Thursday, November 15, 2012

Garden pics...late in the year, but here they are...

Most of these were new varieties for us.

Indigo Rose tomatoes.  These were sooo good!  Open pollinated and a fairly new variety.
Definitely a keeper!  The skins sort of taste like plum, and the tomato flavor is mild. The longer the skins are exposed to direct sunlight, the darker they become.  Some were jet black!

Indigo Rose Spiced Tomato Jam
I wanted to do something with the tomatoes to save the unique flavor and color.
I made the jam with the skins and all. You would never know this jam was made from tomatoes by the taste, spicy and reminiscent of apple cider.

Fordhook Acorn.  A new heirloom for us this year.  I liked it.  Not prolific, but then it was a tough year.

Charleston Gray watermelon.  We only got the one, but that's plenty of seed for next  year.  It was a great tasting melon.
Moon and Stars watermelons, which did pretty darn good considering there was almost no rain.
The taste was amazing!!
Golden Midget and Royal Golden watermelons, which also did well.
The football shaped melons on the right...the name sounds french and utterly escapes me at the moment...they didn't do too well but there's plenty of seed from those few melons for next year.
The crate on the back left is mostly tomatilloes.  Once you plant those babies, you never have to plant them again. 

O. M. G.  These were the best tasting little things ever!!  Sweet Pea Currant Tomatoes!!
 They are literally the size of peas and have so much tomato flavor you just won't believe it.
They were amazingly prolific, even with the drought, and I can't wait to see how they do in a year with rain.

One of my market displays.  Mrs. Mouse is shopping for, what else, Mouse Melons. lol
Mexican Sour Gherkin cucumbers (also known as Mouse Melons) did well this year.  I even pickled a jar, which were almost too cute to eat. 

Striped Cavern Tomatoes.  These were pretty neat..mostly hollow inside for stuffing or slicing like a bell pepper.

Green Zebra Tomatoes.  Fully ripe, they stay green, but not a hard green. They taste just like a ripe, red tomato.

Another new fave - Sikkim Cucumber.  Easy to tell when they are ready, because they turn this lovely brown color.  The texture is like a crisp, raw potato, but the flavor is mild cucumber.

Cherry tomatoes, leftover from market and prepped for the dehydrator.   I grew Sungold, which were sooo sweet and good (also prolific producers), green grape, green gooseberry, yellow/white heirloom, and a few others.

Dehydrated Ground Cherries (Husk Cherries).  Sweeter than raisins!

I wish I'd taken a pic of the burgundy okra plant.  Gorgeous!!  I can't wait to grow those again next year!

More market displays.

Grow your own eggs!!  Sort of....those on the left are a white eggplant, heirloom variety, that get about egg sized for picking.  Not great producers, though.
The yellow cukes are actually called White Cucumbers, and get this yellow tinge as they grow on the vine. I found the yellow stage actually tastes the best:  mild and sweet.

We were over 7 inches low on rain for the year at the end of the season.  We've gotten so much since then that we are only 2 inches low.  Sure could've used all that rain when I had plants in the ground!  Oh, well.  Next year we'll have irrigation set up first thing, and at least we found which varieties do well no matter what.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Those look so good. I want to eat it all, LOL. Kara would go bonkers over the tomato jelly.