We grew several different varieties of eggplant - the lovely plump black ones, the long, thin Japanese eggplant, and those lumpy purple and white ones across the top. (My husband is the one who orders most of the seeds and does the planting. I just take pictures and cook. Can you tell?)
I love the funny, bumpy purple and white eggplant. They just look so interesting.
We really had no idea if we'd get any peppers this year. Peppers don't always like our yard. Not sure why. We've thought maybe they weren't in sunny enough locations, so we've changed where we put the peppers over the years. Some years they do great, other years they don't, and it doesn't really seem to have anything to do with location. So we've given up trying to be smart about it and we just plant them and cross our fingers.
This year we didn't bother with bell peppers of any kind. We grew some sweet Italian peppers, though, and got a few of them. Mostly, though, we went with the hot peppers, because we'll definitely use them. We ended up with a good assortment of jalapeno, poblano and cayenne peppers, although not all of the cayennes turned red. Just not enough time and not enough warmth. Bill picked the last of them last weekend rather than leave them to duke it out with the colder weather.
Inspired by the peppers...and the tomatoes...I threw this mixture together:
A vast assortment of tomatoes, some poblanos, a jalapeno or two, a cayenne (it's underneath the other stuff) some smashed, peeled garlic, and a good drizzle of olive oil. I roasted all of that in a low oven for a couple of hours and ended up with this:
You can see the cayenne in that picture.
Anyway, I should have put this mixture through a food mill to keep the skins and seeds out, but I didn't. I was too imatient and too lazy (didn't want to have to wash the food mill), so I dumped it into the food processor instead.
The resulting mixture had great texture and a kind of smoky spicy flavor, thanks to the peppers, BUT. It was bitter. BIT TER. And just not as great as I'd hoped. I saved it, though, and maybe tonight I'll play with it some more and see if I can salvage it.
I love the cayenne peppers. We got a lot of them - really long ones this year. I don't know if Bill bought a different variety (he doesn't know, either), but for whatever reason, we've got a gorgeous supply.
Vegetables are beautiful.
Despite the cold, rainy (hey, just like today!) weather we had through just about all of June and well into July, our gardens produced plenty of great food for us. Over the last week or so, we've been picking the last of this and the last of that, which is just as well because we had a frost the other night and whatever's not hardy out there is going to turn black soon.
We were happy and amazed with the number of tomatoes, squash, eggplant and peppers we ended up harvesting, in addition to all the greens - several plantings of pak choi, arugula and lettuces, swiss chard and so on. We had one big head of cabbage - Bill made sauerkraut with that for our Oktoberfest meal. We also had a nice lot of scallions and shallots and garlic. Next year I'd like to plant potatoes. We'll see.
Anyway, when I picked the tomatoes last week, I picked all the red or nearly-red ones and I decided to pick all the green ones, too.
Might as well do something with them, right? I've made fried green tomatoes in the past, but no one in the house really, really likes them, so forget that. I thought I'd pickle some, but Bill has had pickled green tomatoes and wasn't nuts about them (I know, we suddenly sound so picky!) and I didn't think the kids would eat them, either, so I decided not to go there. Instead, I did the same thing I've been doing with my red tomatoes: cut them into chunks, put them in pyrex baking dishes, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and roast in a 300 - 325 degree oven until they were looking shrivelly.
I tasted a couple of the roasted green tomatoes, and they have a tangy, tart fruit flavor very different from the warm, earthy red tomatoes. Kind of like tomatillos. I figured I can make salsas and chili sauces with the green tomatoes, and my usual spaghetti sauces with the red.
Yeah. When I say I picked all the tomatoes, I meant ALL of them. Even tiny little babies like this guy.
June 8th.
Hideous.
I burst out laughing when I came across this one.
Things were clearly getting a bit out of hand.
I love dewdrops or raindrops or sprinkler drops or any sort of water droplets on...things. Plants, pets, people. Spider webs. Something about them just sends me running for the camera. I can't stop myself.
Anyway, here are some images from a recent morning when the droplets pulled me outside.
Oh, and with some of them I played around a bit with some of them, just to see what things would look like if they were a bit...more. In those instances, the original appears first and is followed by my playing-around version.
Tomatoes
Tomato branch
House Fly on Dill
Tomato
Baby Bean
Scallion
Arugula, Bolted, with Flowers
Hydrangea
Clematis
Black Elephant Ear, Leaf and Stalk
More to come, another day.
If you read my main blog regularly, you're probably already familiar with The Lesson of the Carrots, which happened in June.
Since then, Bill has had the kids help out with weeding the gardens on a semi-regular basis. And they do a pretty good job, especially Alex. Alex actually seems to enjoy it, as a matter of fact, and is rather serious about the whole thing.
Which was kind of the plan. The other day he had a friend over and they were looking at the garden, and I heard Alex tell the other kid not to pick anything without asking first. If we accomplish nothing else as parents this summer, that's okay - we've accomplished THIS - we've given Alex the opportunity to develop a sense of ownership of the gardens, and the understanding that with all the hard work that goes into caring for carrots and squash and eggplant and tomatoes, vegetables should not be plucked with abandon.
Anyway, yesterday Bill enlisted Alex and Julia's help in weeding the triangle-shaped garden on the driveway side of the fence. This and the garden on the yard side of the fence are the BEST gardens in terms of the amount of sun they get. We've got most of the tomatoes there, along with eggplant, assorted squash, melons (which aren't doing much besides flower) and small patches of scallions, dill, cilantro, bok choy, and, of course, carrots.
The tomatoes on the driveway side are a jungle, basically. This is how our tomatoes look in August - wild and out of control. There was no way to reach over them or between them to weed on the fence side behind them. Especially not for Bill, who is 6' 2". At least, that's what Alex thought. So he willingly took on the task of getting into the tight spots "So you won't have to, Dad."
Bill came into the house to get me. "Want to see some extreme weeding?" Well of course I did, so I went outside and then scurried back in to get my camera before going back out again.
Here's Alex at work:
Can you see him in there?
There he is. He's easier to locate from this side.
Meanwhile, Julia had done enough weeding (in her opinion) and was occupied elsewhere:
Look at him go.
Look at them. My two hardworking men.
On Saturday we had a break from the endless rain and the sky was just cloudy. Perfect diffused light for taking a few pictures of the baby fruits and vegetables that are coming up....
Here we've got mostly squashes. The tomatoes in between weren't/aren't supposed to stay there, but at this point it looks like they might. I don't know where else we'd put them. Anyway, right in front is zucchini, the next squash is a pattypan, and the next is a dwarf butternut. All three were fabulous producers last year, so we're keeping our fingers crossed for this year. Beyond them, near the cherry tree, are the pumpkins - one is orange, one is that white, ghosty kind. We'll see how they do.
And here's the cherry tree. That's how it looked a few days ago when I took the picture. Now? Not so much red. Betweenthe birds and me, the cherries are mostly gone.
Those are Cascade Hops climbing up the string to the stick above the basketball net. We've got them growing in a half a whiskey barrel in front of the garage on the right hand side. On the left, same deal with Willamette Hops. My husband brews beer, and last year he started growing his own hops. They love to climb, and right now it's a race between Cascade and Willamette to see which one gets to the top of the stick first. Willamette started off strong, but Cascade is out in front now and will probably be the winner.
Sweet 100s.
Blueberries.
Brandywine. I think. I forgot to check when I took the picture.
And finally, teeny, tiny little baby pattypan squashes. Aren't they adorable? We're so proud.
