August Tomatoes
Category: Summer
Mid-August
Sowing for Fall Harvest
Today, I harvested a ton of tomatoes. Sadly, many of them had split because of the recent heavy rains. I also started my fall sowing: one row of Golden beets, one row of Chioggia beets and one row of Scarlet Nantes carrots. Towards the end of the month, I will start fall greens.
First Green Zebra Tomatoes!
Zucchini
I turned three zucchini I had recently harvested into a very tasty side dish. I first drew out some water (because one of the zucchini was pretty big) by sprinkling the finger-thick slices with salt and letting them sit for 15 minutes. After blotting them dry, I sauteed them and finished them of in the oven at 450 for 15 minutes. I then added chopped pistachios and chopped fresh parsley and basil from my back porch. Super delicious with fresh baguette.
Zinnias
Today’s Harvest
Nice big harvest today. I keep forgetting to take pictures. I harvested a ton of Italian basil and made basil pesto (really just basil, olive oil and salt; no garlic, cheese or nuts), which I froze in ice cube trays. I like to leave out the garlic, cheese and the nuts to keep it more versatile, as I also use it on fish or roasted vegetables, where I might not always want cheese.
Thai Basil Pesto
Last night, I harvested a bunch of Thai basil from my plot and made this delicious Thai basil pesto. It uses toasted sesame oil and peanuts, and gets a little kick from red pepper flakes. The kids and I had one of our favorite meals last night – crispy pork bowls topped with Thai pesto. I used this recipe for the pork. So good! I made a second batch of Thai pesto but left out the vinegar and lime juice, and froze it for future use.
Hardneck Garlic
This morning, I cleaned my hardneck garlic for storage. I did not grow much garlic this year (only 12 heads, and those heads are huge), but might amp up production for the next year. I saved the two largest heads as seed garlic.
