Amish Paste ...

Monday I picked some Amish paste tomatoes.
These are the ones I had growing in my two upside down tomato planter thingys.
(That is a doux de espagne pepper that fell off - oops.)

I added a few german cherry to them and decided to make Roasted Tomato sauce.
First you half the tomatoes.
Put them in a bowl of tomato paste, olive oil (equal parts) and some garlic, basil and oregano.
After you coat them with it, place them on a rack in a pan over foil.
If you have any of the paste oil stuff left, you can slice an onion and soak up the last bit of oil. Then put the onion into a foil pan, inside the pan with the rack in it. This will carmelize the onion. Throw a little garlic clove or two in it if you like as well.
Roast 20 min at 425 degrees.

Take them out, run them through the food processor until you have the right consistency for your sauce.
You can skin them before the food processor if you like.
I ran mine through a sieve to get most of the seeds and skins after processing.

See the little tray with the onions on the right.

It turned out fabulous.

Helga ...

The first fruit that formed and made it to ripen on the vine.

It just made it off the vine to the kitchen counter today!

MMMMM

Need I say more?


Well, I will anyway.

This "Helga" plant was grown from seed that my mom, now gone 2.5 years,
had stored in an envelope on her bulletin board. Scrawled across the envelope was simply "Helga". The seeds were actually saved 3 or 4 years ago, before her husband passed away. They said this was the biggest and the best tomato they had ever grown. A really big girl, they named her "Helga".
I just thought it would be fun to see if the seeds would even germinate. It turned out to be a potato leaf variety. Probably a "brandy boy" tomato.

Helga grew and grew, all of the seeds I tried sprouted.
She grew too fast and got leggy inside, then she went outside too soon and got sunburned...
and then practically got thrown out when I thought her sunburn was disease
(Thanks to Paul for telling me she was salvagable!)

I babied the seedlings I had left and gave them away to friends.
I kept only 1 of the plants for myself. It grew under the deck in a homemade self watering container. It had a few fruits earlier on, but had some blossom end rot. ew. So, I waited and now there are 2 more fruits ripening, though smaller than this one.

I think half the fun this year has been the trial and error. What works, what doesn't.
What in the world is that bug and how do I gently remove it.
I enjoyed this year and next year I look forward to doing it all again, a bit different here and there.
Not that I am done... there is still plenty of fruit to harvest.
If we could ever get enough sun to ripen those tomatoes.


Now, speaking of bugs...
look who I found wriggling across the brandywines...
I found two actually.
I hard rinsed all the tomato plants on the deck and then pruned them.
They look pretty healthy now and yukky dudeless.

Isn't he the yukkiest dude EVER...

yes, that is a tomato hornworm.
See the spiky orange horn.

and to think he is only a baby.

I hesitate to even tell you that the kids have him in a bug container in the garage.
Gross.

Teaching from the world around us,
now that's unschooling.

Still gross. to me.

on a less gross note;

I canned banana peppers today.
My little plant was full of them
see...

This was 2.5 pounds of banana peppers...
and yet
add eight green bell peppers
and a 1/4 pound of jalepenos from a friends garden
and I got 2 quarts and 2 pints of pickled peppers.
It simply takes a lot of any type of pepper to can in quantity.


Also... guess what I just picked (rather dug up)???

Yukon golds baby!

To clarify...
those are BABY ears of corn
and TINY YUKON GOLD Potatoes.

I put 3 seed pototos into a black mesh grocery bag after we dumped the trash can and discovered my potatoes rotted rather than grew in the can. Too wet this spring.

I have been watering and sprinkling blood meal to keep the bunnies and DEER off the plants.
They flowered, wilted and flopped over and broke off.
So I decided to dig around and
I found those sweet little baby potatoes.

I have another bag... with more little potatoes growing. I just need to let them be for another few weeks. Patience is what I need for late potatoes!

:)

Garden comparison...

We started with this idea of raised beds.





We modified it to this...

Two nice little beds.

And at the end of August
it looks like this...

In the left raised bed;
Three Brandywines, growing like mad with
lots of green tomatos hanging on for hotter weather.
A Doux de Espagne, with 4 green peppers waiting on hot sun to turn red.
A purple beauty pepper, dwarf in size - I don't know why - with one little purple pepper.
A banana pepper, half the size of the one in a self watering container -
also producing half the fruit as the taller one.

In the right raised bed;
Listada de Gandia eggplant, miscellaneous carrots, lime basil and nasturiums.

To the right, the tall rectangle is a re-purposed crib mattress frame
that holds a bush cucumber plant that got powdery mildew and just really did not do well.

There is a baby bush watermelon plant in the bottom right hand corner that has given us two very tiny little watermelons. One we have eaten, one is still on the vine - getting fatter?

There is still dwarf blue corn growing in a rubbermaid container. I need to pick the 3 ears left if the deer don't beat me to it.

There is also some Jacob's cattle growing with the corn.

There are two mesh shopping bags behind the corn, we will see later on if they did okay.

That's all for now!

August 31st Tomato Update...

The Black Brandywines in an Earthbox
laden with green fruit.
These have a fabulous flavor in a classic heirloom fruit.
Will grow these again and again.

The Bloesser pink on the right
and the Bloesser Yellow (that yellow is accidental) on the left
in an Earthbox, also laden with green fruit.
Love, love the flavor of these.
Excellent Slicing tomato.
Will always grow these.

Aunt Ruby's german cherry
lots of fruit finally ripening.
This is not really a cherry, more plum sized with round fruit.
They taste like cherry tomatoes.
A lot of the fruit on these split, often.
Grown in an earthbox, not impressed with the plant itself.

Here is a closer shot of two Bloesser Pinks ripening.

The plant on the left is the banana peppers,
a lovely crop, this is the second load like that.
I will can them this week. mmm.
They grow well in the homemade self watering container.

The plant on the right is the only
Bi-Color cherry I got.
remember the mess when medium knocked over the seedling tray?
anyway...
This cherry tomato is FABULOUS.
Great Flavor, fun colors for the kids.
Definately will grow again,
Next year in an Earthbox!

Listada de Gandia in front
Growing and producing well in Earthbox,
though I have another in a homemade self watering container with
the same results.
I will grow them next year in the homemade self watering.
Very nice fruit, good grilled and in eggplant parmesan!

In the Middle of same earthbox,
two purple beauty peppers.
Not Impressed. Not sweet enough for me or hubby.
Okay flavor, just like a bell pepper.
Once we got it germinated, it grew okay in the earthbox, but did not do well in the raised bed.

In the back, against the rail, of same earthbox
YES,
RED DOUX DE ESPAGNE
Finally!

These have tasted fabulous green. I cannot wait to eat them red, I hope it sweetens them a bit.
I was hoping to have red peppers all summer, but it just has not gotten hot enough.
I will totally grow these again.
Next year they get their own earthbox and a support trellis system.

Aren't they gorgeous!
Yeah!



and just because I can...

small was so busy cruising around in his jammies,
he hardly noticed his drawers were droopy.

:)

Tomato, tomato...

Wherefore art thou tomato...



ah, in small's mouth!

what smiles they produce.

A happy boy
on a somewhat chilly August day.

Our Zoo is Fabulous!

Just check out the stingray pool

the kids can "pet" them!

Medium liked it!

Pointing at them.

waiting on another to pass under his hand

What a cool thing!

tall waiting...

It's funny how they touch your hand as they glide past.
They are very smooth.

Tall wanted to stay, a long long time here.

Mommy helping small touch one

He thought it was kind of cool.

they kind of "rose up" in the water to meet his little hand.

I even got to play a little.

:)

There were two different types plus the black ones.

It was cool, when small realized the entire pool was full of them
and watched them moving around.

The boys were thrilled.

moving on...

laughing together!

It was hard to tear them away!

It was perfect weather and there were not
many other people.

They kept smiling
and waiting on the next one to swim by.

Small was ready to move on...

and medium was...

"I'm thinking"
I'm thinking...

"where's the train?!"

we opted for the walk...

and were rewarded with very active animal viewings.

can you see the zookeeper above right?

He had just thrown in some food
and the elephant was trying to get a treat out of him!

Just like the kids

"More?!!"

Taking a bath

wandering around...
generally being an elephant

then we stopped at a favorite...

and the kids played with the butterflies...

repeatedly!

Tall's favorite pastime.

catching, releasing.

This is a Jasmine tree
FABULOUS scent that wafted about the entire structure.

I want one, for inside. yeah!

They look happy !

They had a blast!

On a perfectly gorgeous day at the zoo.