Today’s harvest.
Garden Beauty
Today’s harvest.
Category: Tomatoes
Today’s harvest.
Tomatoes, Tomatoes
My three tomato plants are heavily producing. I put them in late, but now at the end of August they are giving me plenty of delicious fruit. Despite my best efforts, I have too many tomatoes to eat raw (e.g. Caprese salad, Greek salad, fresh tomato/mozzarella/basil pasta sauce, or just plain on bread). So, I slow-roasted about three pounds together with garlic and fresh herbs and will either turn them into pesto or top some bruschetta in the next couple of days.
I quartered the larger Brandywines and halved the Momotaros and put them on a parchment-lined, lightly-oiled baking sheet together with some garlic cloves and fresh rosemary and oregano. Seasoned everything with salt and pepper and drizzled with olive oil. I slow-roasted them in a preheated oven at 325 F for about 2 hours. I let them cool and put them in a mason jar in the refrigerator for use within the next few days.
Monster Cuke
I harvested this monstrous cucumber today. It must have hidden under all the foliage and escaped my view. It weighed in at almost 2 lb. I also harvested tomatoes (3 lb.), a handful of pole beans, Chard and basil. The cucumber total for today was 3 lb. 8 oz. I will quick-pickle the big one. I have found this to be a good way to use cucumbers that have become to big to eat raw.
I also did some fall planting today and sowed golden beets (hoping I am not too late), fall greens (a mix), lettuce, arugula, mache and radishes.
Potatoes
This morning, I spent a couple of hours in the garden cleaning, weeding and harvesting potatoes. This year’s yield was pretty meager and I noticed a good amount of soft and rotten potatoes in the ground. We had a lot of rain in the past couple of weeks and I probably should have harvested them earlier. I am not sure I got all of them, in particular the purples ones, who looked just like clumps of dirt and were hard to spot in the soil.
Overall, I harvested 3 lb. 12 oz. of Banana fingerlings and 1 lb. 8 oz. purple Magic Molly. I had planted two rows of six plants of fingerlings and six plants of Magic Molly. Of the fingerlings, only seven plants total grew and only four of the purple ones. I laid the harvested potatoes to dry for a couple of days and will then gently rub of the dirt and store them for a few days until the time is right for a nice dinner of roasted potatoes.
Overall, I harvested 3 lb. 12 oz. of Banana fingerlings and 1 lb. 8 oz. purple Magic Molly. I had planted two rows of six plants of fingerlings and six plants of Magic Molly. Of the fingerlings, only seven plants total grew and only four of the purple ones. I laid the harvested potatoes to dry for a couple of days and will then gently rub of the dirt and store them for a few days until the time is right for a nice dinner of roasted potatoes.
I also harvested more cucumbers and more tomatoes and my first Kentucky Wonder pole beans. My eggplant is finally bearing fruit. I am very excited!
My plot this morning. A lot of bare space where I harvested the potatoes (left side) and took out the bush beans (right side in front of the pole beans). Time for fall planting!
Volunteering
I signed up to be one of the harvest volunteers at City Natives in Mattapan and today was my first day. We harvested (and weighed and recorded) tomatoes (8 pounds), eggplants, bell peppers, hot peppers, turnips, cabbages (Savoy and Oxheart), kale (Rainbow Lacinato and Red Russian) and 26 (!) pounds of callaloo. All of the produce will be donated to a nearby food pantry. I will be helping out once a week during the months of August and September.
Ping Tung eggplant 
Mixed peppers: Bell peppers, Anaheims, Banana peppers, Islanders, Little lemons, Serrano.
My share 🙂 (The tomatoes are from my garden).
EDIT: A few days later, I made this recipe. Yum!!! Served with rice, green beans with chili sauce and ginger chicken.
Tomatoes
The first heirlooms from the garden are finally here!