Extending the Summer Garden at 32 Degrees

Skin removed, diced and ready to simmer for 30 minutes.

Ready to cool and freeze.  During the winter, this effort pays off by adding a taste of summer to cooking long after the season's end.

Diced, Sliced, Spiced...How Do You Do Your Garden Tomatoes?

 How do you prepare your garden tomatoes?  These are being prepped for tomato soup.  Tonight dinner was BLTs.  There is just no bad recipe if you include homegrown tomatoes. Here's a look back at tomato prep for tomato sauce with recipe.

No Rotten Tomatoes Here!

Surprise from the Garden: this season's first ripe tomato.

Okay, it's a small pear tomato but it will be enjoyed as much as a two-pound beefmaster.

Glad I ventured into the garden early spring.  These are the earliest tomatoes I have grown in years.

Here's the beefmaster...small now, but given time this little tomato will rock the scales.

Lovely cascade of developing tomatoes.

Totally Tomatoes

Dear Self in the Spring of 2013:

Do not repeat your actions of 2012 and put off getting your warm weather garden planted on time.  Remember how disappointed you were when you were getting your first round of ripe tomatoes in the last week of August.

With kindest regards,
California Gardener in Zone 23, 2012

There, that should take care of the chance I make that mistake again. 

Finally, I have a harvest of tomatoes perched on the edge of ripeness.  Two days ago, the tomatoes were the color of an orange red Crayola.  After a weekend spent on the vine, hopes are high for perfectly red ripe tomatoes. 

Growing Tomatoes in a Bag of Potting Soil

Growing tomatoes in a bag of potting soil is an easy way to capture a little more growing room for your vegetable garden.  I've purchased a bag of top quality organic potting soil and created a little extra harvest capabilities.  Wanting to keep the garden looking pleasant, I sewed a little burlap cozy for the bag of potting soil and poked drainage holes in the bottom before setting in place. With a slash and fold under a planting area is created on top.  Finish with a tomato cage and the stage is set for a harvest of heirloom cherry tomatoes.  (I plopped two small lettuce plants to see if I could get some lettuce before the tomato plant grows too large.)

The garden is on a drip system, so I will set up a drip into the bag and it should be one happy plant.

Tomato Sauce Redux

Between the Italian Heirloom, Champion, San Francisco Fog tomato plants, I had 56 ounces of tomatoes from Tuesday and Wednesday's harvest.  Time to make my favorite tomato sauce.

The two large tomatoes (Mr. Stripey and Beefmaster) were excluded from the sauce for use on sandwiches.

(Recipe from Simply Classic--The Junion League of Seattle)

Ratatouille--The Perfect Harvest Recipe

As the garden produces, we are often overwhelmed by the variety and struggle with how to use everything on a timely basis. Ratatouille is a wonderful dish which incorporates many warm season vegetables--tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, and eggplant.

This morning with about a pound of each of these veggies on hand, I went to the kitchen to create this wonderful, comforting dish.

I followed the recipe for Classic Ratatouille Recipe from the web site Easy French Food.  My adjustment would be to cube the eggplant.  Also, I would cook for less time, perhaps twenty minutes to keep the integrity of the vegetables in this dish intact.

Saute each item for five minutes 

Eggplant

Zucchini

Onion

 Add tomatoes to the sauteed onions.  Then the rest of the cooked vegetables.

Add tomatoes to the sauteed onion.

Cook for twenty to thirty minutes.

 Ready to eat.

Eggplant and Heirloom Italian Tomatoes---What can I make for dinner?

Ratatouille anyone?

Seriously, this eggplant can damage the fingers!

Ratatouille!  These two are the first of some very basic ingredients in this delicious French inspired dish.  I have two zucchini in the frig!  It's a plan. 

Tomato Plant--Leverage your Garden Dollars

I purchased a 1-gallon tomato plant yesterday to fill in the area where my snap peas were. 

When planting tomato plants, you can go deep in the hole to give the plant extra roots as tomato plants will send roots out of the stalk if covered in soil.  When you do this, you want to remove any leaves from the area which will be in the dirt and even the ones in the near vicinity of the top of the soil.

There are often strong, viable leafs which are excellent candidate for creating another tomato plant.  I brought one of these leaves in the house and placed it in a vase filled with water.  Once the roots grow, I will plant it in the gallon container with good potting soil and water until it gets established.  Then its into the garden and I have a great plant at no additional cost.   :)

Breaking News from My California Garden--Tomato Sighting

April 19 at 7 p.m. PDT, in the California garden in zone 23, there has been a sighting of two (!) developing tomatoes.  These heirloom tomatoes are called San Francisco Fog.  They like cool nights and warm days like those found in coastal areas.  The weather has been ideal for them this spring and their ability to set fruit in this climate hasn't disappointed.  The round, red fruit doesn't get too large (two to three inches) but grows in clusters. ( Looks like I have a cluster of one in each location!)

Your California Garden--Ready, Set, Plant Your Summer Garden

Yellow Tomatoes

Pole Beans

Eggplant

By now the seasoned gardener has poured over seed catalogs all winter and is ready to plant their summer garden (March to September).  Winter revelry will turn into baskets of late summer harvest.

For the newbie, you may have a little anxiety over your first garden and what vegetables will be grown.  Farmscape has put together a wonderful guide for school gardens (summer crop catalog) they help design, but it can easily be applied to the home gardener.  Their plan is for a 4' x 12'  garden and insures a balanced harvest.

The plan includes beans, cucumbers, eggplants, herbs, melon, peppers, squashes and tomatoes.

Farmscape will help you build and maintain your home garden or school in the Los Angeles area if you aren't able to manage your own home garden.

Tomatoes Grown at Home

Ripe Tomatoes
More on the Way
Finally. The first tomatoes of the season grown entirely in my garden. I cheated a bit with an earlier plant which had quite a few green tomatoes on the vine when I purchased it. It never felt right to enjoy those tomatoes. Now, I have had the thrill of picking tomatoes grown entirely in my garden. Lunch today: BLT!

Caution: Tomatoes at Work

Under the canopy of green aromatic leaves, my tomato plants are busy manufacturing gorgeous tomatoes. This variety will be yellow when mature.

Tips on Cultivating Additional Tomato Plants

This is a little trick I discovered a few years ago which results in additional tomato plants at no cost to you. When you pinch a large sucker from the crotch of a tomato plant, stick the sucker into the dirt. I try to use the shade of the parent plant to protect the new start as it establishes roots. I make sure to provide plenty of "drinks" for the first few days. Before you know it, you have a new plant which will provide you a plant to share with a friend, or more tomatoes for you.

You can see the small sucker planted in front of the parent plant. In a few more days, I will transplant the small plant to an area which will allow the plant to have it's own space--sunlight and water.

First Plants in on the First Day of Summer

After three days of two to three hour shifts of sifting rocks and debris out of my veggie garden (See photo at bottom of page), I planted tomatoes, green peppers and herbs. I feel great getting these in the ground. The weather is extremely hot and the plants were not so happy sitting on the potting bench.

I've planted some Big Boys, Big Beef, Golden Boy, and Yellow Pear tomatoes. I also planted English Thyme, Thai Basil, Chives, Sweet Basil, and Tri-color Sage. This section is the skinnier section. It gets sun most of the day with shade creeping in around 3 p.m. I will have to wait to plant the other section because there is still some work to be done. I'm planning on pole beans, cucumbers, zukes, and perhaps an eggplant or two.


The bag is also filled with rocks.