Penultimate Harvest

A frost warning sent me out to my community garden plot yesterday to gather all the green tomatoes that were never going to get ripe. I picked a heavy bagful of tomatoes, a few from my Butter Bush, a lot from the Rutgers, plus four more huge tomatoes from a volunteer tomato plant in my […]

I grew some food!

Because of all the rain, it’s been about a week since I visited my community garden plot. I was startled by all the changes.

Not enough thyme for Brown Rice and Ratatouille?

I haven’t cooked a proper meal in more than a week! No wonder I’ve been feeling cranky. We’re still hitting up the farmers markets, though, so it was high time to cook up the inventory on hand. I pulled out everything that looked good, and by the time I had it all lined up, I […]

Why farmers markets are dangerous

You might be enchanted by something you’ve never seen before, like these darling egg-shaped, green-striped eggplants. She told me they were Brazilian eggplants, which appears to also be called jiló. But the pictures that I find show a solid green. These are striped, like Thai eggplant. They’re almost as pretty as these. So what do […]

Fruits of Summer

Warm, sunny days mean ripening fruits. Today I picked my first BIG tomato, a Ramapo tomato that I bought at Mahoney’s this year. Supposedly it’s the original “New Jersey” tomato. It’s an heirloom in the sense that it’s an old variety, but not an heirloom in the sense of seeds gardeners can save. Since it’s […]

The young in the ruin of the old

Light frost is coming over night lately, just enough to finish off the eggplants, which haven’t been looking too hot in the first place.The flowering tobacco at its feet is holding up, for no good reason. I had no idea it was so hardy. There it is, still flowering with the sweet alyssum, next to […]

The now and future eggplants

Why, yes, that photo is totally posed. I’m easily amused, by such small things as laying purple eggplants next to pink flowering tobacco, so the nightshades can congratulate each other on escaping the evil Late Blight of ’09. And (hastily crossing fingers) the tomatoes are still doing well, thank goodness.

Eggplant Weather

It’s hot. It’s sticky. It’s hot. That’s what I’ll be thinking when I finally get to cook this eggplant.

More fruit for squirrels to wish they could steal

Never mind the late lamented peaches. More flowers are coming, promising more fruits. The raspberries are still going steadily, and the eggplants are just beginning to flower. Since raspberries have thorns and raw eggplant is bitter, I just might get to eat some of these.

Optimistic Tomatoes

If you need a little optimism in your life, grow tomatoes. (Besides, we might all be growing victory gardens next year.) They will keep flowering no matter what, until the first hard frost. Look at this! It’s after Columbus Day, and it’s still hoping. Too bad. I pinched the flower off so the plant will […]