2023, Food, gardening, Nature, pets

Tomato Time!

45 Comments

My bales are doing quite well this summer.  I’m managing to keep them watered and the added calcium seems to be helping the romas keep their beautiful shape.  We planted watermelon plants on one bale and as expected they are going crazy.  Guinevere is enjoying hiding beneath all the tendrils that have exploded all over the place.

As well as they are doing I didn’t expect to be eating my first cherry tomato on July 3.  I knew that there were a couple starting to turn but was surprised to find THREE ready for picking yesterday afternoon.  The photo above is not the tomatoes I picked.  After a quick squirsch of the hose, they went straight into my mouth, one after the other.  All three were wonderfully sweet and juicy – no way was I waiting to go inside and get the camera. 

I know this is early for tomatoes but whatever goddess of the garden is looking out for me right now, I’m thankful!  Better start pulling out my favorite tomato recipes.

Tell me about your favorite summer produce!

45 thoughts on “Tomato Time!”

  1. Rise and Shine Baboons,

    The bounty has begun. I have a pot of leaf lettuce right outside the porch door, and it is prolific this year. We have had this lettuce with bacon dressing just this week. The kohlrabi is also producing. I have been peeling that, slicing it thinly, and eating that with salt. With that favorite I remember my grandmother and mother who also ate this with great relish. One of my first childhood crimes was lifting a salt shaker from Grandma’s kitchen (a cousin’s suggestion), pulling a kohlrabi, and peeling it with my teeth, then salting it and eating it like an apple. I tried zucchini again this year after getting instructions from another Master Gardener about shooting BT (pesticide) with a syringe right into the borer in the stem. We will see. But right now there is zucchini on there.

    Tomatoes and peppers are not yet ripe,but they are producing a bumper crop. The basil is also producing enough that I made pesto for pasta last week. After I find the post button here, I am spraying myself with bug spray and I will be out in the garden weeding. The weeds got the upper hand during the precious two weeks when I was away most of the time.

    I love it.

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  2. As usual, our garden is a month behind you in the balmy southern Cities due to frost dates and temperatures. Everything is coming along nicely, though. Yesterday in one of our pea trenches I found an 18 inch tall volunteer San Marzano tomato plant that had grown from one of last year’s tomatoes. I recognized it by the leaves and the fact that the peas are growing where last year’s tomatoes had been planted. I pulled it up, as we have 9 San Marzano plants already. I saw a large, still green, Brandywine tomato on one of those plants yesterday. Early September will be busy with canning, I think.

    We plant our peas thickly in trenches with fences made from poultry netting for them to grow up. We got the idea from “The Victory Garden” guy on PBS years ago. The peas are just starting to flower, as are the pole beans.

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  3. Today I will spray the tomatoes, peas, and peonies with fungicide to prevent powdery mildew and blight. I already did the roses and bee balm.

    No cabbage butterflies yet. We use BT as well, but I l call it by its brand name of thuricide. People really wonder when I say I plan to commit thuricide in the cabbage patch.

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  4. I made a batch of pesto a couple of weeks ago and the basil looks like it’s ready to be harvested again! There are three large green Brandywine tomatoes on my only tomato plant. I have harvested kale and Swiss chard. I’m having a problem with lots of aphids this year. I brush them off or spray with a soapy water solution or Safer’s Insecticidal Soap. They just come back. My solitary bell pepper plant is struggling with them but there are three peppers there. My rosemary is very robust and healthy.

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    1. For the aphids, if they are that established, try spraying every couple of days.

      I have 3 tomatoes, just like those of VS, almost ripe. Can’t wait! The basil is ready to cut again, but it rained before I got over there. Basil LOVES this hot muggy, Italian-ish weather.

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  5. One benefit of gardening on the Northern Plains is that the low humidity and semi-arid climate means fewer garden pests. We never have aphids or slugs, for example. We don’t have potato bugs or Japanese beetles, either. On the other hand, we have to water more, and our growing season is a lot shorter.

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    1. And then there are the rattle snakes. When my sister lived south of where you are (in S. Dak) she had to use the hoe to poke around for rattlers.

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      2. Well, the rattlers seem to stay out of the city limits, although I imagine there could be some on the small butte a couple of blocks from our house.

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  7. Soon as the cooler weather arrives, I should make pesto -thanks for reminder, Jacque. Tomatoes are on their way, though I s aw come curled leaves on a couple; the potatoes are looking kinda leggy, taller than usual – could both of those be from the drought? The weeds are doing great…

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  8. Weather update. It is pouring down rain here in Southwest Minneapolis. I’m sorry for anybody who was trying to see a parade right now or go to a festival with food trucks but we really needed the rain. Even if it means shutting all the windows for a while because the wind seems to be blowing from every direction.

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  9. We have had some modest rain in Mankato off and on nothing lately. But the corn in front of me on the Fourth is lush green and past belt high. Grass on unwatered boulevards is quite green. Not sure why.
    Produce: cannot eat tomatoes or peppers or a few other things. Still struggling with digestion issues

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  10. Strawberries are my favorite. The black raspberries just started getting ripe this week. I mowed off a large patch that was just as full of nettles, so I can start mowing that with the lawn mower for a few years. We’ll be picking more berries today.

    Then sweetcorn will be soon, I hope. No garden for us beyond a few pots Kelly has; pesto, basil, and some cherry tomatoes.

    We got 3/4″ last night! Yay us! maybe more tonight; we’ll see.

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  11. The only edibles I get every year is grapes. Last year I had gotten enough to share with friends and make juice for myself. This spring I trimmed branches and the response is amazing  so hope to have much to share again. 

    Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

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  12. I produce no veggies. It seems I can buy pretty much anything regardless of season. I’ve worked at CVG Airport with service to Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and seen delivery of A asparagus to Z zucchini. My veggie palette is not sensitive enough to discern differences fresh or preserved. The biggest difference is the great hearts of those who give me veggies of every sort. My friends here know about The Birds and want updates on what the flock like to eat not me.

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    1. Michigan asparagus is always a treat. We had access to great veggies and melons when we lived in Southern Indiana not far from the Kentucky border.

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  13. I thought you could never have too many tomatoes, I have always loved them so, but last year I managed to feel overwhelmed by the abundance in our own garden. Now, I’d say, I favor whatever is at its peak of the local growing season.

    Last week’s farmers’ market had fresh, absolutely luscious iceberg lettuce, radishes, small zucchini, kale, collard greens and lots of different fresh herbs. There were several different kinds of other lettuces and locally grown, fresh strawberries. They are so much tastier than the ones shipped in from California (or wherever), and such a welcome change from our winter alternatives, plentiful as they are.

    It won’t be long before the abundance of choices will be so overwhelming that it becomes difficult to chose only what two people can reasonably consume in a week. I know, such a First World problem to have, and I’m fully aware that even though I have easy access to this bounty, not everyone does.

    Happy 4th, everyone.

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  14. We had .34 of rain yesterday, and weeding today was much easier than usual. It is cloudy and very cool today, in the low 60’s. Perfect pea weather but very odd for July 4th. We realize we can’t work in the garden for hours anymore, (damn this aging) but we got 2/3 of the garden beds weeded. It is so satisfying to sit on the back deck or front stoep and look at the weed free beds. This weekend we will do the beds we didn’t do today.

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  17. My friend Melissa, who owns and operates a “wedding farm” near Beldenville, WI posted several videos on FB of young apple trees – full of apples – uprooted and toppled by the storm that blew through this afternoon. I can’t imagine how an event like this, mild in terms of overall damage as it is, still present as a major challenge to such young enterprises.

    How did you fare, Ben. Any major damage? I hope not.

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      1. I have no idea, but I sure hope so too.

        They work so incredibly hard, are such great people and seem to soldier on no matter how tough the breaks. But I could hear in her voice just how hard this was to observe and record.

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  18. I have an abundance of cherries on the Nanking cherry bushes. There’s not much you can use them for – they’re very small, and mostly pit. I pop some of them into my mouth and scrape the cherry flesh off with my teeth, and spit out the pit. I don’t make much of a dent on the supply, though – the birds and other critters will get most of them.

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  19. Seems like after three hours of non-stop booms and noise from other sputtering fireworks, things are finally quieting down on our block. Martha has been hiding under the bed, and Bernie refuses to go outside, and I can’t say that I blame him. Peace at last, I hope.

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  20. my daughter was talking about their neighborhood. There are some people who like to shoot off the fireworks until late in the evening, and the neighbors have all conspired to turn on their classical music radios loud at 5 o’clock in the morning the following morning to let the people know that not being able to go to sleep at night, can be countered by being awoken early by loud noise as well

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