Creeping construction

Our tomatoes are still ripening on the vine, but construction looms. I fear we have just a day or two left to harvest our remaining fruit!

Winding down

On such a hot day, one could almost forget that fall is on its way and growing season will soon come to its end. We harvested six big heirlooms and four nice sized eggplants today. And the cherries - we're up to our ears, not that I'm complaining.
I feel lucky that our plants are still delivering. After all, due to a construction project at our building, our terrace was supposed to be cleared two weeks ago. But, one thing you can count on with construction is delays. So, we've delayed knocking off our plants. Boy, has it been worth it. Even though the leaves are turning yellow and brown and we've pinched off every new flower to bring the energy into the tomatoes already on the vines, we're still getting great fruit. The eggplants are having a second wind too--I've counted at least 10 new ones growing. We've been eating plenty of Caprese salads, making fresh sauce and ratatouille, and roasting peppers. I just read that freezing whole tomatoes is a great way to preserve them for cooking - the skin peels right off when they're defrosted, so we'll definitely do that too.
Sadly, the construction crew is on the march, they're putting up winches and preparing to scaffold the building. But if we get another two weeks, we should see most everything on the vines ripen. I'm crossing my fingers!

Traveling tomatoes!

This weekend we visited my Aunt Joan (yes the one with the recipes!) and brought our tomatoes with us. Joan just loves a good tomato and she was thrilled with our harvest - red, green and yellow peppers, an eggplant, plenty of heirlooms and a bucket full of cherry tomatoes.
So, of course, she made up a caprese plate right away, with fresh mozarella and basil from her own plant, salt, pepper, olive oil - perfecto.
Later that weekend she made her fresh tomato sauce and her yummy roasted peppers.
Along with all the good eatin' we got to go to the beautiful Hamptons beaches. What a weekend! Even Tropical Storm Hannah couldn't spoil it.

More dinners, hanging onto those vines

So, we've staved off sudden death for another week, i.e., the construction on our terrace has yet to start and we're keeping our tomato and veggie plants alives as long as we can. We were expected to have our terrace cleared by August 29th,(read earlier post), but as Labor Day comes to a close, we've still got'em growing! And they're still producing wonderful fruit.
Here's a shout out to our good friend Valerie Smaldone (yes, another Valerie) who came for dinner last Tues with our good friend (and her boyfriend) Rick. She wrote all about our caprese salad, heirloom tomato platter and fresh tomato sauce (sugo)on her blog for the Italian American Network (who knew??) - so maybe our tomato tastings will become famous! Check it out at http://www.italianamericannetwork.com/blog/
And of course, we had to have my cousin Ken and his new fiance Sisi over(top.) She is Italian Italian - from Padua - and even she was impressed with our harvest!
Sadly, Mitch had to uproot the pretty impatience and other flowers today so we can move the planters up to the roof on Wednesday. I harvested the peppermint, oregano and basil and hung bunches of each on the curtain rod to dry. But the tomatoes, they're still growing strong. We've read that clipping all the new flowers and the tiniest greenies helps the larger fruit grow quicker, so we've been doing that in hopes that as many of them as possible can ripen before we have to cut the vines down...I'll keep ya posted!

Big Red

This Cherokee Chocolate tomato weighs in at 1.5 lbs! Wow!

Garden feast

Our friends Catherine and John came over for a dinner on a glorious Saturday evening and we prepared a meal almost exclusively from our garden! Okay, we didn't make the pasta or the mozzarella, but we grew just about everything else.
We started with a champagne toast to the newly engaged couple.
And quickly moved on to a caprese salad made with our ripe Cherokee Chocolate heirlooms, fresh mozzarella topped off with our basil and a drizzle of olive oil we brought back from a trip to Tuscany.
For the main course, we served tortellini with our cherry tomatoes and mixed with fresh pesto made from our basil. On the side we had roasted peppers and roasted eggplant with fresh rosemary, also from our garden. A couple of bottles of white wine complemented the meal and we had chocolate chip cookies (we bought them) for desert.

The News Could Not Be Worse!!!!!!

Okay, I haven't been shot, no one died and I've not been diagnosed with an incurable disease. That's the good news.
The bad news? We're losing our garden - that's right - the whole thing. We must kill off all of our plants by August 29th - yes, our seven beautiful tomato plants, our five bell peppers, our two Japanese eggplants and our herb garden - the peppermint and basil, the rosemary and thyme - all of it. August 29th, that's the day that workers will begin resurfacing the facade of our building.
Now, we didn't know that this work was going to take place until a few weeks ago, when we received notice that our maintenance was going up, WAY UP, for a year.
Earlier this week, we saw scaffolding going up on the street level. I was surprised to see this happening so soon. Then today, August 15, we received a letter from our building manager, informing us that our terrace must be cleared by, well you know when.
So, this is a sad situation. The tomatoes, which as anyone reading my blog knows, have been late bloomers this year and are just beginning to turn. The plants are as healthy and strong as they have ever been and I was sure we'd be getting tomatoes right through the October. Now, all we can do it hope the ones that are large enough will ripen in the next couple of weeks.
We'll be cutting back the new growth and any little greenies that can't possibly make it to fully ripened fruit.
It just seems wrong. I just wish I'd gone to that damn tenants meeting in the spring so I would have known ahead of time. Maybe we'd have planted super tomatoes that grow at lightening speed and ripen on command.
Okay, so that's it. I can only hope the rain lets up, we get some good hot sun and what's on the vine turns red and luscious by August 29th...

Better late than never

On Friday night we tasted the first fruits of our tomato labor - the cherries. Mmmm -delicious. They were sweet and the skin wasn't tough like last year's crop. Partly we attribute that to the automatic watering system that keeps the plants moist throughout the day.
So, the long wait for the tomato crop is coming to an end. I see the Donna's ripening and the Charlie's Greens turning a deeper shade. The other heirlooms are holding out, but the signs are good that we'll have Brandywines and Cherokee Chocolates in a couple of weeks!
There's no doubt that the fruit has been slow to ripen this year. And we battled some blossom end rot, so we had to snip off some of the early fruit and sprinkle Hoffman Tomato Food 5-10-10, a phosphorus rich blend of fertilizer, on the soil. But overall, we could have the best crop ever! The plants are as healthy as I've ever seen them. They're already towering over my head! If the weather stays good, looks like we'll have tomatoes through at least October. (Last year a few of the plants were still producing in December!)
Can't wait to make our first Caprese salad. And find some new recipes!

The waiting is the hardest part

The plants are looking so good right now, healthy, with tons of flowers and little tiny globes that will turn into big red tomatoes or nice red and yellow peppers. But we have to wait. Weeks. That's tough.
Take this weekend for example. We're going to visit my Aunt Joan on Long Island. She just loves tomatoes (I have posted one of her recipes in fact.) The watering system is all set, so we don't have to worry about our little plant babies (this is our first trip with the system in place, let's hope it works.) But all we can bring to Aunt Joan is a few Japanese eggplants. The eggplants are producing prolifically, which I appreciately hugely - we've already tried them in a stirfry and they taste delicious.) The Japanese variety is a huge improvement over last year's black beauties - the kind found in supermarkets. They were small and bitter. And a bigger leap over the white organics we tried to grow two years ago.
But nothing beats the home grown tomato for impressing dinner guests or bringing along when visiting. Our heirlooms inspire cries of joy, stares of disbelief and rounds of applause. Friends rarely refuse dinner invitations when our fresh tomatoes are on the menu.
So, we'll wait. And we'll hope that a random thunder storm doesn't whack off too many branches; hope we can ward off leaf blights and bug infestations; hope that this crop is a banner one.
And eventually, in just a few weeks I imagine, we'll get to pull our first tomato off the vine and slice it up. Now that's something to look forward to!

I spy with my little eye - a tiny green tomato

It's been too long since I've posted, but lots has been going on in my garden! First of all, we finally got hot weather and sun (I know, not this weekend) and the plants are taking off! We've got tiny tomatoes on our cherry and our Charlie's Green tomato plants. Our Japanese eggplants are growing like crazy and the pepper plants are busting out. The basil is big and bushy and our mint is growing strong too. The parsley isn't as healthy as I'd like it to be, but I did some pruning today (for our salad) so that might help it get moving.
We also finally got our drip irrigation system in place, so when we get out of town on the weekend, our veggies will be hydrated. No more calling on friends to babysit...
The system works with a timer, a plastic tube that attaches to the outdoor faucet,a bunch of feeder tubes and the adjustable drippers that are inserted into the soil. We got all the parts at The Drip Store, at dripirrigation.com. (Respond to this post if you want details on our order! I'll be happy to help you get set up...)
Now comes the hard part, waiting for the veggies to ripen -- August feels like a long way off! And of course, hoping the plants stay healthy. This year, I'm feeding them Miracle Grow tomato food every week or so to avoid blossom end rot and the other leafy diseases we've been plagued with in past summers, partly due to a lack of soil PH balance. I hope the Miracle Grow will do the trick.