One Tomato, Two Tomato, Three Tomato, Four

This past week we had a good amount of rain and many of the tomatoes were not doing well. All of the cages are 3-4 foot tall and most of the plants are starting to top 6 feet tall. Their weight and the small cages meant I had to make a trip to Home Depot to get stakes and spend an hour taming all of the bent and broken branches. There are still a few places I need to re-stake. I did however manage to get the seasons first four cherry tomatoes. 2 Black Cherry and 2 Yellow Cherry. Jen ate all 4 and the yellows seem to be her preference to this point. In the next week or so, there will be easily close to 50 tomatoes ready. For next year, I will definitely need more space and taller, more sturdy cages. Specifically, Mortgage Lifter, Black Cherry, Yellow Cherry, Black Krim, Italian Market Wonder, Marglobe and Violet Miclado all will need 6 foot cages.

The cukes are really starting to produce, I am getting about 3 or 4 picking cukes every other day now and the lemon cukes are just starting to take off. My only problem is that there are slicing varieties in there that are growing but not producing. I guess time will tell. As for the watermelons, I now officially have 4 small ones. One about the size of a quarter, one a golf ball, one a baseball and one a softball. I guess I need to figure out how long to let them grow, when will the be ripe, how to pick them.....I guess I have a few weeks yet to figure this all out.


Planting will start again this week. I need to clear much of the grass from the rows that are no longer producing and I am going to take a different approach for fall planting. I will try to no-till and use a version of the square foot planting method. I have not really decided on anything as of yet so all is subject to change. I am going to replant some more beets, carrots and radishes for the fall. The grass continues to be a problem and although I may be only keeping it at bay and not solving the issue, I am fine with that at this point. Most of the suggestions given have involved chemicals and pretty aggressive containment methods none of which I am comfortable with.

Last Wed was the talk at the library for Slow Food. Margret Noon was the speaker and although the format and presentation was not that great, the topic was intoxicating. I never thought I would call myself someone who cared where his food came from. To me as a kid, a garden was fun and the food it produced was no more than a bonus to what you get from a store. The more and more we read about eating local, being conscious of where your food is from and the benefits of local eating to your local farms, community and more so yourself, I think we we sold ourselves before we got there and decided that will end up becoming members of the North New Jersey Chapter.

Its Not Really About the Carrots....

I tried carrots and beets for the first time and I did not have great germination. The carrots are heirloom from France and the beets are golden. Reading on a few different news groups I was happy to read that Golden Beets generally germinate poorly....that made me happy....isn't that sad?

As for the carrots, I companion planted with white icicle radishes and I think in my want to have too much, I never thinned any of its resulting in poor carrot germination and too many radishes that had all lead growth and little root development. From what I can understand, overcrowding and not thinning creates competition for light so they put their energy into reaching for the sky and not in their roots.

As a result, I have few carrots and what I do have I needed to thin. So I decided to pull one hoping that would be enough. I know it wont but I can hope for now. To my surprise, I feel like I just birthed a 9 ton rhino....I grew an orange carrot....too small to do anything with but it looks like a carrot!!!

String Bean and Red Onion Salad

• 3 lbs String Beans
• 1 red onion halved, sliced thin
• Olive Oil to coat
• 2 Tbsn Rosemary

Blanch the string beans in salted boiling water for no more than 3 minutes. Drain, add thinly sliced onions, olive oil and rosemary. Toss well to coat. Refrigerate until dinner.

Cuke are still doing well and I finally got a lemon cuke. These are about 2x the size of a golf ball and look like a pale lemon. They are tasty though. Jen and I ate one and there are two more ready to go

After some time, I finally picked up the stuff needed for canning. I am excited and being sort of dorky about it. I bought the Ball Book of Canning and the Joy of Pickling. I am going to try my hand at pickles and blueberry preserves. We did this once before but is was a half cocked try about 7 years ago with raspberries but it didn't turn out too good. Hopefully this go around will be different.

It has been so hot here this week and with Jen still feeling the same, out came as many indoor things to do as we could manage. We have had many babysitters over the last two weeks and anything creative is welcome. Jen finally got her MRI results and they were all clear (thank goodness!!) but there still is no answer to the dizziness. Hopefully as she comes off the Prednisone, it will gradually improve.

Flight of the Bumblebee

With Dr Cohn calling on Jen's cell phone, I had to take work calls from outside to make sure I had signal strength. The two Chaste Trees are in the midst of blooming and looking closely, there are thousands and thousands of large bumblebees. I was completely in awe. Jen signed up for the The Great Sunflower this spring which counts the number of honey bees so I was interested how many were here......I could not find any....there were well over 100 bumblebees before I started to lose count. It was pretty cool to watch though.....a little nerve racking to get close enough with my digital camera though.

Last few days have been a blur, Jen is still the same and Dr Cohn ordered a brain MRI with no contrast yesterday. After calling 4 places, we had three appointments one of which was the same day. Laura came to babysit so I could go and while in the waiting room, the MRI machine broke. So today we went at 11:15, got the films, drove them over to Dr Cohn and by 3:30, had semi good news. With his untrained eye, his interpretation was that there was nothing out of the ordinary, abnormal or anything grabbing his attention. He will wait until Tuesday's report shows up form the Radiologist, but he seemed to have a good sense and feeling: all clear. Jen's blood work was normal as well....at least the absolute worst is ruled out but still no answers.

After the kids went to sleep, I headed out to the garden. With all the crap lately, I have not spent much time out there. Jen picked two zucchini well over 24 inches, I found two more and inspecting them tonight, I will have three more in the next few days. The squash do not set as much fruit but they grow just as quick.

After watering everything and rooting around, I noticed that there were a huge number of Sultan Peas ripe. I have only picked one or two to date but today I got a good bowl full and left plenty on the vine. The vine itself is well over 7 feet tall as it is starting to come back down the far side. These are sweet and the vines are fun. Now I have to actually cook them :)

The cukes are growing just as crazy but so far I only have picking cukes. Jack doesn't mind as he ate 4 for dinner last night. i just ordered picking stuff and mason jars so hopefully I can try my hand at pickles by next week. I still have not seen any lemon or slicing cukes and I feel like I should have

Just a closing picture of Jen and Charlotte walking up the blueberries. Last Saturday was about 5.5lbs that lasted until Tuesday. We went back on Wed at lunchtime and picked another 7.5lbs. I promised Jen that we would grow our own blueberry patch one day.

Blueberry Picking

Well, yesterday was blueberry picking. We tried a new place much closer to home, Hillview Farms in Gillette. With Jen still feeling the same, I was hoping being so close to home would make it easier. Didn't start out too well as Jen felt pretty bad but by the time we got there, her medicine kicked in.

We picked up our baskets and walk across the street to the "bobbing heads". Sounded a little funny. We walked through some planted rows (about an acre's worth) and I was completely amazed, 6'-7' tall blueberry bushes, rows and rows....each row probably 500' long.

Although there was complete excitement on Jack and Charlotte's part, there was a calm that sort of came over us, a distinct mission at hand. Charlotte ate every berry that she picked over the hour or so of picking, Jack needed to fill up his pail entirely by taking mine, Jen had the determination and patience to pick only the very ripest, roundest and largest of the millions of berries around us and I was just plain happy, something about being outside picking right from the bush has had more and more of a draw for me than ever before.

I am probably going to register for Margret Noon's library talk on Slow Food.org. I did quite a bit of research and is seems to be focused on local, sustainability, etc... concepts that I am feeling more and more strongly about. There is so much to know, so much out there, and even with what Jen and I already know, I feel like we are in the dark.

The garden overall is going well. the Sultan Beans are now ripe and I picked the first few, the picking cukes are now starting as well, 3-4 every other day. No Slicing or lemon cukes though. Zuc's and Squash have take off and I now need to figure out how to freeze, store, cook more than I care to admit. Knowing that there would be a lot per plant, I only planted two of each but it seems these 4 plants are producing more than any other plant I have ever had or seen.

Tomatoes are growing well. As are the beets. I picked my first beet and I now think I can pick all of them as I wish. Since these are root crops, I will leave them in the ground until I am ready to use them. I am thinking about a recipe that Cheryl mentioned, Roasted Fennel and Beets. Sounds good.....need to try that. There are many more green tomatoes but none turning. My only problem is one of the Black cherry plants next to the house is skyrocketing in size to almost 7', wilting and I had to stake it today.