In the pic above you can see the four new broc plants, and the Brussels sprouts in the foreground. The newly planted peas are on the outside of the little white fence, and there is new cilantro planted on the inside of the left side. The cuke/eggplant/green pepper/bush bean patch is in the top right in the background, more visible in this pic:
Every time I think the cucumbers are played out, they assault us with another batch of cucumber goodness. Last week I said to Mrs. Dynamite, "I think the cukes have pretty much had it." Then, this week, from Wednesday to Saturday, we harvested these:
Clearly, they are still producing rabidly. Every once in a while, we miss one, and don't find it until it's a monster like this one, scaled next to Oscar for size:
Note Oscar's super sad facial expression. Maybe he thought I was going to make him eat the cucumber. Griffey loves all veggies, and Oscar likes many, but not cukes.
I'm still eager to see what comes of the hot pepper plants which I grew from seed - they are monsters, but are just starting to show some flowers - hopefully they'll have time to develop fruit (some additional Brussels sprouts are in front, and you can't even see the dominant sage anymore - it's down between the hot peppers and the basil on the left hand side of the pic:)
My tomatoes have a disease, but they also have lots of tomatoes, which are just starting to ripen up nicely. I'm not sure if it's septoria leaf spot or fusarium wilt - they look similar.
You can see how many of the lower branches are dead and gone, picked off by yours truly. Hopefully it's not blight, but in any case, I'm not ripping out all of my plants, so, suck it, blight. My plants are so tall that they're falling over again - not a great thing, but anyway, I harvested enough tomatoes (and green pepper and basil) to make marinara sauce last night, which we combined with fresh picked eggplants to make into an eggplant parm.
-KD
9 comments:
Great work! Gardens are plenty of effort, but worth it in the end.
KD, I've been a fan of the site for a while now (started off on the financial/poker stuff) and enjoy reading the garden stories. Anyway, I took my first crack at marinara sauce the other night and while I was pleased, I can't help thinking I can do better. Care to share your recipe?
I know peeps can get defensive on their recipes, so if your not interested in posting, no worries.
thanks
anon - i have no secret recipes. happy to share.
i kinda just improvised...
i took 1/2 yellow onion and 4 big cloves of garlic - diced, and sauteed the two in a little bit of olive oil.
then i took 5 medium sized garden fresh tomatoes, and pureed them in the blender, and threw them in the pot with the onions/garlic. I think my onion ratio may have been a little high.
I added salt and pepper to taste - about 1T kosher salt, and about 35 turns of fresh ground pepper from a pepper grinder.
i added about 7 fresh picked basil leaves - 5 diced, two whole.
Then i just simmered it for a while. about 90 minutes... I then diced a fresh picked green pepper, added that, and simmered for another 30 minutes.
i think i may have been cooking it at too low a temp, and maybe not long enough, because it definitely wasn't thick enough - but that's probably just a matter of time...also, note, when you use fresh tomatoes, you need to cook the sauce for a while - they taste very different at first.
let me know how yours goes.
For the marinara you really do need to add some tomato paste to thicken it up. Also, add a bay leaf when you add the tomatoes, let it simmer with the sauce, and remove it just before serving (you cannot eat bay leaves).
Next...use homemade pasta!!
-Mrs. Big Show
just to weigh back in on the tomatoes; i dont think its fusarium, or at least not serious; your entire plants would show more wilt, as it infects the stems...if you dont use fungicides (i dont), probably 90% of plants will show some spots on the lower leaves late in the season and theyre usually not a concern...a lot of hybrid tomatoes are fusarium resistant; look for seed with a VFNT suffix; resistant to verticillium, fusarium, nematodes, and tobacco mosaic...
if you get late blight, sickening greasy brown areas will show up on green tomatoes... last year with cool wet weather was one of the worst for it in decades from connecticut to illinois and points north...this year its been too hot & dry in the east for it to get a foothold...
uh oh - i've had a few tomatoes with spots like you describe... but it's not rampant...
hard to tell...here's some pictures:
http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=late+blight+tomatoes&rlz=1R2ADFA_enUS372&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=4SVtTOqlM82InQfeo-zRCA&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CDQQsAQwAw&biw=1519&bih=689
ive been growing tomatoes almost 40 years and late blight is the only disease i'd call devastating; twice ive lost more than a third of green tomatoes in an otherwise already poor crop, and its almost entirely dependant on the weather...
definitely possible, yet large portions of my crop have definitely not been decimated.
with the heat this summer it shouldnt be bad...with late blight, youre at the mercy of the weather...
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