Grow What You Eat

I can't tell you how many veggies I give away from my garden because I grow stuff I don't eat or because it's ripe and I'm not in the mood to cook whatever it is.  Eggplant, I'm talking about you.

I'll be honest, I don't even like eggplant.  Yet, I grow it nearly every year.  I am seduced by it's beauty.  Those giant deep purple fruits nestled behind the leaves of the plant excite me.  For some reason, looking for the eggplant always reminds me of hunting Easter eggs and finding the special golden ones.  When I pick them, I put them on the kitchen counter in a place where I can see them from the living room and marvel at their beauty, rearranging them when I walk by like I used to do Christmas presents under the tree.  Then reality sets in.  What the hell am I gonna do with these?  I hate eggplant!  While I love sending fresh veggies to work with my husband who gives them away to his veggie loving coworkers, I'm tired of buying fresh, out of season veggies for all the soups I'm making this winter.  So in 2011, I'm on a mission to focus on growing what I actually eat.  Eggplant, I'll miss you.

Planting with a purpose:

• Soup
• Salad
• Stir fry
• Tomatoes (in my garden, these get their own category)

Instead of perusing the seed catalogs, ordering seeds whose description or pictures have seduced me, I'll have my cookbooks by my side, selecting seeds from ingredients used in my favorite recipes.  And instead of stressing about cooking everything at the moment it's ripe, I'll focus on perfecting my freezing skills.  I never grow carrots because I don't like to eat them raw.  Gasp!  Yet I continue to buy them at the grocery for soup recipes, lecturing myself the whole way. These are so easy to grow! They don't even take up much space in the garden!  God knows where these things even came from!  Or what they've been sprayed with!  Bad gardener!

Are you guilty of growing veggies you have no intention of eating, too?  Or not growing ones you do eat for some dumb reason like me?  If so, I'd like to know about it.  

Why I'm Thinking Of Giving Fried Green Tomatoes Another Chance

More Wordless Wednesday

Technorati Tags: tomatoes,wordless wednesday,organic vegetable gardening

Flawless Brandywine Takes The Bronze At Garden Olympics

Until the Garden Olympics, I thought I was just biased in my adoration for this beautiful tomato.  Well now it's an award winner!  Mary Ann over at Idaho Garden hosted the first ever Garden Olympics and my tomato was one of the bronze medallists!  Thanks again, IG!

Here are some FAQ's about my bronze medallist:

1. How do we know you didn't pick the tomato and allow it to ripen in the window, reducing the chance of cracking and other badness?  You don't!  But, hey, I'm an honorable woman so you should just take my word for it.  As soon as I picked this tomato I ran in the house to show it to my boyfriend who was unimpressed, as usual.  
2. What's so special about a flawless tomato?  I buy them all the time at the grocery. Umm have you ever tried to grow tomatoes?  They taste way better than grocery store ones but they tend to be kinda ugly (cracks, holes, animal bites) and it is especially hard to grow pretty heirloom ones because they have not been genetically engineered to resist diseases like the hybrids have. 
3. How did the tomato taste?  No clue.  It's sitting in my kitchen window on display, still.  In fact I may have waited too late to even eat it.  Sad, I know. 
4. How can I grow flawless rock star tomatoes like this?  Get yourself an heirloom Brandywine tomato plant or buy some seeds (next year, it's too late in the season now), plant it, stake it, water it, ignore it, pray.
5. How many tomatoes were in the competition that this tomato won? Just mine, I think.  Hey, don't judge me!  It's still a bronze medallist!  Show some respect!
6. Where'd you get the plant that this tomato came from?  From our local chain grocery Jewel.  They had a few heirloom varieties this year and I bought 3.  The other two were Sausage Tomato and Black Krim.  Neither as pretty as the Brandywine.

I know, I've really exploited this poor tomato and I'm vowing here before you and the e-Gods not to write any more posts about it.   Sorry, I don't have kids so I brag on my tomatoes, instead. 

Technorati Tags: garden olympics,heirloom brandywine tomato,organic vegetable gardening,prizes

Tomato Fest - Now That's My Kinda Fest!

In case you haven't heard, Deb from Dinner Tonight and Margaret from A Way To Garden have been hosting a cross blog food fest every Thursday for the last few weeks and this week is all about Tomatoes.  I am so down with this topic but before I go on I have two complaints for Deb and Margaret. 

1. The Tomato should have been first because it's way more awesome than even, *gasp*, sliced bread.
2. The Tomato deserves an entire week!  How can one possible sing the praises of the glorious tomato in one day? 

I cannot remember when my love affair with the tomato started, but I know I've loved them longer than any boy, pet or favorite pair of shoes.  From the plain old tomato sandwich to the runny-nose inducing Arrabbiatta sauce, the tomato is the most versatile delicious food ever.  They are great served raw or cooked and even though I don't have a prostate, they are good for your prostate!

When I started growing my own tomatoes last year, my tomato love affair morphed to new levels as I tried new varieties and made things that I struggle to justify purchasing ($$) at the grocery.   Here's what I'm doing with my tomatoes these days. 

The Basic Tomato Sammich (see actual tomato sammich here)

Spread mayonnaise liberally on 2 pieces of good quality whole grain bread.  Place thickly sliced tomatoes (choose meaty ones like Brandywine) on bread. Sprinkle salt and pepper on tomatoes.  Enjoy sandwich with plenty of napkins to wipe the tomato juice from your chin.  Mom, I still haven't forgiven you for growing me up with salad dressing instead of mayo.  It is because of you that I missed out on 30 years of tomato-sandwich-goodness.  Shame on you!

Homemade Salsa

Place whole ripe tomatoes and whole ripe jalapenos on heated barbecue grill until skins of tomatoes break away from the flesh.  Peal skin from tomatoes and remove core, then throw them in the blender and pulse to chop.  Pour blended tomatoes in bowl then add one coarsely chopped tomato (with skin), thinly chopped jalapenos (be sure to remove the seeds or you'll catch on fire), the juice from 1/4 of a fresh lemon, salt and pepper, a couple tablespoons of white vinegar and whatever fresh herbs you like (try basil or oregano or cilantro).  Chill the salsa for a couple of hours before serving so that the flavors marry.  This recipe came from a Mexican girl I work with who makes the best salsa ever.  In the words of my future father-in-law "this is perfect salsa! Not too hot, it's just right." 

Sundried Tomatoes

Cut ends off of paste tomatoes like Roma, San Marzano or Heirloom Sausage tomatoes (I grew sausage for the first time this year).  Cut tomatoes in half long-ways.  Place on food dehydrator far enough apart that the tomatoes are not touching.  Dry until leathery.  Place in jar and fill with olive oil.  I adore sundried tomatoes on homemade pizza but rarely buy them because they are so expensive.  I plan to dry enough to last the entire year so goodbye expensive store bought sundried tomatoes!

Give Away Tomatoes

One of my favorite things to do with my tomatoes is give them away to people who love tomatoes but don't grow them.  I send small sealed bags of cherry and grape tomatoes with my guy to work where he gives them to his favorite tomato loving coworkers. The best part is writing "organic cherry/grape tomatoes" on the package. 

I could go on and on about the great things you can do with the magical tomato but in the interest of time I'll stop here and send you over to Dinner Tonight for more tomato-awesomeness.  I'm off to dehydrate my next batch of tomatoes before work!

What's your favorite thing to do with tomatoes?

Technorati Tags: homegrown tomatoes,sundried tomatoes,tomato sandwich,homemade salsa,organic vegetable gardening

A Colorful Harvest

This is the most colorful harvest I've had yet.  It's red onions, lemon cucumber, tomatoes and bush beans. 

I love the heirloom lemon cucumber but I wish they were either way bigger or produced way more. 

They are also like porcupines with little prickly things on them.  I'll definitely be growing them again!

del.icio.us Tags: purple onions,lemon cucumber,tomatoes,bush beans,organic vegetable gardening,heirloom vegetable gardening

2008's First Tomato: Heirloom Sausage

Here is today's harvest which includes the first non-cherry type of tomato harvested for this season.  It's the Heirloom Sausage Tomato.  I'd never heard of this variety but I just couldn't pass it up, especially since I don't eat sausage.  Get the irony?

I had these Sausage Tomatoes on a salad for dinner and they are not nearly as interesting tasting as the name is.  I doubt I would be able to tell the difference between this and a regular hybrid Roma. 

I'm still planning to buy a dehydrator and try these dehydrated. Maybe they'll make better sun-dried tomatoes.

Have you harvested your first tomato?  What kind was it?

del.icio.us Tags: heirloom tomatoes,sausage tomato,first tomato harvest,sun-dried tomatoes,organic vegetable gardening

Black Krim Tomato

This is one of the tomatoes on my Heirloom Black Krim.  I rushed out and bought this plant from the grocery store on the advice of Margaret after all my tomato seedlings perished in the grow rack crash of 2008.  Damned Chicago wind!

So far I've not found the Heirloom tomatoes any more difficult to grow than the hybrids I've grown.  So far.  These tomatoes are really heavy so I've needed to keep a close watch on them making sure to tie up any limbs that are close to the ground. 

I wonder how much longer I'll need to wait for this little lovely to be ready for the pickin?  I've never had Black Krims before and I absolutely can't wait. 

Technorati Tags: black krim tomato,organic vegetable gardening,heirloom tomatoes

How I Strung My Tomatoes

Last year Hannah posted a video showing how she strung up her tomatoes rather than staking them and I thought it was a great idea. Since mine are planted in raised beds this year, I thought I'd give it a shot.

First I took these big metal whatchamacallits that I found in my basement and nailed them to the corners of the raised beds.

Then I tied a stick to the top connecting the two whatchamacallits. I put one nail directly in front of each tomato plant to attach the string. After I placed the string in the proper locations and tied them to the nails, I pulled the tomato plants up and tied them to the string.

Right away the tomatoes were pulled up off the giant squash and now more of them hang over the edge of the raised beds. This should help with the space problem.

Do you have a creative way to stake tomatoes? Be sure to tell me about it so I can put it on my list to try next year.

Technorati Tags: staking tomatoes,stringing tomatoes,organic veggie gardening

Wordless Wednesday: Pretty Heirloom Brandywine Tomato Bloom

More Wordless Wednesday

Technorati Tags: wordless wednesday,brandywine tomato,heirloom tomatoes,organic vegetable gardening

First one: Husker Red Cherry

Thank you, Wordless Wednesday

Technorati Tags: wordless wednesday,husker red cherry tomato,organic vegetable gardening

Hellooooooooo Tomatoooooo

They are growing! I can't believe it! These are the seeds from Trudi at Wintersown.org.

Brandywine

Beefsteak
Heinz 1439

Martian Giant

Isn't this exciting???

2008 Tomato Lineup

Following Colleen and Carol's lead I thought it was about time I introduce the starting lineup for the 2008 tomatoes. I'm starting them all from seed and if everything works out ok I won't need to buy a single plant! Except for 1 variety, all my tomatoes are from seeds I received from Trudi over at wintersown.org. Trudi participated in the garden bloggers seed exchange and she really hooked us up on the tomatoes. Drum roll pleaseeeee!!!

Blondkopfchen
Prolific yellow cherry tomato - Indeterminate
75 DTM

Brandywine
Heirloom This will be my first time with Brandywine - Indeterminate
75-90 DTM

Beefsteak
Meaty fruits over a pound! Indeterminate
80 DTM

Comonaut Volkov
Delicious red tomato - Determinate
75 DTM

Heinz 1439 (may try my luck at canning with these)
Canning variety - Determinate
80 DTM

Large Red Grape (I love grape tomatoes on salads!)
Long clusters of oval fruit - Indeterminate
72+ DTM

Martian Giant (Martian sandwich?)
Large red beefsteaks - Indeterminate
90-100 DTM

San Marzano Plum (I see sun dried tomatoes in my future)
Pear shaped paste tomato - Indeterminate
80 DTM

Tomato Blend (I'm always up for a good mystery!)
Assortment of different shapes, sizes, colors - Indeterminate
70-100 DTM

White Beauty
After Marc was showing off his exotic 2008 tomato line up I was inspired to order these seeds from Baker Creek. I'm sort of creeped out by the thought of a white tomato but I just need to see these for myself.

There you have it folks! I can't wait for that first juicy tomato! Which ones are you growing this year? And I was sitting here wondering if there is a gardener out there who grows veggies but does NOT have a single tomato in their kitchen garden. If you are out there we'd love to hear from you. I personally do not think they exist.

I've Been Kidnapped By Aliens!

OK - so I'll spare you the corny story I was thinking of writing about that exotic alien gardens in hopes it would excuse me from being a garden blogging slacker. I've been busy! Sorry!

Is this the cutest thing you've ever seen???? It's a Mini Tomato plant in a bag! The bag contains soil and seeds. According to the directions it'll grow right in the bag. This is exactly what I needed to bring me out of my garden funk! It was a gift from garden buddy. Is she the best???

In other gardening news, I still haven't done my winter sowing yet. If you haven't seen the news we've had a bit of a heat wave in Chicago over the last week. I was planning to do my winter sowing last weekend but then saw that it was over 60 degrees outside! I could just see myself crying over my seedlings that sprouted and died when they refroze, so I decided to wait. I'm vowing to get that done this weekend. I'm running out of time!

I've found that I'm viewing this winter heat wave completely different than I ever would have in previous years. Instead of being all "YAY IT'S WARM!" I'm all "holy shit what about my bulbs??? What if they think it's time to come up???" Gardening sure can be stressful.

I'm In Tomato Seed Heaven

The folks over at wintersown.org have done it again!

I'm participating in the Garden Blogger Seed exchange that Colleen organized and I was so thrilled to see that Trudi from wintersown.org had posted an offer to choose tomato seeds. I love tomatoes! Remember??

You may remember that I already received my free seeds from wintersown and they actually sent me 10 packs to try, rather than the 6 that they promised. So now, in addition to those, I have the following tomato seeds to try.

Tomato Blend

Large Red Grape (Ind)

Cononaut Volkvov (Det)

San Marzano Plum (Ind)

Brandywine (Ind)

Heinz 1439 (Det)

Beefsteak Tomato (Ind)

Martian Giant (Ind)

Blondkopfchen (Ind)

Others

Hot Pepper Mix

Mammoth Sunflower

So, from the looks of things, I won't be buying any actual tomato plants this year! Imagine how exciting it'll be if I can grow all my tomatoes from seeds!

I noticed these packs have a number with the "DTM" beside it - what the heck does that mean please??

Thanks, Trudi! You Rock!

September Bloom Day

I wonder just how many Bloom Days we could use these fabulous tomato blooms. They are so cute up close and I love the way you can see the little hairs on the stem in the photos. By far, the tomato remains my favorite thing in the garden, even beating out all the flowers. I love how they leave that interesting tomato scent on me when I brush by them or harvest them. Before I started gardening, I just liked eating them but they continue to give me more reasons to love them.
As you can see, the Zinnia and the Cleome still look great. I noticed some seeds from the white Cleome that I tried to transplant (RIP white cleome) and when I saw where the seeds came from I realized I have the potential for zillions of Cleome seeds. I hope they pop up again next spring.
Here is the Bright Lights Cosmos that I transplanted along with the now dead Cleome. It's still doing okay but it has fallen over. I still just love this attention getting bright color.
My beloved Pink Hedge Roses are still looking awesome! I did notice that the ones down by the gate have some spots on the leaves and way less blooms.
I wanted to include a picture of this purple fountain grass because I still can't believe I only paid a dollar for it. It's bigger than the Spirea now! I'll look for this again next year but I'll make sure to put it toward the back of the bed and give it plenty of room.
Here is my surprise discovery of the day. It actually made me gasp! It's Morning Glory coming over the fence! I did not plant this stuff so I'm guessing it's in my neighbors garden. God Bless those ladies! Finding this has caused me to start thinking of how other people can accidentally enjoy my garden. While thinking of landscaping the front of my house I've also been faced with what to do with the side of the house that faces the morning glory ladies' house. I've always thought there was no need to plant stuff over there because I NEVER have the occasion to be on that side of the house. There is no entry to the back yard from that side, and the only window on that side of the house is the Mr. W's studio which I never go in. But while investigating the surprise Morning Glory, I realized that the morning glory ladies' kitchen window has a horrible view of the side of my house. And then it occurred to me - THAT IS A REASON TO PLANT BEAUTIFUL STUFF THERE! Even if I can't enjoy it on a regular basis, they can! Imagine how happy that should make them for me, the troglodyte neighbor, to plant a beautiful garden just for them to enjoy while they dine or cook in their kitchen! I know what you're thinking, "Gina Rocks!" HA!

Picking Tomatoes By Flashlight

Several times this week I've been outside at dark trying to find a ripe tomato. This sucks!

I've been working later and that, coupled with the fact that it's getting dark earlier, makes finding ripe veggies very interesting. My kitchen garden is close to my patio so I can turn on the patio light which helps some. Tonight it was actually really dark out when I realized I had no tomato for my veggie burger. So, I used the flashlight. There I am out in the garden hunting for any big boy or roma that is red enough to eat using a flashlight that is either on its last leg or needs a new battery. I'm pretty sure I could have gotten more light from a Bic lighter.

After all that, I ended up having to cut a bunch of cherry tomatoes in half to use for my sandwich. I can't believe a couple of weeks ago I had so many tomatoes sitting around that I had to get creative and now I can't even find one for a lousy hamburger.

I actually still have quite a few green ones on the vine and all the plants have new blooms on them. I'm curious to see how long they will actually make it before it gets too cold.

Tomatoes and Daylilies - The Most Photographed?

I have no pictures of Daylilies (because I don't have any in my garden) but I am struggling almost every day with the urge to blog about tomatoes. I don't know if this is more related to my tomato addiction, or the fact that it's the best thing in my garden right now but I feel like we are all getting very close to our 2007 tomato blogging quota.It's true that I do love tomatoes and my good friend Laura actually made me realize that I'm probably obsessed with all things that contain tomatoes. I love straight tomatoes, any sandwich with tomato on it, tomato sauce, any red pasta sauce, ketchup, tomato soup, tomato juice, I could go on and on. In fact, the only thing related to tomatoes that I really don't care for is fried green tomatoes. Forgive me fellow southerners, I just don't think a tomato should be defiled by covering it with some crust type material and frying it. On the other hand, they are also the best thing growing in my first garden ever.

I mean take a look at this bowl. I only planted 5 tomato plants which cover 4 varieties and I harvested all 4 different kind just today. I've got some other things cooking in the garden but these tomatoes have really come through for me. I have fretted over my beloved watermelon plant, attempted to hand-pollinate it (which totally creeped me out), and been watching the only 2 melons that grew for what seems like eons and all the while my great tomatoes have been growing like crazy despite the abuse they have suffered under my watch.

It seems like most other gardeners love to photograph their tomatoes too. The only thing I think may be photographed more than tomatoes on garden blogs are Daylilies.

Would you agree? What do you think are the most photographed on garden blogs?

Cute things I saw in my garden today

This thing nearly made me pee my pants, in a bad way. I know it's very very cute and all but that whole Cicada incident has really got me on edge. Every time I hear any kind of rustling going on I jump and spin around expecting to see a big swarm of Cicadas ready to eat my eyeballs out. I was bent over looking at the Lavender that I planted near these dead Iris and I heard something. I spun around scared to death and this is what I saw. Do you know how stupid I felt???? My little sister thought it was hilarious that I was so startled by a baby rabbit and I thought she might be a little more sympathetic once I explained how I was almost killed by a ban of Cicadas but she was unimpressed. Then again, the people down the road from her have Emus. If you are not familiar with these, just imagine big dirty Ostrich. I have no clue what they do from the farm animal standpoint, but they are very ugly and way scarier than this little guy.Just when I started to get worried that my Cantaloupe wasn't going to bloom, BAM!

I wanted to document this bloom on one of my 2 strawberry plants. The other plant had a bloom that lasted about 2 hours before it was eaten by something. I do not expect this one to survive, they must be very tasty, even in floral form.

This is a tomato on one of my 2 Big Boys. Is it just me or does this look two-toned?

This is a baby tomato on my one Roma plant. I think these are so cute because they are oblong and I never get to use that word "oblong" so I thought I'd better seize this opportunity. Plus, I LOVE ROMAS and I LOVE MARINARA and you know what that means!

That's it for the pictures. In other news, I'm going on my first Garden Walk on Saturday with garden buddy and I have been planting seeds like crazy. In addition to the last seeds I told you about, I have now planted Double Hollyhock, Zinnias and Scabiosa. I also have Moon Flower (or is it Vine) seeds soaking per the instructions and they will be planted bright and early tomorrow morning. I really excited about the moon ones!