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Showing posts with the label vegetables

Greenstalk Update and Fruits - Early July 2023

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Number four on my 2023 to-do list was to 'get (more) serious with vegetables'.   And, despite not really posting about it, I think we've (sort-of) done that - by planting up a Greenstalk vertical container garden.  This Spring, I filled it out with a mix of herbs and vegetables (fruits) and we're seeing some of them set fruit right now.  We harvested these strawberries from the Greenstalk .  Below are a few signs of the tomatoes that we planted in the bottom row of the Greenstalk - the Red Robin dwarf plant from the Morton Sale and both a Rutgers Heirloom and a Roma Paste from the orange big box store.  What was the reason for these three?  They're all DETERMINATE tomatoes.   Which means...they grow to a specific size and stop.  Other, vining tomatoes can just.keep,growing.  Since this is a container-situation, I figured determinate varieties were the right choice.   Also, these are tomatoes that are known to be slicers/eaters/canners.  What kind of growth are we

Living With The Land - At Home - Hydroponic Exploration - February 2023

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It is well established (in our house) that the best (or at least...my favorite) attraction in the entire Vacation Kingdom is in Epcot called Living with the Land .  What's that?   You haven't been on it? Well...let me tell you about it.  Or...actually...let ChatGPT tell you about it.  I asked her this: Can you describe the attraction at Disney's Epcot center that is called Living with the Land? Why would someone call it their favorite ride at disney? Here's what she said: Living with the Land is a slow-moving boat ride attraction located in the Land Pavilion at Epcot Center in Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. The ride takes guests on a journey through various indoor and outdoor agricultural environments, showcasing different methods of sustainable farming and food production. During the ride, guests can observe a variety of farming techniques, including hydroponics, aquaculture, and integrated pest management. There are also several dioramas that show different ecos

Red Robin Cherry Tomatoes - July 2022

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Yesterday, I posted some photos of our (very productive) bell pepper plant:  a King Arthur Sweet Bell Pepper variety .   I mentioned that we grew a tomato vine last year and it spilled over/out of our patio raised bed.   This year, at the Morton Arboretum Plant Sale, my Mom showed me a new (to me) idea:  a miniature tomato plant.   This is the Red Robin Cherry Tomato .  And, in the photo below, you can see how has thrown off a ton of small, cherry tomatoes: Here, below, is the tag from the plant: Park Seeds has a nice listing for it here .  This is a bush tomato.  There's no vine.  It grew a small bush and is fruiting all over the place.  It seems that this one is a quick-grower and will put all the tomatoes up at once.   Ever want a true 'container tomato'?  This Red Robin has worked really well for us.  Just like the King Arthur Sweet Bell Pepper , this feels like a re-buy next year.  

King Arthur Bell Peppers - July 2022

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Nat and I often reminisce about what we 'used to have' when it comes to vegetable gardening.  Back in Elmhurst, we had good-sized, enclosed raised bed vegetable garden.  When we moved, we inherited a yard that has A LOT of shade and despite trying both in-ground and a (small) raised bed garden, we've had limited success with vegetables.  I posted much the same story here back in 2018 when I lamented that we grew just ONE tomato .    But, things changed a little last year when we moved our raised bed from out in the garden to our patio - where we DO, indeed, get overhead full sun during the middle of the day.  That meant that last year (2021), we grew tomatoes ( an indeterminate variety ) that produced small fruits that we ate most of the Summer.  It was a little bit of an out-of-control vine and it spilled out of our bed and down into the lawn.   This year, we decided to grow a few things.  I'll post about the tomatoes on another day.  Today, I'm talking about bell

Thanks for the Carrot Paw, Trader Joes!

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Inside of a bag of baby carrots from our dear friends at Trader Joes was this weird carrot paw.  The kids got a kick out of it and you can see that we kept it on the counter for a few days admiring it while it dried out.  This seems to certainly count as a novelty in the baby carrot game, right? We aren't in the "imperfect produce" world , but I would think this might not have made it past their folks?

Our One And Only Tomato - Mortgage Lifter 2018

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What has happened to my green thumb?  I mean, c'mon!  We used to have a huge, lush vegetable garden that threw off more produce than we could consume.  Here's a few exhibits:  2012 version . More 2012 .    Potatoes in 2013 .  Rapunzel Tomatoes in 2015 .  And even carrots . The past few years?  We've had no garden.  None.  Zero.point.zero. We've tried container gardening.  It isn't working out, folks.  This year, I planted just one tomato plant:  a Mortgage Lifter .  And see that small tomato on the top of this post?  That's it.  One measly Mortgage Lifter ripened on the vine this year.  Nat is fed up with my lack of production, too!  She recently mentioned that she, too, is pining for the *literal* salad days of yore when we had home-grown produce.  I posted a photo of an raised-bed enclosure that is my inspiration for a Spring project .  There's a lot to do - including the patio expansion, pizza oven construction, landscape plan fulfillment.

Two Fingerling Potato Varieties Planted - 2018

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This year, I planted two different varieties of fingerling potatoes in containers - the Magic Molly I (above) and Pinto Gold I (below).  These are very similar to the two that I planted back in 2016 .  Last year, with the move and all, I didn't plant any spuds.  I chose to put these into a series of containers because we don't have a garden set up yet.    I took the seed potatoes, cut them up into segments with at least one eye each, then after waiting for the cuts to heal/dry, I planted them in some larger containers that our shrubs/trees had come in.  Fast forward to today and look at the growth coming out of the top of the soil.  I planted these low and kept the soil level down because I wanted to 'hill up' new soil on top of this growth .  These are the purple Magic Molly's based on their purplish foliage.  On top of this new growth, I added a few inches of top soil.  Then, when they grow more, I'll add a little more until I reach the top of th

Mortgage Lifter Tomato - Planted in Container - 2018

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I've been thinking about the placement and location of our vegetable garden, but as is often the case, life got in the way of actually building something.  So, I'm back to using my old stand-alone tomato cage containers again this year.  They're self-watering from Gardener's Supply Company and I've had decent luck with them since we moved out of our first house in Elmhurst.  The first tomato that I've added is this Mortgage Lifter Heirloom variety.  I've posted about this same variety back in 2015 that I bought from Angelo Caputo's , but I didn't ever follow-up with posts showing the fruit. 

Revisiting The New, Ideal Raised Bed Design

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Back last summer, I posted this photo of a set of raised beds that I thought were particularly well designed .  Since then, I've been thinking about what it would take to pull them off and I recently came across this image - which based on the watermark is from the Family Handyman , but I found on some weird, scraped site.  I went and found the original article - which you can read here .  There's a self-watering component at play here that utilizes a perforated drain pipe and a pond liner that I'm not sure is something that I want to get into/deal with.  But, rest of the design seems to indicate the direction that the construction can take.  There are a few changes that I'm going to make - starting with using 2x4's for the 'legs' as well as the cross members.  Right now, I'm thinking that notching the legs to accept the cross member is the right approach.  I also want to make these much taller than they're showing, but with a similar 'fal

Spare Cedar Stock For Raised Beds

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I have had this load of cedar boards and planks of various lengths and widths in my garage for almost two months just waiting for either me hauling them to the curb (my inclination) or for inspiration to strike for a new project.   They're leftovers from our fence installation and include some 2x4's a few 4x4's and some fence pickets/planks.   With all the thinking going into our #newoldbackyard this fall (see this post about pizza oven planning , this post for 'entrance' planning , and this post about the planning for a water feature for some of the latest on #newoldbackyard landscape design), I've been out there looking at how the sun interacts with the yard to see if I could find the best spot for a permanent vegetable garden and maybe even a greenhouse/conservatory/solarium.  In addition to the pure location planning, we've been thinking of putting in a full irrigation system, so knowing where and what the garden looks like/lays out like is import

Indigo Rose Tomatoes Ripening - 2016

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 We started the year with two tomato plants in elevated planters on the driveway.  After going away for a while (5+ weeks!), we lost one of them to something (blight, maybe??) but the other one is throwing off fruit that is starting to ripen.  These are the Indigo Rose variety that I've tried in years past .  The critters have gotten to a bunch of the under-ripe fruits, but you can see we have a bunch of them coming in very soon. The Chocolate Sprinkles cherry variety was the plant that we lost , so we won't be getting any of those this year.  Sad face. In years' past, I've grown up to ten different tomato plants and with our move this year, things have been different, but I think having two was a good starting point.  We also are growing a few containers of fingerling potatoes, which we're waiting to see how they did.  Next summer, we'll still (likely) be in a place of transition, so our garden may NOT be growing just yet.  But, the future?  I can see a g

Potato Tuber Flowers

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We've grown potatoes over the years, but I don't recall any of them blooming like the ones we are growing this year where they have big, white flowers.  I believe that these flowers are coming off just one of the two varieties - the purple ones called Magic Mollies - that we planted this year.   See this post to see them both . The girls are excited to see the tubers throw up their shoots and now flower and The Babe learned all about the structure of flowers in Kindergarten, so she was happily pointing out the stamen and such to me all last night.  

Volunteer Lettuce

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That right there is a tiny lettuce plant growing in a crack in the asphalt on the driveway.  It is the same variety that my sister Vic tells me that she planted last year in her raised bed garden.  I took this photo and sent it to her and asked her if it looked familiar and she said 'yes!', it was the same variety. Thus...it appears that we have some Volunteer Lettuce, folks! What's Volunteer Lettuce?  It's a bonus plant.   From Wikipedia in the Botany section : In gardening and agronomic terminology, a volunteer is a plant that grows on its own, rather than being deliberately planted by a farmer or gardener. Volunteers often grow from seeds that float in on the wind, are dropped by birds, or are inadvertently mixed into compost. Unlike weeds, which are unwanted plants, a volunteer may be encouraged by gardeners once it appears, being watered, fertilized, or otherwise cared for. The action of such plants – to sprout or grow in this fashion – may also be describe

Chocolate Sprinkles Cherry Tomato

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We have two containers on the driveway that we're planting tomatoes in this year - instead of the usual raised bed garden that we had at our old place - and this is one of the varieties:  Chocolate Sprinkles Hybrid Cherry Tomato.   An heirloom, this isn't.   We picked them up at the Home Depot on North Avenue and let the girls pick out their own plants.  One of them picked these.  Guessing it was the name.   From the Bonnie site , it says this is new for 2016: This cherry tomato has it all: good looks, great flavor, heavy yields, and disease resistance. Bite-sized, cherry-type fruits are beautifully colored — red striped with dark green — that explode with rich, robust flavor. This highly productive plant forms its fruit in clusters, and starts bearing early in the season. We'll report back on the harvest through the season, but I'm hoping that they'll survive the driveway conditions.

Tomato Rapunzel On The Vine

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Back in May, I posted about this variety of tomatoes called "Rapunzel" based on how they cascade down the vine .  That photo above was taken this week when I grabbed a few cuts of the vine. Interestingly, this is the first tomato that I cut off the vine in bunches.  Normally....we pick them right from the stems and they fall into our hands.  But these things?  They're way too cool to not pick and 'show' on the vine, right? I'd buy these again - when I have a garden again.  ( Womp, womp. )

Indigo Rose Tomatoes Coming In - 2015

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One of the varieties that I planted this year (that I've never tried before) is this Indigo Rose.   I posted about it back in May when I put them in the ground .  The first fruits are starting to be produced it it shouldn't be long before they're harvestable.   The bottoms have to turn from green to red, but the tops are looking a beautiful purple!

Giving Serranos A Try (Giardiniera, Anyone?)

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In lieu of the typical under-performing bell peppers that I plant in the garden, this year, I picked up a Serrano hot pepper plant from Bonnie Plants at the ole' Home Depot.  As you can see from the photo, serranos are described as: 'Hot, pungent, candle-shaped fruits.  Top choice for making pico de gallo.  Very productive." While that's well and good, I'm only interested in them for one reason: The possibility of making my own giardiniera . I've tried making it in the past and most recipes call for fresh vegetables/peppers including serranos, but the output wasn't quite right.  Comparing those results (which included bright colors) with the typical store-bought jar of giardiniera (which has far more muted colors) was a disappointment.  It seems that the professional-made stuff pickles their peppers before putting them in the jar with oil? Just compare how the 'homemade' version looks in this photo compared to what the stuff in the jar looks

Giving San Marzanos Another Try

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Back in 2011, I went on a plum tomato binge.  I think I grew like six or seven varieties of plum tomatoes including a plant or two of these San Marzanos . Because of where they sit in the pizza universe, there's a draw to these that is unnatural for me, I think.  I actually don't eat a lot of tomatoes if I can avoid them.  I do, however, eat a lot of 'sauces and pureees'.  On pizzas. On sandwiches.  On noodles of all sorts.   I also haven't canned anything in a few years.  The effort just never yielded a lot of upside for me. But, after seeing these Bonnie Plants heirloom variety sitting on the shelf of Home Depot over the weekend, I just.simply.couldn't.resist.  Into the cart they went.  Along with some other things that will cause me agita all summer long.  But, that's for another day.

Apricot Dream Tomato - 11.5 on Brix Scale

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Lots of tomato talk around these parts lately, eh?  'Tis the season, I guess.  This is the last of the tomato posts for a bit (until I get them into the ground), but is an important one.  Above is the Apricot Dream Tomato - a orangish cherry tomato. The most important thing about these is buried in the description on the back: The ridiculously huge trusses each have 20-30 oblong cherry sized tomatoes that are super sweet with a Brix rating of 11.5 giving them a candy like sweetness .   Emphasis, mine. I think there are a few missing hyphens in that line, but that's not the point.  The fact that these are an 11.5 on the Brix scale *is* the point. If you follow tomatoes, you'll know that 11.5 is a rare score.   This post talks about the ranges for tomatoes (usually you eat ones that are 6-10's ).  The girls eat cherry tomatoes off the vines each summer and I am guessing if this variety comes in, I'll know their favorite ones:  these sweet Apricot Dreams

This Year's Mr. Stripey - 2015

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I have a long history here on the blog talking about Mr. Stripey tomato plants.  Back in 2010, I posted a photo of one of the huge fruits next to a little baby pacifier .  And two years later, I was contacted by a small Quaker school in Minnesota who wanted to use the photo for their plant sale .  This year, we'll be growing this Bonnie Plants variety from Home Depot.   I grow them almost every year and they're just about the easiest tomato to give away/gift to people.   Be it family or neighbors or just putting them out on a table in the front of the house.  They're always pretty to look at and have a slightly exotic feel to them with the yellow/pink/red stripes.  My sister usually comes a looking later in the summer for some of them when she's having a party and wants to make a caprese salad.   They're stunners for that when you slice 'em open.  A bit watery, but you forgive that when the color pops so much.