Garden notes
This is mostly for my personal reference, but read on if you like.
Tonight I cooked the first of the white eggplant. It has a dense, bready mouth feel, different from the purple eggplant I've bought in the store or at farmers markets as well as from the purple eggplant I've harvested from our garden. It was disconcerting at first but I think I could grow to appreciate it, and, as Wm says, it could be preferable in some dishes.
Mostly so far I've harvested Little Fingers eggplant, which was the only variety at the farmers market when I was looking for plants early in the season. They're the long kind of eggplant and the plants are prolific as all heck. Definitely one to repeat next year. I'm going to try to plant other varieties early enough next year to get a good harvest and be able to make a better comparison.
WRT tomatoes, I've saved seed from three so far:
Chocolate Cherry: very sweet and tasty cherry tomato.
Jaune Flamme: small (2″ diameter), yellow, tasty.
Stupice: taste is OK, but mostly they're hella early. We got our first one July 4.
I am going to have to assess the other varieties we planted. There's one I definitely don't want to repeat (uninteresting taste and prone to blossom-end rot) but I need to find the tag to see what it is. There's a large one that's a possible repeater.
We have three delicata squash plants and they seem to be producing well, so we will have a squash a week well into the winter, unless we gobble them all up sooner. I forgot to plant spaghetti squash, and the zucchini didn't work out so well this year.
The broccoli I planted in the spring mostly went to blossom and aphid before I harvested it, but I got what I could and put it in an enchilada casserole last night. Casserole is now gone. Today I bought two sets of four broccoli plants at Food Front. One is for fall and one is the overwintering kind. I think it may be a bit late to plant them, but maybe if I assemble a cold frame and get it over them that will help.
The lemon cukes were planted too late and in a crappy location; so far I've harvested four. I put them all in a gazpacho today. The basil was planted near the lemon cukes, and I haven't been able to get more than a few tough leaves at a time. Have to get the crappy brazillion-foot-high hedge on the back side of the yard trimmed before next season. The work our housesitter did on the raspberries and weeds around the back vegetable garden will help as well.
I need to make a planting schedule for next year. I'm thinking that I'll put it on Google Calendar.
Next year is always going to be better, but we did do a couple of things right this year.
Tonight I cooked the first of the white eggplant. It has a dense, bready mouth feel, different from the purple eggplant I've bought in the store or at farmers markets as well as from the purple eggplant I've harvested from our garden. It was disconcerting at first but I think I could grow to appreciate it, and, as Wm says, it could be preferable in some dishes.
Mostly so far I've harvested Little Fingers eggplant, which was the only variety at the farmers market when I was looking for plants early in the season. They're the long kind of eggplant and the plants are prolific as all heck. Definitely one to repeat next year. I'm going to try to plant other varieties early enough next year to get a good harvest and be able to make a better comparison.
WRT tomatoes, I've saved seed from three so far:
Chocolate Cherry: very sweet and tasty cherry tomato.
Jaune Flamme: small (2″ diameter), yellow, tasty.
Stupice: taste is OK, but mostly they're hella early. We got our first one July 4.
I am going to have to assess the other varieties we planted. There's one I definitely don't want to repeat (uninteresting taste and prone to blossom-end rot) but I need to find the tag to see what it is. There's a large one that's a possible repeater.
We have three delicata squash plants and they seem to be producing well, so we will have a squash a week well into the winter, unless we gobble them all up sooner. I forgot to plant spaghetti squash, and the zucchini didn't work out so well this year.
The broccoli I planted in the spring mostly went to blossom and aphid before I harvested it, but I got what I could and put it in an enchilada casserole last night. Casserole is now gone. Today I bought two sets of four broccoli plants at Food Front. One is for fall and one is the overwintering kind. I think it may be a bit late to plant them, but maybe if I assemble a cold frame and get it over them that will help.
The lemon cukes were planted too late and in a crappy location; so far I've harvested four. I put them all in a gazpacho today. The basil was planted near the lemon cukes, and I haven't been able to get more than a few tough leaves at a time. Have to get the crappy brazillion-foot-high hedge on the back side of the yard trimmed before next season. The work our housesitter did on the raspberries and weeds around the back vegetable garden will help as well.
I need to make a planting schedule for next year. I'm thinking that I'll put it on Google Calendar.
Next year is always going to be better, but we did do a couple of things right this year.