Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Toasty Tuesday

We are having another hot spell. Yesterday and today the temps were in the upper 90's. Happily, though, it cools down quickly in the evenings. That's one advantage to living away from a city.

Our first tomato. Back in early April I bought four Roma tomato plants at Target and planted them in one of our raised beds. Within a month one of them had little tomatoes and I fully expected to have ripe tomatoes by mid-June. But every time I looked, they were still green. Then this evening I did a really good search and found this little darling. I didn't see any more, but the bushes are so thick and overgrown that there may very well be more. It is supposed to be an heirloom San Marzano but it doesn't look much like one to me.

Hard to believe that we only have one zucchini plant. These four join the other half dozen already in my fridge. The crookneck and eight ball plants are producing more slowly but are still giving us more than we can eat. I'm thinking of doing "all zucchini all the time" for dinner tomorrow night. I can stuff the bigger ones and make a casserole with the smaller ones and maybe even make a zucchini salad with the really young ones that are still on the plant.

I also picked a big batch of lettuce. It's a mix of several different kinds and has withstood the heat pretty well. Only the arugula and spinach have started going to seed. While I was working in that bed I found four beets, perfect size, so I pulled them too. Their tops are surprisingly free of insect damage, so I will probably cook them too.
The Kentucky Wonder beans have been racing to the top of the trellis and I was starting to get a little concerned about the lack of beans. But yesterday we spotted the first flowers so it shouldn't be long now.

1 comment:

Carolyn said...

here in ohio we are not harvesting our 'crops' just yet
farmers are ahead of us and have been selling cabbage and squash
have you ever made zuchinni fritters?....we love them and so easy to make
will send recipe if you need
mcclark00@zoominternet.net