Belated Harvest

With everything that has been going on in our lives, E and I have not been paying too much attention to the garden.

But, this year, we were much more professional than in years past, so we have an irrigation system (plus it’s *raining* right now, weird!).

Turns out, that even as your life is spiraling into its own random course, the garden, if properly planted, fertilized and watered, will continue to grow in your absence.

This morning, I finally had time to harvest after about 3 weeks of neglect (this was the haul minus the bag I packed up for E2, and without any okra, radishes, or cucumbers, all of which are also ripe):

Yes, I will be giving away some serious gift tomatoes at work tomorrow…

This awesome harvest is very unfortunately timed, as the heating element in our oven took the liberty of entertaining us with a very spectacular failure yesterday evening. I wish, in hindsight, that we had taken pictures, but at the time, we were watching the arc travel the filament despite the oven being turned off with E at the ready with a fire extinguisher, so the camera was nowhere near the top of our list. Bummer — this would have been a good week to return to the slow-roasted tomatoes… And, of course, while I’d scheduled a weekend to can at the G’s as they recovered from burning man, somehow that didn’t make the cut due to our other obligations (duh!). So, we’re stuck with entirely too many tomatoes. I suspect I’ll find a way to turn this problem into a blessing. Perhaps I’ll have to make and freeze sauce…

Anyways, in case you couldn’t tell from the larger picture, one of the hilarious things about the garden is what happens to small-to-medium sized summer squash when left on the vine entirely too long:

Yes. That is my arm for scale.

So, the moral of the story is that a well-tended garden will just keep growing and producing in September even if you completely neglect it. No matter what else is going on in your life, the garden will grow.

I find this very comforting.

Summer = Tomatoes

For me, Summer is tomatoes. Tomatoes are summer. And that’s pretty much it.

So last week’s harvest made me very happy, and confirmed that it was Summer, my favorite season:

And E making his mother’s slow-roasted tomatoes made me even more jubilant, and reminded me that it was still Summer, still my favorite season (mmm… if only you could slow roast without the oven in the Summer…):

Gazpacho? Yet more proof of the awesomeness of Summer, and why it’s my favorite season:

And Caprese? Is there anything more indicative of Summer? Seriously? Italian anything and tomatoes? That’s just the essence of Summer:

And camping, this weekend? Yeah, that’s Summer. But even moreso is returning to this harvest:

And, from the harvest, I was inspired to make a Summer soup. The only ingredients not from our garden? Salt, olive oil, and a red bell pepper.

Roasted Heirloom Tomato Soup

First, slice tomatoes into 1 cm steaks, and layer in a baking pan. Then, top with sliced peppers from the garden (Pimiento D’espellette and jalapenos) and garlic from the dried harvest. If you are lucky, some random genetic mutation may have happened in your garlic harvest, and you can just use *one* clove (i.e. not a head of cloves, just one). The largest clove you’ve ever seen:

After the garlic, add strips of a red bell pepper and sprinkle with salt and olive oil, and bake for 20 minutes at 350:

Turn and mix the tomatoes, and allow to bake for another 20-30 minutes. Puree in a blender. Serve into bowls and top with minced basil. Enjoy!

Food and Garden Update

The plants are growing like mad — every weekend there’s work to be done to catch up — harvesting, pruning, spraying, weeding, pulling up old plants. Our butternut squash is taking over the fence:

We’ve had two more great harvests since the last one:

(Chrysanthemum greens, a gift plant from Cynthia, are a tasty addition to tomato salads).

(The lame-looking cucumber is just a little dirty on a white spot — he tasted great. The troubled tiny squash, however, yeah, he went straight to the compost.)

And, from these harvests we’ve made many delicious meals — BBQ pizzas are a regular treat (no dishes!), plus tomato salads galore.

Also, C introduced us to the awesomeness that is quark by showing up with lemon quark and garlic quark.

We took the leftovers and made a delicious garlic quark squash risotto:

And here are some sliced Romano Squash to be baked with red onions on top that were marinated in olive oil and herbs:

Eventually, they were joined with baked tomatoes and a mini pizza for each of us topped with harvested goodness:

Have I mentioned how much I love the summer garden?

Tomato Time is Coming!

We aren’t at full production, but we’re definitely seeing ripe fruit on at least half of the varieties. Today’s harvest was impressive:

It inspired me to make an all-tomato lunch. E and I each had the pleasure of tasting and comparing large slices from several beauties:

In clockwise order, that’s White Oxheart, Thessoloniki, Ananas Noir, Kentucky Beefsteak, Brandywine Red Lantis, Green Zebra, and Black Krim. All delicious. E’s favorite for taste was Thessoloniki, then Brandywine Red Lantis, then White Oxheart. I couldn’t decide between White Oxheart, Ananas Noir, or Black Krim for overall taste, but truly, they are all excellent, it just depends on what you want (more/less acidity, more/less gel sacs, seeds, or meat, more/less sugar).

This year, Cynthia introduced me to the awesomeness that is oxheart tomatoes — pointed on the end and shaped more like a bell pepper, often with whispy droopy foliage. Thanks to her glowing reviews, we’re growing several: White Oxheart, Orange Russian 117, Sweet Horizon, and Japanese Black Trifele.

So far, White Oxheart is the only plant that has ripe fruit:

What a pleasure — the fruit production is prolific, and they are slightly sweet with medium acid. The best part, though, is that while they are the size of a beefsteak, they have the consistency of a paste tomato (lots of meat, little seeds). In other words, we look forward to roasting these, slicing them for sandwiches (won’t make the bread soggy!), and eating ’em easily with a knife and fork all summer — if there are too many at the end, they’ll make great fried green tomatoes and sauces.

How Do It Know?

Remember the great garlic planting back in October?

After following the Gourmet Garlic Gardens instructions, every single clove sprouted in November (bonus — check out the sprouts in the far part of the box — those were the baby artichoke plants, back when we thought perhaps we could fit more than one in our raised bed):

From there, each sprout grew to be a stalk of grass-like leaves about 4-5 feet tall, eventually, some sent up scapes and finally, it was harvest time:

Towards the end of their growing season, I commented to E that garlic was somewhat anti-climactic and quite a bit of effort for a fairly easy to obtain return. Last weekend, at the Farmer’s Market they had California Early Garlic Bulbs–one of the varieties we grew–for 50 cents each.

However, the satisfaction I got from pulling each large head out of the ground and the wonder at its reproduction changed my mind.

Just put a clove in the ground. With water, winter, spring, and summer, it’ll clone itself into multiple cloves, each associated with a huge blade of energy producing monocot leaf.

DNA, and the miraculous replication of life is so amazing!