seeing red

i'm drowning in a sea of red over here, people. seriously. i may need an intervention.



even my nikki mclure calendar is mocking me (again).



we've got heirlooms, and canners, and romas and two kinds of cherries.
we have canned whole tomatoes, salsa, ketchup and catsup.



we have dried cherry tomatoes, and made them into sauce, and tomato paste. we have fresh ones every night with dinner, and the vines are still loaded out there.



these are all plants that i started from seed, and planted in that layered, sheet mulched bed i made last fall. my goal was to grow enough of our own tomatoes to can them, rather than buying a box at the farmer's market. next year, i think i will scale it back a bit.

cream of the crop

the term "livin' high on the hog," i believe refers to certain premium cuts of meat, which happen to be located in the higher sections of the animal. as a (mostly) vegetarian, that phrase isn't exactly apropos. but, i will say, that given the current (rather dismal) economic climate of our household (which i won't go into here), damn--do we live well?! the abundance of a garden can make you feel like a queen. in the peak of the summer, a meal that prominently features fresh tomatoes and sweet corn, is about as good as it gets, as far as i'm concerned. that's what we had last night.



i've already told you that our corn is over eight feet tall. well, the ears are getting so fat, that every time it rains, several stalks just topple over. i think this is because 1) the stalks, being so laden with ears of corn, are very heavy, and when they collect extra water in their foliage and silks, it just become too much for the shallow roots to support, and 2) because the corn was planted in mounds (as recommended for the 3 sisters garden) there is a bit of washing-away-of-soil (erosion?) when it rains, making it even more difficult for those roots to keep the stalks upright. in any case, it is quite distressing when it happens, and carl and i have been out there in the mud, searching for any scrap of something tall enough, and sturdy enough to support bundles of corn stalks.



the plants don't seem any worse for the wear having been down, and then back up again. they look healthy and lush, and yesterday, we pulled back some husk, and determined it was time to give it a taste. carl got the water boiling, and i went out to choose the four biggest ones. after a quick shucking, into the water they went.



we served them with a stunning ensalata caprese, featuring a lovely heirloom tomato, and our fresh basil, plus a serving of perfectly sauteed chanterelles (you can't see them, but they are in the bowls that look black in this photo). the corn was sweet and had that wonderful pop! crunch! that i think you can only get from freshly picked. it might be even better in a day or two.

this past week has also been full of pickle making and catsup, and sour kraut to-die-for. cherry tomatoes are great for catsup, because you really have to put them through some sort of food mill or strainer, to get the skins off anyway, so you might as well make sauce or catsup. plus they are sweet, and we have SO MANY of them. it takes a lot of tomatoes to make a little bit of catusp. i think the ratio works out to about one quart of tomatoes = one half pint of condiment. but it is super yummy, and tastes just like...well, catsup. or, ketchup-- whatever you call it. it tastes like what i'm used to when i open a store-bought bottle, only mine doesn't have high fructose corn syrup in it.



and, i am so in love with pickling! i have been making micro-batches (carl calls them boutique) of pickled okra, and french style cornichons (made from baby cucumbers). so far, i haven't made a pickle i didn't like. i canned one full batch, and somehow forgot to put the dill in the jars (!) (though there was dill seed in the spice ball that went into the vinegar). i also worry that they won't be as crisp as the fridge kind. i've been told that putting a grape leaf in each jar, will keep the snap, so i did that.



i'll try them six weeks from now, and let you know. we had a lot of fun with the kids in the banneker youth garden club, harvesting cucumbers from their garden (plus dill, coriander, onion, hot peppers) and making pickles together in their kitchen. i could not believe how excited those kids got about pickles.



most of the fall crops are in the ground, or started in the basement. i've planted carrots, beets, bush beans, cilantro and basil. the brassicas like to be started indoors this time of year, where it is cooler. once the weather cools down a little bit, or they are strong enough to withstand the heat, i can transplant them outside. i'll also plant some lettuce and spinach, but not in these sweltering temperatures.



the warmth has been good for berries. the ground cherries are producing baskets full every day, and we've already started dipping them in chocolate. we also picked the first of the rare, but astonishing, red raspberries, from the two plants that jack gave us this spring (this picture's for you MEP). he was right, they did produce this year! to me, they are like precious gems. the taste of a red raz, like no other food, takes me back to my grandmother's garden. it used to be that you couldn't really find red raspberries in the stores. as a child, i associated them exclusively with my grandmother, and i loved them more than any other fruit. still do.

with the finest ingredients in the world at our finger tips, we really do feel like royalty!

it's a jungle out there

i never realized that gardening involved so much cutting up of old t-shirts. i feel like that is all i have been doing for days now. my tomato-super-structure, crafted from bamboo, twine and various other pieces of junk i scrounged up from the yard, has turned out to be inadequate for this tomato jungle. when i first planted those frail little seedlings, nurtured under the grow lamp in the basement, the structure seemed like overkill. now, dwarfed by the towering green vines, laden with blossoms and green tomatoes, it seems i grossly underestimated.



i learned, through research for my gardening internship, that there are two types of tomato plants, requiring two different staking methods. the determinates do best in cages, the indeterminates need some sort of trellising, and also require some extensive pruning. sadly, i did a piss-poor job of labeling my plants, so i don't know which is which, and in any case, they all get the same sort of trellis/staking method, cuz that's what i had on hand. however, i have been attempting to prune. i have not done a ruthless, dramatic pruning of anything, but i have done some, especially the nipping of the little suckers (that's what they're called--seriously! it's a technical term) between branches. but it is clearly not enough.



i am forever tying up the branches, so they don't snap off from the weight of all those yummy tomatoes, but i have quickly run out of things to tie them to, and i have cut up all the old t-shirts i can find. pantyhose are what everyone recommends, but i don't have any of those (big surprise, there), and t-shirts are almost as soft, and nearly as stretchy. but, the cutting into strips of old t-shirts is time consuming.



this may look like a lot of strips of cloth, but i seriously burn through a pile like that in about 2 minutes. at this point, i think it's safe to say i have given up. i'm just gonna have to let nature take it's course. if a branch is unsupported, and breaks off, so be it.

i have also picked off four GIANT tomato worms, which are as interesting to look at as they are destructive of tomato plants. as a child i had one as a pet. his name was tommy. i took three of the ones i found to show to the kids in the banneker youth garden club, and they went nuts over them. i could have spent the entire lesson on that. they were completely captivated.



in other garden pest news, i made the mistake of looking up squash diseases online. whew! there are an astonishing array of things that can go wrong when one attempts to raise cucurbits of any sort. bacteria, fungi, downy mildew, vine borer, various beetles--the list goes on and on. when i went out to inspect my plants, armed with all that new information, i identified at least four different diseases/pests attacking my little pumpkin patch at the base of the three sisters garden.



a bit overwhelming, to say the least. it is amazing to me that any organic gardener ever manages to harvest a single pumpkin. i scraped off some obvious squash bug eggs, killed a few beetles, tore out an entire plant, which i had determined was diseased, and sprayed the rest with a diluted mixture of miracle II soap. that last bit was basically out of desperation. i have no idea if that will do any good whatsoever, but i knew it wouldn't hurt. i'll keep you posted.



my biggest fear with the pumpkin is that it will never set fruit. i have tons of blossoms, but no fruit. i have never successfully grown anything in this family, so i have serious doubts. however, the cucumber plants do look lovely, and i saw one little baby cuke hanging on the vine yesterday, so, there is hope.