A Small Harvest

1 more crookneck yellow squash (total:3) 2 Amira hybrid cucumbers (total:3), 2 really small, red Serrano chiles (total: 12) and enough lettuce for 2 1/2 side salads (total: about 4 side salads). Everything tastes so good! The squash have been really tender, the cukes were AMAZING-refreshing and crisp. I haven't had the chiles yet. I'm thinking of putting them in an omlette tonight. The salad was very good: Black Seeded Simpson (bolted-I'm waiting to see what the flowers look like-probably not the best way to go but F-it), Red Fire- both bought from the nursery. The Red Fire is excellent and hasn't bolted-yay! Also Jericho, planted from seed, a romaine lettuce that I planted from seed, also tasty- hasn't bolted=BONUS!

Everything seems to be growing really slowly this year. I'm not sure why, we've had heat, sun and rain...my tomatoes are still green-Uggggghhhh! I have been torturing myself by reading about tomato taste testings on other blogs and forums. That's probably not helpful. I think the bunny delay really set me back. In the unplanted portion of my garden I found some tomato volunteers and potted them up out of curiosity. They obviously won't fruit before the first frost (mid October-ish) so the plan is to try to grow them in the sunroom and see if I can hand pollinate and have winter tomatoes. It probably won't work and if it does, they won't taste like real summer tomatoes -but what the heck?

Through the self imposed tomato taste test torture I have been exploring the different Heirloom tomato options-phew- There's a ton out there! I have been plotting next years garden. I'm obsessed with Goose Creek tomatoes but of course can't find seed in the US. I have 2 options: try to get seed from the UK and hope it doesn't get confistacted by "homeland security" or get a seedling sent from California. I really love starting things from seed. Who knew tomato seeds were a threat to national security???

The tomatoes I planted this year are as follows: Brandywine, Super Sioux, Green Zebra, Garden Peach, maybe a Consolato Genovese (extra seed-not impressed with the tomato last year), maybe a Sanibel Hybrid (free seed sample from Totally tomatoes), and maybe a San Marzano. I planted 2 cherry tomatoes- Jelly Bean and Peacevine. The maybe's are in there because once all the seedlings got confused I chucked all the seed packets into a box and I can't remember what I planted and what was hanging around from previous years. Duh! I need to be better behaved when I start my seeds! So next year I will LABEL my Plants, take NOTES about what I planted, start them EARLIER (so I can be eating tomatoes now instead of writing and reading about them!), and try some new colors and kinds. Garden Peach and Super Sioux are the only 2 new regular tomatoes this year. I've never grown cherry tomatoes for myself before so both kinds are new for me. I've never tried a dark tomato before-I'm definitely going for a black or purple tomato next year!