Seeing Red!

I mentioned before that I planned to try to ripen a bunch of green tomatoes indoors.  I took the best of the ones I pulled from the garden, wrapped them individually in newspaper and sat them on shelves in my basement, covered by a dark blanket.  Well, I checked them this morning – well, I checked one of them that is – it was red!  It worked!  Now the trick will be to keep them in decent shape until I have time to process them.  I wasn’t expecting this to happen so quickly! 

Scurries off to locate sauce recipes...

Tomatoes out the $%@

They’re everywhere! The green tomatoes that is…it’s like summer is taking another turn – everything is green and flowering again… Alas, I know it won’t last, so I’m trying to enjoy it while it does. My tomato routine until now has been to check the garden every day or two and pluck the red ‘maters from the vines. As the season went on there were fewer and fewer ripe red ones, but still TONS of green tomatoes. My dear sweet husband, being a practical boy, inquired “can’t we just pick the green ones and use them?” So I did a little research on the subject. My new plan is to gather the healthiest of the fruits, bring them inside and let them ripen on their own indoors. Then I’ll process them – can them, freeze them, eat them, or something. J My sources tell me that indoor-ripened tomatoes do not taste quite as good as vine-ripened, but will be infinitely better than store-bought. Since I do plan on canning most of them as sauce of some sort, I think it’ll be OK. I picked a large basket-full last night, but didn’t even get a quarter of the way through the garden. Eek!

I’d also like to try some green tomato cooking experiments – any recipe recommendations?

Resurrected onions

Bit of a gardening surprise yesterday (but, as I’m pretty new to this sport, what isn’t a surprise?).  I went out to pluck the few cantaloupes that hadn’t been attacked by bugs from my little plot, and eventually turned my attention to the onions.  I had read that onions can be harvested after their stalks dry up and flop over, which happen earlier this summer…I pulled a few of them for salads already.  I figured I’d pull up the rest…but then I noticed that they were no longer dried and shriveled (the stalks that is)…they were green and sturdy.  Did I miss my chance to harvest the onions?  Why did they suddenly spring back to life?  Comments welcome; in the meantime I’ll be doing some research…

The Case of the Mystery Melon - solved!

I did eventually manage to snap a few pics of my mystery melons (the ones I thought were cantaloupes, but were looking much more like watermelons), but alas, the camera didn't make it back into the house from our last car trip. I'm bad at bringing things back in...
However, the mystery is solved! I am in fact growing cantaloupes. Their "skin" (rind?) is starting to develop a very cantaloupe-like texture. Phew! I'm not sure how mature they will get, as we've already started to experience some low temps in the area. But maybe next week's predicted upper 80's-low 90's will give them a boost...

Update: here is a photo (I cleaned out the car...) of the melons before they were identified:

Not sure what I'm growing!

When I planted my garden, I picked up four plants in the cucurbit family: a zucchini, a summer squash, a cucumber, and what I thought was a cantaloupe.   Now I’m not so sure – there are strange melon-like fruits growing from one of the remaining plants (both the zucchini and summer squash met an untimely end), but these fruits do not look like cantaloupe to me…they look more like watermelon.  Of course, having never grown either type of melon, I couldn’t tell you for sure what they look like as ‘toddlers’.  I’m tempted to take one inside and cut it open – that would solve things quickly enough; however my dear sweet husband insists that I just be patient and wait until the melons are full-grown.  Grrrr….

I’ll have to post some photos of the mystery melons, if it ever stops raining…

 

 

wilted

As in both my poor zucchini plants and my spirits.  :(  I looked out the window today and almost all the leaves on my zucchini plant had fallen over.  It looked like it hadn't been watered in days, but we've had nothing but rain this week, so I know that is not the case.  A quick internet search has lead me to suspect some sort of squash borer or other pest.  I'm not sure if I can do anything to save them or if I should just give up and yank the whole thing out of the ground.  So sad - I hadn't quite had my fill of zucchini yet...

They've got us surrounded!

The tomatoes, that is.  They’re everywhere!  I dropped off a whole sack of them with ML last night and our fruit bowl is filled to the brim still.  And for every red tomato I pull off the vine, three green ones take its place…  Salsa time, here we come!

On the other side of the garden (all 4 feet of it) I have a new invader.  A small grayish bug which my visiting mother insists is another kind of squash beetle.  Great – just what I need!  The nasty chemical spray I tried earlier in the season has done no good…might have to try something else…

I pulled up a couple of onions last night, too – they are very small, but I’m not sure how big they were going to get anyway – the tops had fallen over and wilted, which I read was a sign of the onions being ready for harvest.  I pulled 3, but I’m planning on leaving the rest in the ground for a while to see what happens…