Harvest August 25

This week's harvest is very basic - tomatoes, potatoes, onions for cooking meals,  peppers and squash.

 

And this is the last harvest from the community garden for this year for me - it's been a good year so far with many tomatoes, squashes, few beans, cucumbers and peppers. But I won't be returning to plant there next year.

Join Daphne's weekly overview of the harvest in her and see many other gardens.

Harvest August 18

Harvest this week has been very small outside of tomatoes. Few banana peppers, two pickings of small onions for cooking, first ear of corn to see if it's any good, two tiny cucumbers and tomatoes - some went to salads, some into sauces and a large quantity given away at work and to the community kitchen.

How's your garden doing this week? Visit Daphne's page and to see others and share your harvest.

Saturday spotlight - more tomato varieties and saving seeds

Today I'm joining Our Happy Acres and Liz at Suburban Tomato for spotlight - more tomato varieties. Here are some examples of tomatoes that I plan on keeping for next year:

• Kellogs Breakfast and Black Brandywine - KB is good in salad, has consistency of a beefsteak but not as acidic as red varieties.  It doesn't last as long as others but I think I'll keep it.
• Black Brandywine - one of my absolute favorites! Intense deep flavor, great in salads and on sandwich this one is definitely a keeper! Not very big this year but good producer.

• Ox Heart - huge fruit, very few seeds, great in sauce or in salsa, very dense and meaty.
• Bulls Heart - varied in size, but the same principle as Ox Heart - large, meaty and great for cooking or eating raw. Very few seeds. Though wish both varieties had more fruit on the vine.

• Pineapple - sweet and fruity taste, average size but very bad when it comes to cracking due to the weather conditions. Not going to plant next year as most had to be tossed out from bugs inside the fruit by the time they were ripe.
• Amish Paste - Pretty good size for a paste tomato. Holds better than plum and did not get BER like San Marzano always does.

• Red Zebra - great tomato for salads, good flavor and holds very well after picking. Definitely planting it again.
• Paul Robeson - almost on-par for Black Brandywine - very good for eating, smoky, complex flavor. great in salads or on sandwiches or for sauces.

Cherokee Purple - Great tasting but horribly cracks when water supply is uneven or when it gets too hot (like it's been this year). Did not produce many tomatoes this year.

To find other great varieties, visit Suburban Tomato where Liz hosts the Saturday Spotlight series.

note: Also if you want to save seeds from any varieties that you grow and you know they are heirlooms you can do it very easily - I used egg carton. Take out the seeds from very ripe tomatoes and label each so you know what's what and let them sit "fermenting" until seeds separate from mushy membrane. Take them out and dry out and package in paper pockets with labels for next year.

Preserving for winter

I haven't been posting much about preserving this year, but yes we are doing the canning things - tomato sauces, blueberry and strawberry jams, peach and sour cherry preserves, pickles.

Peach preserves anyone? Definitely have enough for winter.

the same can be said about pickles. Not so sure about the taste yet as there are different recipes.