The Gardening 2014 Thread - I just spent 2 hours in a garden center.

[MoochNNoodles]

Winchester
How do you ripen your tomatoes after you pick them? Do you leave the stems on ?

I'd like to know too. I found a gorgeous one just sitting in my garden this morning. Its just got a hint of orange. Its the biggest ive seen this summer but not THAT huge. One of the stems on another plant broke with quite a few unripe ones. Its still looking green. I wonder if i can tape it and prop it up. I dont know how it broke. That one also dropped an unripe tomato. Ive got them in my kitchen window. Its north facing mostly but gets some sun at yhe end of the day.

 

[Winchester]

If we don't pick our tomatoes until they're fully ripe, they will split. Or they'll rot. It happens every time. So Rick and I have decided to pick them when they've got a blush on them. Rick's mom has had luck putting green tomatoes on her counter in the kitchen; they'll ripen. We can't do that with the cats.

We set up a card table in the basement with a good layer of newspaper on the table. We pick all the tomatoes that we think are ready, then lay them out on the card table in one layer, not touching. If they have stems, we keep the stems on. If not, I don't worry about it. Don't wash them until you're ready to use them. Check them every single day to see if they're ripening and to throw out any that might go bad; it's rare, but it does happen, esp if you don't get to check them every day. You may need to turn them over, esp the big ones. Right now, our card table is chock-full of tomatoes; there's no room for even one more Roma.

When they're ripe, I bring them up to the kitchen for a good bath in the sink. The Roma tomatoes I roast and I don't skin them first. (Remove the stems.)  The big tomatoes I will remove the skins (1 minute in boiling water, then throw into cold water and the skins should come right off). I always save the skins to dry in the food dehydrator for tomato powder. And then I cook the large tomatoes before throwing them into the food processor for sauce. The Romas are nice and chunky and add a lot to soups, stews, and sauces. You can run them through the food processor, if you want to.

I've been roasting tomatoes twice a week now, about four cookie sheets, two at a time in the oven. It's a long-night process. But I like the taste of roasted tomatoes more so than cooked ones.

We got the first of the lima beans!!

LimaBeans.jpg

• Winchester
• Sep 1, 2014

Our first picking! I cooked about 1-1/2 cups for dinner last night and froze the rest of them. There are tons more to be picked when they're ready, probably later on this week. Fresh lima beans taste nothing like frozen or canned. OMGoodness, they were just delicious. As Rick and I shelled them, we were eating them, too. I cooked them a bit then sauteed them in a bit of olive oil with shallots and a couple shakes of pepper and some basil. Just a wee bit of smoked salt. 

We took four yellow squash, too, that we're going to give to Rick's mother. Rick refuses to eat any more squash; he says he has had it up to "here" with the stuff. Took a ton of tomatoes. Some of the replanted corn is looking good. The Brussels sprouts are looking nice. I'm thinking of cutting some of the butternut squash....I can lay them on another card table for about 3 weeks to "cure" before using them. (If you cut squashes, you must take some of the stem to the squash; otherwise, that spot is a good place for rot to start.) 

 

[MoochNNoodles]

The big tomato I've left in my window (actually it's on an upside down plastic cup because it's too big for the sill ) is ripening nicely. Do they need the sunlight to ripen? It really is the best spot in my kitchen anyway between the kids and the cats and my organizational abilities.

We ended up tossing the last of our squashes. I just couldn't bring myself to eat any more and it was too late to give them away...

 

[Winchester]

No, they don't need the sunlight; ours are ripening in the basement! 

Rick is feeling the same way about the squashes and the zucchini. 

We picked more lima beans. Rick picked them while I was finishing up salsa, then I went out to the picnic table and we shelled them. Gave them a good blanch and threw them into the freezer. I cannot believe how good fresh lima beans taste! But they're a lot of work for what you get. We did get about 2 quarts yesterday, but subtract the ones that Rick and I were gobbling down. 

I need to go up today and get the rest of the tomatoes as I think we've been hit with the blight. It's a shame. The plants aren't bad yet, but I see some wilt on the branches. And I'm not going to let them keep growing. You know, as much as I hate sprays and such, we're going to have to do some research on fighting some of this stuff. Those tomato plants would have kept going, I think, had it not been for this fungus. We did get a lot of tomatoes again this year and I'm grateful. But still..... Anyway, after I take what tomatoes I can get, I'll pull the plants and let them dry. Then we'll burn them...it's either burn them or trash them and our trash people would have a fit. So burning it is. We can't compost them, not diseased plants.

Brussels sprouts are just about ready, I think. That may be my next thing to work on. If so, I'll just blanch them for now and throw them into freezer bags.

The replanted corn seems to be doing well yet. No ears and I don't know if the coming cool-down will stop it from maturing. Corn likes lots of heat and next week, we're going abnormally cool for our area. 

I am going to cut some butternuts and bring them into the basement for a couple of weeks; I'm going to wait until I'm done with ripening tomatoes first. The butternuts still look fine.

Green peppers are still flowering and I'm still chopping. My gosh, but we've gotten some beautiful peppers this year. 

And that's pretty much it from our garden this year. Rick never did plant the peas out and he never planted those onions. 

Our garden doesn't look picture-perfect, not by a long shot, but it grows food for us.

 

 

[bbdoll22]

The storm last night took out 2 branches of my plum tomatoes. 3 tomatoes had a blush on them the remaining 20 or so are green tomatoes of varying sizes. What a waste.
At least the cherry tomato plants went unscathed.

 

[Winchester]

Did you pick the tomatoes that are blushed? You could have laid them out and they would have finished ripening, As I said in a prior post, my MIL even puts green tomatoes out and they ripen for her. We have tomatoes in the basement ripening.

I went up to the garden and picked the last of the tomatoes. Tore the tomato plants out and put them in a pile to dry a bit. Tore the squash plants out after cutting the squash that was ready to cut. I tore the corn stalks out and put them in a pile, too, to dry. We were going to compost the stalks, but since we have blight on the tomato plants, we're going to burn the entire garden down. The peppers are still flowering and producing, so we'll wait until they're done. We are wary of composting any of it at this point. It's probably overkill, but we're not taking any chances.

It's such a shame about the tomato plants; they were really gorgeous this year, until about a week or so ago when everything started to wilt. Some of the tomatoes had a scabby exterior. I'm pretty sure it's called "late blight". It's making its rounds throughout the area; one of my co-workers said his father just tore out 30 tomato plants because of blight. The blight spores can travel about 4 miles, so it's not an easy infection to control without spraying.

Here are the last of the tomatoes for 2014; I took everything I could get. And that's it. I tore the plants out.

LastOftheTomatoes2014.jpg

• Winchester
• Sep 8, 2014

And the first of the butternut squash. I think they're so pretty! They're not scabbed; it's all dirt. I didn't wash them and won't until I'm ready to use them. Think lots of lovely roasted butternut squash drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with kosher salt. And squash crescent rolls. And squash yeast bread. I could go on and on. I just love butternut squash.

FirstOftheButternuts.jpg

• Winchester
• Sep 8, 2014

Here's some of the salsa (I gave some to my sister, who said it's pretty good stuff!). It's got tomatoes, banana peppers, green peppers, some jalapenos, onions, fresh cilantro from the garden, a wee bit of hot sauce, lime juice, and cider vinegar. You know, Rick said add a little black beans, maybe some corn; it might make a nice base for some soup, maybe with a bit of hot sausage. I'm thinking maybe some bruschetta! (If we really like it, I may forget just how much work it was and make it again next year.)

Salsa2014.jpg

• Winchester
• Sep 8, 2014

 

[bbdoll22]

Sorry to hear about the blight Winchester.
I set all the decent sized tomatoes in a newspaper on my table to try to ripen them. Only 3 have a blush on them.

 

[MoochNNoodles]

Sorry about your tomatoes.  At least it's getting late in the season.  Tomatoes are my favorite garden crop; losing them last year was really sad.  This year hasn't been great but I tried the varieities advertised as good for potting.  I think I can grow bigger/normal ones in the same pots next year.  

 

[bbdoll22]

Funny thing is my tomatoes had a slow start I've only gotten 5 off the plum and maybe 20 off the cherry.

 

[Winchester]

Well, it's been a rainy summer and often, it was coolish; both are not good for tomatoes. That could be why your tomatoes are slow-starters, especially depending where you live in New York. I hope your tomatoes start to ripen up for you.

We're going to try again next year and will ask for help when choosing our plants. And I think we'll probably spray next year, too, as much as I hate to do so. I don't do well with planting in pots; I tend to forget to water. 

It's good that it happened when it did and we didn't lose much. I'd have been heartbroken otherwise. Once the blight attacks, it stays. I read that you shouldn't plant tomatoes in the same spot as the blight hit for several years. The problem is that our garden isn't really all that big, so we don't have a lot of room to rotate stuff. We did figure out another place to plant them next year though. But it's difficult trying to figure out how to rotate crops when the space isn't that big.

 

[MoochNNoodles]

Funny thing is my tomatoes had a slow start I've only gotten 5 off the plum and maybe 20 off the cherry.

My grandfather says the same thing and he is in upstate New York as well.  He said he is basically just staring at things; waiting for them to ripen.  

 
Well, it's been a rainy summer and often, it was coolish; both are not good for tomatoes. That could be why your tomatoes are slow-starters, especially depending where you live in New York. I hope your tomatoes start to ripen up for you.

We're going to try again next year and will ask for help when choosing our plants. And I think we'll probably spray next year, too, as much as I hate to do so. I don't do well with planting in pots; I tend to forget to water. 

It's good that it happened when it did and we didn't lose much. I'd have been heartbroken otherwise. Once the blight attacks, it stays. I read that you shouldn't plant tomatoes in the same spot as the blight hit for several years. The problem is that our garden isn't really all that big, so we don't have a lot of room to rotate stuff. We did figure out another place to plant them next year though. But it's difficult trying to figure out how to rotate crops when the space isn't that big.

I understand about not having room to rotate. Thats what lead me to try planting in pots.  I need to try putting the cucumbers in a different garden section next year as well.  I had figured with the pots; they are right outside my back door so how could I forget to water?  Yeah; I forget.  

 

[bbdoll22]

I have all my tomatoes in patio pots. I'm in hudson valley it's about 60 miles north of NYC.
I am watching and waiting for them to ripen.

 

[Winchester]

The last of our tomatoes are roasting in the oven. I had enough for three large trays, so I'm using the convection setting so that I could get all three trays in the oven at one time. Checking them every 20 minutes or so. I kept one perfectly ripe tomato out and am going to enjoy a LT sandwich (no bacon, just lettuce and tomato) tomorrow night for my supper. And then that's it for the tomatoes. Done. (Thank you, blight. 

 )

The only thing left in the garden at this point are the peppers (still flowering, but I don't think they'll be much longer as we're going into a pretty cool snap, starting Friday with lows in the 40s), the rest of the lima beans and I'm hoping to get them either Friday night or Saturday morning, Brussels sprouts, and the replanted corn. I don't think that corn will do much now....again, it's to get quite chilly for a while. And the rest of the butternuts and I can let them go for a while yet. They've turned color now and I probably could get them, if I need to.

 

[kathyfromcanada]

I just love Bacon and tomato and mayo sandw

ich.

 

[Winchester]

 
I just love Bacon and tomato and mayo sandw

ich.

mmmmm, so do I. But I have no bacon in the house, so it will have to be bacon-less. 

 A couple teaspoons of Miracle Whip combined with a couple teaspoons of light mayo combined with a wee bit of mustard. I may plop some shredded cheddar on top and then slide it under the broiler for a minute or two. I'm hungry now!

 

[MoochNNoodles]

Mmmmm!!  I love a good BLT!  I'd miss it without the lettuce.  My Gram always made those for dinner when it was hot out.  She could make bacon perfectly crispy!

I try not to cook bacon too often; but man is it good!  I do have some in the freezer.  I had a coupon so I picked a couple packages up and stuck them in there.  We like to do "breakfast for dinner" and that's when I'll cook bacon for at home.  I also have a recipe for a grilled turkey sandwich that uses bacon.  Good stuff!

 

[kathyfromcanada]

 
mmmmm, so do I. But I have no bacon in the house, so it will have to be bacon-less. 

 A couple teaspoons of Miracle Whip combined with a couple teaspoons of light mayo combined with a wee bit of mustard. I may plop some shredded cheddar on top and then slide it under the broiler for a minute or two. I'm hungry now!

Geez your making me hungry Pam, time for lunch! 

 

[Winchester]

Rick went up to the garden and came back with some peppers and.................. 

 a yellow squash

. He said there are a couple more flowers on that darn plant, too. It's the squash plant that won't stop producing! I keep thinking I should tear that one out, too, but I don't have the heart. 

I think I'll be adding a bit of chopped squash to our vegetable soup tonight for dinner. (I just hate to throw it out. It's food and it grew for us. Know what I mean?)

 

[MoochNNoodles]

Wow!  I feel bad; but I've been ignoring my pepper plants. They are producing a lot; but my freezer is fuil and I just do not have time to pickle any.  I've had some going bad while I wait to use them.  Next year I will only do 2 banana pepper plants!!  

 

[Winchester]

From this morning.....

MorePeppersSept2014.jpg

• Winchester
• Sep 21, 2014

The peppers gave me enough for a nice quart freezer bag of sliced peppers (for fajitas, hot sausage sandwiches, pizza, and the like) and a little over half of a quart freezer bag of chopped peppers. I found 3 nice tomatoes from a volunteer tomato plant on the other side of the garden. That plant has no blight (yet) so I took the tomatoes and will use them in salads.

LimasSept2014.jpg

• Winchester
• Sep 21, 2014

The limas, once shelled, gave me barely enough for one serving for dinner, but I blanched and froze them anyway. I could use them in succotash.

The replanted corn has tassels now, but I don't think we'll get anything. 

I tore out the broccoli plants; they bolted completely. One of our Brussels sprouts plants has enough to actually do something with; the rest are so tiny that it wouldn't be worthwhile. Nor do I see them doing much at this point.

The peppers still have flowers!!! I'm keeping them.