After an early morning heavy rainstorm, I went out to the garden to check the veggies. Oh, I had two tomatoes, two cucumbers and a few more peppers last week, so I wasn't expecting much. Voila! I ventured around the back of the garden and found many more tomatoes than I had seen previously, pulled some carrots (small but we did have them for dinner) cut the basil and picked some more of those pretty hot peppers.
When you pick tomatoes choose various stages of ripeness so that you don't end up with more ripe tomatoes than you can use in a given time frame. However, this doesn't always work if you have planted tons of tomatoes. Good luck, I have been there with making every tomato recipe I could find, giving them away to the point where friends and family said they couldn't use anymore!
Keep the basil flowers deadheaded or the plant will go into decline. I cut quite a bit today and I can't use it right away, so it becomes a decorative arrangement plunged into a pitcher of water. It will hold for a couple of days until I can make my pesto recipe. This is a recipe given to me by my daughter-in-law because the children would not eat my pesto but went back for seconds with hers. Mine was the James Beard adult recipe, a little too strong not only for children but for some adults.
1/4 cup of pine nuts
1 large bunch of fresh basil, no stems
1/2 cup of parmesan cheese shredded
1 clove of garlic
1/2 cup of olive oil
Process in blender or food precessor, store in refrigerator or freeze
Yum, I love the smell of basil. It's so good!
ReplyDeleteLook at all of the wonderful goodies you got out of your garden. We only planted a tomato plant for Bobs Fried Green Tomatoes and it has been drowned with rain. Now that it finally slowed down it looks like he may even get a few. ;-)
ReplyDeletemeemsync, we love the basil and tomatoes. Each year we wonder why we plant too many, but it is hard to not try some new ones.
ReplyDeleteEileen
RainGardener, I have such a small space, but I always cram them together. So far they taste pretty good.
ReplyDeleteEileen
Dear Eileen, What bounty from your small vegetable plot. You must be thrilled, well, I know that I would be.
ReplyDeleteIn my view one simply cannot have too many tomatoes. I live on them. My housekeeper in Budapest makes a wonderful Gazpacho which is my staple summer fare. As for fresh basil to accompany the mountain of tomatoes - bliss!!
Edith, I too can eat tomatoes with every meal. They taste so good, I almost forget each year how much they differ from store bought.
ReplyDeleteEileen
Hi Eileen, Oh, how I envy you your tomatoes! I had 18-yes 18! beautiful plants that grew to over 2' tall and then 'simply' because they disliked growing in standing water, they curled up their toes and died. I thought I was so smart, trying to outwit the last five years of drought we've had and made a new veggie garden in a slightly moister location only to have a year of unceasing rain. Oh, well, there's always the local farmer's market.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your bounty, Eileen, it looks delicious!! Karen
Hi Karen, do you think you could put a raised bed in that area, and then the water would drain. My back garden is a very wet one also, but the veggie garden is in a raised bed, and it stays pretty dry even after heavy downpours.
ReplyDeleteEileen
That's a great idea, Eileen! We'll give raised beds a try next year and maybe then we'll get it right! Karen
ReplyDelete