A gardening reflection

This has been a pretty difficult year for summer vegetables, except for the beans, even as the Mexican bean beetles (and their larvae) have decimated the leaves.

I've harvested (and we've eaten) more beans than I'd like -- OK, I shouldn't be complaining as they're the essence of local veggies, after all.  I've harvested some squash, and amazingly, the Black Tula tomatoes have been the backbone of what I've roasted and frozen.  They've been decent fresh (similar to Cherokee Purple), but without heat, sweetness hasn't rounded out their flavor profiles, so roasting for sauce is the best use.

The hybrid tomato varieties that I received "free" have languished, too, and are succumbing to late blight now as well.  They look like supermarket tomatoes -- and maybe would have been tasty given sun and warmth (which they didn't receive).

They're "ripening" on the counter as I'm harvesting ahead of late blight fruit damage -- the question is always about whether "green" tomatoes or those that are counter ripe are tasty enough to roast and freeze (my favorite way to preserve tomatoes).

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Tomato harvest

The freezer is starting to fill with roasted tomatoes.  It's a couple of trays each day.  It's maybe not the most energy-efficient way to preserve tomatoes, but they're tasty.  We came through this year with only two small bags remaining from last year's harvest, before the onslaught of this years.

Today's harvest (yikes!)

Check out the really big tomatoes- they're Brandywine

The yellow pineapple tomatoes are incredibly prolific, as are the cherries and plum tomatoes.  The two giant Brandywine tomatoes I harvested today are probably the only ones that the vine will produce.  Impressive, but not productive.

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Squash, beans, eggplant, and tomatoes

There's a steady stream of vegetables coming from the garden now.  They're abundant enough now that I'm trying to get more creative with what I do with them.  (I roasted and froze a couple of trays of tomatoes yesterday).

Mixing the harvest together for a vegetable medley is fine, but tends to be a bit boring after awhile, even with homegrown garlic and basil, so I'm venturing into single vegetable dishes at the moment. 

Keeping the young tromboncino and tatume squash separate from the eggplants is fun, and gives us a sense of what each vegetable is like.  Today's bean harvest will wait for tomorrow (there were some big scarlet runner beans that had been hiding!)

My favorite dinner dish at the moment is fresh tomato, basil, and garlic sauce over pasta.  Doing it in a no-cook manner is delightful and easy, and hard to beat with a variety of fresh tomatoes.  Basically, it's chopped-up fresh tomatoes with chopped up basil leaves, and pressed garlic, with a bit of pepper, then the hot cooked pasta thrown in.  Perfect.

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