cold holiday weekends? no fair.

the cold wet april weather that is holding us in her grasp now into june is starting to grate on me. it hasn't done much (if any) damage to the garden but it does prevent me from spending all my time out of doors, which is my favorite spring and summer activity.

saturday i barbecued for my family and a major overhaul of the patio area was required just to make sure we could all stay dry should the weather turn unexpectedly. the layout is nice, i'll probably keep it that way for awhile. i whipped up asparagus and salad from market purchases and grilled some chicken with a couple of tasty rubs i whipped together. i'll try to get the recipes posted later today.

sunday we were blessed with a sunny afternoon, just in time for the second barbecue we assembled at our place. no sooner did we all go home to nap than it began raining on patio set draped lovingly with old thrift-store sheets. talk about timing.

sunday we barbecued turkey and tofurkey sausage, whole ears of corn and pork kabobs. with a no-spend-meal goal in mind, i threw together some vegetarian chili (featuring local chickpeas, home-canned tomatoes, spring sweet onions and backyard herbs) and some corn bread. add salad and asparagus and we were a well-fed bunch.

even though all the other moments i didn't mention were rainy and chilly, it was still a decent holiday weekend.

it's getting a little old now

last week i predicted that by sunday, i would be done with the tomatoes. when i didn't make any progress sunday evening, i told myself i would kick butt monday night. well now it is tuesday morning and i still have half a lug of tomatoes.

they look so innocent in small groups

clarification: half a lug of very ripe tomatoes and several bowlfuls of not-yet-ripe 'maters. friday i wasn't sick of tomatoes, but now its tuesday and i am pretty close.

so much more daunting in large numbers

so with tomatoes still on the mind, i make these recommendations.

canning the tomatoes whole was simple but took a fair amount of hands on time, compared to roasting and saucing them. i think it is a task best done earlier than the last-ditch effort—a lot of the tomatoes i used were a little mealy and a little hollow, next year i will aim for 'peak season.'

sorting them sunday night was an excellent place to start but i think no one would be harmed if i reiterate—check your produce! i had several with only a single ominous black spot that somehow just didn't sit right with me, when i would cut them open they would be molding. yeech.

along those lines, don't hesitate to cull the uglies. the ones i roasted and sauced i let be a little more dinged up than others, but if i didn't feel right about one or another i tossed it. this is the joy of having chickens, i feel a lot less guilty. there is just no reason to take the time and effort to preserve spoiling vegetables.

the end is in sight but they always say the last mile is the hardest.

¡viva el jardinero!

this morning i read this blog post by Adriana at Anarchy in the Garden.
the timing of it was almost eerie. turns out that while i have been standing over a pan of roasting tomatoes, having some type of garden existential crisis, there has been a "a small skirmish erupt[ing] among garden writers and bloggers on the internet"(www.gardenblogger.com) about ME. well, not me. my generation.

to be perfectly honest, at the end of my first full weekend of tomato duty i was in the kitchen wondering what exactly i was doing. i do not know anyone who happily forsakes their weekend to spend the day and night playing with their own weight in tomatoes. i read the blogs of people who garden, farm, cook and can—i have a handful of friends with their gardens and kitchens. regardless, at that moment i wondered if i was being a little nutty.

i wondered if i was embracing a passion or hiding from an experience. why wasn't i "simultaneously self-absorbed yet philanthropic, craves information and connectedness, but seeks out only self-referential sources, is materialistic, impatient and in search of instant gratification" (www.anarchyinthegarden.com)? and if i'm not—how would my contemporaries relate to me?

and then i stumbled upon Adriana's post and the can of worms it referenced and i thought, i'm not alone. i'm not the generational odd-duck. i putter in my yard, i putter in my kitchen, i experiment with recipes and like to watch the interactions of the plants and animals around me. i'm not a farmer and i am not martha stewart—i'm not a gourmet cook or photography student. i almost wish i was all of the above, but i'm human. i'm my own take on all of it. i'm amatuer. but i'm passionate.

i don't know what that makes me, beside happy.
the appropriate contemporaries will find me

this years lessons

what i would do differently

• plant timely
• crowd my peppers closer together
• trellis my cukes and melons
  
• improve my succession planting
• trim my tomatoes sooner
• kill all the greenery around the beds
• more root and squash crops
• keep the berries watered
• don't skimp on the cilantro
  

things i want to try next year

• trellises
• corn
• tomatillo (more legitimately)
• dry beans (calypso, hutterite, tiger's eye)
• medicinal herb garden

additional thoughts on varietals

tomatoes
black plum tomato still rocks my world, awesome for drying.
ace was red and available, but not much else.
mystery orange tomato was prolific and colorful, but watery and open inside.
juliette cherry tomato was nothing special, next year i'm returning to sungold.
black from tula, late and sparse ripener.
hillbilly potato leaf, beautiful and big. tasty. but sparse, and a favorite of the chickens.

eggplant
(i will confess that eggplant has little flavor to me)
bride was beautiful and prolflic japanese eggplant
lista di guadia was beautiful and did well consider its late start
thai green had an unusual texture to the skin
globe eggplant were intense and reach impressive sizes.

beans
maxibel and yellow wax were both delicious, will plant again
soliel was very sparse producer
green wax grew towards the center of the plant, were often overlooked and therefore tough.

peppers
bulgarian carrot were prolific, colorful and spicy
bell peppers were eaten by rabbits
serranos, spicy as expected
ancho/anaheims were incredibly prolific, i highly recommend
feher ozon, by far my favorite. beautiful color and tasty.

summer '08 reflections

buying seeds for this coming season reminded me that i never properly reflected on last season, so i'll fly through a quick recap.

winners for 2008 included:

• bush delicata, they grew like crazy! of course, having six plants helped.
  
• sungold & black plum tomotoes. now added to my new favorites.
  
• lipstick cayenne peppers and purple jalapenos.
  
• purple podded beans. a prolific as the green ones i bought but way tastier.
  

losers for 2008:

• cucumbers. they got completely blotted out by my peppers and delicata.
  
• beets, spinach, kohlrabi and chard, all totally failed!
  
• eggplant. first couple grew like gangbusters, then everything became stunted.
  
• early girl tomatoes, not early. long keepers, barely grew. green zebras, kept splitting!
  
• quarto di asto peppers, grew one, never ripened, never grew more.
  
• butternut squash and acorn squash, grew maybe four each and lost at least two of those chickens.
  
• melons, never grew larger than a tennis ball.
  
• basil, got swamped by the tomatoes.
  
• peas...were an afterthought and performs as such.
  

everything else performed marginally well. no massive infestations aside from bermuda grass and chickens. i didn't space my carrot planting out enough and i didn't harvest my parsnips before the ground froze. i let the cilantro and dill bolt too early, never planted my potatoes and didn't harvest my beans fast enough.

for this coming year i've avoided what failed, branched out a little and am hoping to learn from my mistakes and follow through on my plans in a timely manner.