Lol on the cubanelles @shrinkrap; my envy of your pepper growing is as green as your garden itself. Climate not conducive for most peppers up here. H keeps trying.
Eyes are getting greener by the post! Even a 10 degree warmth factor would help here, but things are growing huge, not maturing yet, however. Gardening is all about patience and not giving up, as you previously stated @shrinkrap. I wouldn’t know, H is the gardener too.
I jumped the gun on these tomatoes. I couldn’t bear to think they might get pecked, or split, or whatever.
A thing of beauty.
Ooooo! Those look so good. I wonder how they would be in gazpacho.
I grew these Principe Borghese for drying, but thinking of putting these in the gazpacho too.
This time of year is so exciting. For me, August, not so much.
2nd picking of green beans, but by far the biggest harvest so far. More on the bushes for tomorrow.
I sort by size, then bag, and use for different things. The big ones usually get cooked in tomato sauce, but not for as long as they cook them in the south, typically.
Those look so perfect!
I started mine pretty late, and I have mostly flowers. There should eventually be yellow, purple, and green.
Look like they’re coming along nicely @shrinkrap! Your tomatoes, pluots and all that too…
I slowly said goodbye to my little farm… I was scheduled to go home last week. Also did some makeshift cheap trellising with twine and yarn tied to two stakes at either end of a row.
Counted over 100 tomato plants, some doubled up in the big planters (because I thought one seedling was dying and added another). A few in raised beds.
Anyway, postponed my departure because CA peaked again.
The net positive is that there’s finally drip irrigation in, instead of me watering by hand and constantly reviving things that wilted. The negative is that the gardeners toppled many of the trellised plants, so remedial work is needed. I have wire arriving today, plan is to anchor the tall plants to a top line of wire to prevent falling due to wind or weight.
Anywaaaaaaaay. Turns out there’s a bit more variety in the tomatoes than I expected - I failed on labeling after transferring seedlings to plastic cups; knew they were mostly cherry from seed, but I also planted from what we ate in March - so there are some grape, some Campari-ish, heirloom of some sort, and maybe something else that I haven’t figured out
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You did good!
Meanwhile, I hadn’t realized how long it takes tomatoes to ripen on the vine.
I’ve been picking them once they start to turn yellow, and then letting them ripen in a bowl with the bananas.
As I’ve said before, this is my first time growing, and it’s amazing how intense and delicious they are
Put the tomatoes in a brown paper bag (or wrap them in newspaper) with the banana or an apple. They’ll ripen faster with the ethylene trapped in there.
Yes, that’s why I have them in a bowl under always-ripe bananas… no newspaper or paper bags at hand, I should save some the next time we have delivery.
Have to go through every day and remove the ones that have ripened to be eaten soon
Every fall, I take home all the green tomatoes (aka all the tomatoes) from my garden in Ulster County and ripen them at home in Manhattan. It takes a long time, but it also gives me reasonably good tomatoes into November. But not as good as if left to ripen on the vine.
The weather here is odd. Very sunny, but cold for July - 70s, sometimes 60s at night.
I think that’s why the ripening outside takes forever.
The first two heirloom tomato plants were loaded with fruit that kiss wasn’t changing color at all. So I brought them in. I’ll leave some out to ripen on the vine and do a taste test. The indoor-ripened ones are already incredibly delicious, so I’m curious if vine-ripened will taste meaningfully different.
That said, I’m waiting until the color changes to pick them because I read somewhere that that’s equivalent. Meaning I’m not picking them green, but after they start yellowing.
If I get bored waiting for the green ones to turn, I just pickle them.