I was able to get out to the garden between rain events today and pulled in baskets (plural) of tomatoes (Bonny Best, Besser Cherry and Katinka Cherry), If you have a garden I highly recommend the Besser cherry tomato for next year. They are a larger cherry tomato, has a great taste, and it’s extremely prolific.
The jalapenos are going strong and I harvested about 100 or so. Again, there are 2 or 3 times more smaller peppers left on the plants than the large ones I harvested. All four plants are still blooming so I know I’ve got at least 4 weeks of good harvest left on them. Last year they made it until the first frost.
Brought in the first of the banana peppers of the season and the first of the slicing cucumbers (not pickling cucumbers) also found 8 large bell peppers hiding among the dense foliage of those plants. My daughter and grand daughters were over and we sliced up the cuc’s, banana peppers, and washed off some cherry tomatoes as finger food (using ranch dressing for a dip)
I missed plucking pickling cucumbers and the straight neck squash yesterday so had to trash much of the fruit they had produced. Both are going like gangbusters so will be harvesting again tomorrow (rain or shine).
My Roma tomatoes are just now starting to ripen. I’ve go 20 plants in and each are absolutely loaded with fruit so will be cranking up the canner in about a week to make salsa, tomato sauce, and spaghetti sauces. Cayenne peppers are coming along fine and it will be 2 weeks or so before the first of the fruit are ready to pick and dehydrate.
I should have harvested more basil but completely forgot about it until I went for a snack a short while ago and realized I had used my last jar of pesto. I’m a pesto junky now and so need to get the basil plucked to crank up a few more jars. When the rains end I’ll be harvesting some of the other herbs I’ve put in and getting those put up: Thyme, rosemary, sage, oregano, and parsley. I’ll let the dill go to seed on whatever plants I don’t pull to use for pickling.
Habanero (or however you spell them) are flowering and so a couple of weeks from now they will be ready. What a deceitfully small plant and innocent looking fruit for something that kicks so hard. Best use? Ceviche ! I got hooked on this treat while in Panama and love it. If Wednesday works out the way it’s forecast to, maybe I can use bass to make up a batch.
Y’all enjoy the rest of your weekend and remember, Saturday is only 5 working days away!