Big Messes of Tomatoes! First Pink Brandywine

Our weather has been hot, rainy, humid, and sunny all around. The hot, sunny then rainy has caused my Pink Brandywines to begin splitting. I am rescuing them a little early to salvage some of the tomatoes rather than lose them waiting for them to fully ripen on the bush. My kitchen window sill will work for the rest of the ripening.

I must note here that these tomatoes are amazing! So delicious! The pink brandywines will make a great cooking and slicing tomato. They don't have the thick hard cores in them - they are just tasty juicy and meaty goodness.

Now these Pink Brandywine tomatoes are larger than a softball to give an idea of their size.

July 6, 2011

1st Pink Brandywine - it was delicious! :-)

Then here is the 2nd mess of Husky Red Cherry Tomatoes and some Romas:

And the remaining cucumbers and first onset of green peppers:

July 9, 2011

This is another mess of tomatoes - Husky Cherry Red Tomatoes and Romas

Several more Pink Brandywines and Green Peppers - pretty good sized ones too! Notice the splitting? (sniff, sniff)

Bad Storms and First Cherry Tomato Bounty

June 18 and June 30, 2011

We had a horrible storm that was close to being a tornado.It knocked out our electricity for over 24 hours and did a number in the garden. Lots of trees were snapped in two and lots of debris all over blown around. My 6' Pink Brandywine tomato plants bent over to 4' over the basket tops. So I had to pull them back up and stabilize them.

Here is the first bounty of cherry tomatoes - they are so delicious! Then a snapshot of a mess of squash and cucumbers.

Model Cars

June 17, 2011 - As a summer project to keep little hands and minds busy, we bought a couple of model cars for the boys to put together. This was just a simple start to see how they would do. They are eager to do more cars and ramp them up a little with paint and glue. These were just snap together simple cars.

Brandywines

June 15, 2011 - Here is a selection of photos of my pink brandywine tomatoes at the garden. They are out of control!

More Brandywine buds coming on

Bracing the Brandywine bushes - these are over 6' tall!

Pink Brandywine bushes - over 6' tall!!

Other tomato plants - Yellow Jubilee, Brandywines, and Jelly Beans

Tomato plot

Candy from the garden

June 15, 2011

Here are the first husky cherry red tomatoes:

After picking, a run through the garden hose - then gulp - yum!

Proud Mama - my precious treasures

Here are some pictures over the last month of my precious little treasures. They are so much fun and huge little blessings.

Here is my "little girl": 

 

 

 

 

So unamused!

Here are my three amigos:

And one amigo with his sister:

Then here are 3 of my water bugs:

Water bugs with their cousins:

Recipe: Fiesta Rice Salad

Here is a colorful, healthy and very delicious salad I made for a garden potluck this weekend - it was a hit and winner for me to make at home for myself. If you like Mexican flavors, you are sure to enjoy this salad.

Fiesta Rice Salad

1/4 c fresh lime juice (4 limes)

3 Tbsp. olive oil

3 Tbsp roasted tomato salsa (I used a roasted corn & black bean salsa)

1 tsp. ground cumin

1/2 tsp salt

2 c cold cooked brown rice

1 c cooked fresh or thawed frozen corn kernels

2 15-oz cans black beans, drained and rinsed

1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced

1 c small cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered

3 scallions thinly sliced (I used green onions instead)

1 avocado

1 Tbsp chopped fresh cilantro, optional

In a small bowl, stir together lime juice, oil, salsa, cumin and salt. In a large bowl, stir together rice and corn, breaking up any rice clumps.

Pour lime-juice mixture over rice mixture and stir well to coat. Add beans, bell pepper, tomatoes and scallions, and toss gently to combine. 

Just before serving, pit, peel and dice avocado, and stir gently into salad. Sprinkle with cilantro, if desired, and serve.

TV Series (PBS) Review: Downton Abbey

We have Netflix not only for renting DVDs but streaming content to your computer or TV. I stumbled across a Masterpiece Theater series called "Downton Abbey". As I have mentioned before I like to watch things that are thought-provoking or cause me to ask questions. "Downton Abbey" is set in 1912-1913 just after the sinking of the Titanic. With the sinking of the Titanic the heirs of Downton Abbey were drown. So the Earl and Countess of Grantham, Robert and Cora Crawley, are in a bit of fix trying to nail down the next heirs of the Abbey. Since they only have daughters and no sons, it trickles to cousins. Cora Crawley was quite wealthy when they married but her inheritance will not go to their eldest daughter. The Dowager Countess, mother of Lord Grantham, and Cora Crawley are trying to find every possible to see that the inheritance stays in the family and not to total strangers who will become heirs of Downton Abbey.



So you ask why this is thought-provoking and piques my interest? Culture. A culture I don't understand or know. It is interesting to me how all the classes, titles, propriety, and etiquette work. There is a clash of classes when the next heir, Matthew Crawley, comes on the scene. He is the son of a doctor and nurse....gasp, the working class. "Why would anyone work?" is the response from the Dowager Grantham. Matthew Crawley is an attorney and considered middle class, yet to the Crawleys especially the snooty Dowager Grantham is lower class. He won't even use the servants provided to him and gets his own tea. How horrible is that? While Lord and Countess Grantham are gracious and likable people that don't seem to look down their noses, the Dowager Countess makes up for that quite considerably. Lord Grantham's position is to oversee Downton Abbey - that's all. I don't get that and this is what is fascinating to me. I don't understand much of British culture, classes, titles and so forth and that is also quite fascinating to me.

So now I am entrenched not only with the education of the culture in the series but now the story of the series. What will happen next?

It is a good thing I have lots of laundry to fold so I don't feel guilty watching TV! "Downton Abbey" is in season 1 but production is under way for series 2 in the fall. I can't wait!

There is one warning I must mention - in the first episode there is one very disturbing scene with the footman, Thomas, and a Duke that comes to visit. They have a "special" relationship. You might want to fast forward through that.

Cucumbers!

Here are the first cucumbers in my work bucket. They are white because those parts were in the dirt. I like them crunchy and small. Then you see another squash and my small fat cucumber.

Soon we should start seeing tomatoes too! 

Qu'est-ce que c'est?

I found this amongst my cucumber plants - but it didn't look like a cucumber! I thought maybe a watermelon seed made its way in there somehow from somewhere....community gardens have weird things happen! I had already plucked it when I thought of the watermelon idea....so I cut it open...sure enough a cucumber. Never seen a fat short one like that.

Leaf Curling - I never knew!

I received an email from our garden president with information about leaf curling in the garden. Evidently some other members were concerned about this since another member had sprayed some weed killer around. As it turns out there was no other evidence of the weed killer but we had had some severe weather changes. We had some nice warm 70s-80s weather then a cold snap of 40s followed by 90s. So those big weather changes caused the leaf curling. Who knew? I guess I am so simplistic - it is green, growing, no holes from bugs - I am good. But I took pictures anyway to show for future reference....

Fruit is on the way!

When I was staking up and securing my tomatoes last night I took pictures of the tomatoes coming on. I hadn't seen the Brandywines several days ago. Oh, I do hope those plants survive. But the Yellow Pears and Cherry Tomatoes are coming along nicely.

Brandywine

Cherry Tomatoes

Brandywine

Yellow Pear almost ready