one -- it just sprung up. And I can never get to the store to get any extra supports for these things, so I just took an old dried up vine from my old dried up vine pile and tied it to my neighbor's fruit tree. We'll see how long it holds! (Long enough for me to get to the store and get a cage, I hope.)







The cherries continue to just produce like crazy. I LOVE these things. I'm going to plant a ton of them next year. I think they're called Sweet 100s, but I have to double check.








Beauts.










So speaking of my neighbor's fruit trees, he's got a plum tree on the east side, and the plums seems to be ripe this week.











You can see a plump one on the vine here.









And then this one that a critter must have gotten yesterday.













He's got some kind of peaches on the west side too, but they don't seem ripe yet. He had a third tree too that didn't make it.










Tomato through the greens.












Thank you, happy garden.