Mini Harvest

So, did I mention we have been home for more than 12 hours now and I am so excited. I leaped out of bed this morning and ran outside to see our garden. Wow! This is why we go through all the work of weeding and amending our soil, working it, fertilizing it and planting it.

Joey harvested the garlic when we returned from Rome. It is beautiful!

We have been harvesting small batches of cherry and roma tomatoes since early July, but we get just a few at a time. This year I experimented with growing the tomato plants up, pruning off all branches below the first blossoms and also pruning back all suckers. So, instead of bushy overgrown plants, we have tall kinda spindly looking plants. They say that you sacrifice a few tomatoes, but the ones you get are healthier, tastier and ripen earlier. I have yet to really prove to myself that this way is better, however, we have had cherry tomatoes at least 4 weeks earlier than previous years. the tomatoes we do have look absolutely wonderful, the whole thing takes up a lot less space and there are no tomatoes rotting on the ground.

Also, Michael loves verde sauces and our tomatillos have gone wild. I can't wait to make a sauce with them. We have a handful of delicious Anaheim Peppers as well. One of my favorite dishes is a layered roasted anaheim pepper, tomato and cheddar cheese casserole side dish. I can't wait to make it! The tomatillos, tomatoes and peppers are displayed above in a beautiful olive wood salad bowl my Mom and Dad got in Mykonos Town for Michael and I for our anniversary. Tonight I will use it for a salad.

So far we have one fat cucumber... I always have the weirdest luck with cucumbers. It seems to take forever to get the first cucumber, but then you pick it and the plant goes wild producing more cucumbers than any one family can eat. The same with zucchini. We have one slightly overgrown zucchini right now. I picked it and my guess is by next week the plant will be covered with them. I have never seen a zucchini plant under-produce. Also, I stuck by my guns and only planted one zucchini plant and NO summer squash. I thought I would die if I had to eat another summer squash last year! The Japanese Eggplants are amazing. We LOVE eggplant, so I need to get these guys into some dishes before we lose them. A little ratatouille perhaps.

And finally... our brand new little plum tree, which for some reason I had thought was a red plum tree turns out to be a glorious Golden Plum variety. This little tree, in its very first season, has put out four beautiful plums. One for each of us. We will savor them!