Tag: tomatoes

Green tomatoes

Optimism is needed when you grow your own food. I bought a pack of six ‘Moneymaker’ tomato plants when it was really too late in the season, but my garden rotation diagram suggested tomatoes were good to plant after the beans had finished and, generally, I’m optimistic. It was the last pack in the garden centre, and the stems of the plants were bent sideways. Warning signs. However, I planted them with stakes and the plants straightened up in a few days and grew quickly.

By the end of summer, there were large trusses of fruit – all green and showing only slight signs of ripening. Since then we’ve had several frosts. I’ve been picking the tomatoes which are beginning to look yellow and putting them on the kitchen window sill. Many have ripened: good to use in casseroles and soups and in the frittata I made yesterday.

Frittata is a great way to use garden produce. This one has kale, spinach and silver beet from the garden as well as sliced (formerly green) tomatoes.

The stems of the tomato plants have turned to mush almost – as I expected the tomatoes would too – after all, it’s Winter Solstice and the shortest day tomorrow. Many tomatoes were on the ground before I rescued them today and put them on the windowsill.

These tomatoes remain after I picked up the ones on the ground.

Intermittently, over the next hour or so, we began to hear little thuds. Some of the tomatoes were rolling off the windowsill onto the bench, into the sink and one made it as far as the floor. And they’re not the variety called ‘Tumbling Tom’!

Soup and salad in winter

Minestrone is a favourite soup on these cold days. It’s great to use fresh local vegetables from the fruit and veg shop round the corner, and my own garden produce. The tomatoes and curly kale are from the garden. To serve this soup, I like a sprinkle of parmesan on top.

Lots of vegetables (and pasta)
Curly kale fresh from my garden

On Thursday, at Foundation, I had a salad which had in it braised brussel sprouts, potato, kale, orzo and red onion, among other healthy things, and various additional options from which I chose halloumi. It was a salad variation on minestrone and a great winter choice.

Chilled garden

The leaves are falling off the grape vine, revealing many bunches of grapes some of which are beginning to rot. There are too many for the birds it seems, and certainly too many for us, although it’s lovely to pick a bowlful to eat and to share.

The grapes seem to have survived the -6.3C frost overnight. Perhaps they don’t mind being chilled. The water in the bucket – with grape leaves – is frozen solid. The kale and broad beans looked rather limp two hours ago, as did the daisies in the front garden. They are recovering quickly in the sun.

Fortunately I’d thrown frost cloths over the late tomatoes. The plants are bent by the weight of fruit, but they seem to have survived the frost. Perhaps it’s time to pick and ripen inside.

This shoot was outside the frost cloth. It’s too late in the year for the flowers to produce fruit, sadly.

Flourishing

The roses, in their second flowering, press against the window.

You never know what to expect to find in the garden when you return from a week away. Will it have withered with neglect? Not so this time. The only misfortune was a fallen tomato plant which had crashed due to the weighty trusses of fruit.

Fallen tomato
A hefty truss of tomatoes – with cherry tomatoes and lemon for contrast.

It seems okay, and I’ll leave it where it is to prevent any damage. One truss of tomatoes broke off, however. Not surprising as it weighed one and a half kilos.

The tomatoes in the hanging basket were doing well.

Just out of chicken reach.

Some of the salad greens were bolting in the vertical planter.

Perhaps that’s why it’s called ‘rocket’; it always bolts first.

The beans, peas and chard were flourishing under their domes. Scarlet runner beans were heading skywards and flowering profusely. Meantime, the sweet peas (the ‘scramble’ to the right) were past their best and the artichokes ‘hats’ had faded from purple to brown.

The red salvia seemed to have doubled in size.

The Japanese anemones were crowding around the sapientia rose – and me, as I walked up the path.

All up, a great welcome home.

Backyard Bounty

The greenhouse is proving its worth. My long tee shirts are useful for collecting tomatoes.

Pockets are okay too for a few tomatoes, but you have to be careful not to forget the collected ones – or accidentally squash them.

In the last few days the number of ripe tomatoes has increased.

Every vase has been called up to accommodate the sweet peas.

Yesterday’s ferocious nor’west wind threatened the second flush of roses, so I rescued this Blueberry Hill. These roses are all on one stem. The abutilon flowers were blown off by the wind.

Popcorn is broody again. She is all fluffed up, giving the impression of an abundance of feathers.

If there was sound with these photos, you would hear her muttering darkly about how cruel I am to shut her out of the nesting box. And she doesn’t let up.

In the wider backyard of our city, people are gathering for the Backyard Buskers’ Festival. Formerly the “World Buskers Festival”, border restrictions mean no international performers this year. A circus trio was entertaining a large crowd in the city today, and another pitch I passed was full of people waiting for the next performance.

We are not unaware of how fortunate we are to be able to live like this now. On Saturday, at a Christchurch Symphony Orchestra performance in Victoria Square, I noticed a person on a balcony of the nearby Managed Isolation hotel. A poignant reminder of how lucky we are – for now.

So far so good

The next day, having ascertained that the greenhouse could be viable, I bought plants which I normally wouldn’t purchase for at least another month. Here is the greenhouse, complete with cover, and with two tomato plants in the ground. I have to wait a little longer for the “lunch-box” pepper plants I prefer to be available.

In pots on either side I’ve planted a “tumbling tom” tomato with which I have had success before, and basil. There is also a pot in which I sowed salad-mix seeds. Two containers of seedlings – sweet peas and lobelia – are safe on another shelf ready for planting outside. The terracotta-coloured pot has a chain attached and I’m considering planting something edible in this pot and hanging it from the ridge pole to make use of the upper space.

We had a frost the morning after I planted, so I was pleased to see that the plants seemed unaffected by the cold outside.

To take this photo, I had to wait for the condensation to clear. It was warm inside the greenhouse. When the sun is on it, I unzip the flap and put the piece of trellis (leaning on the left) lengthwise across the doorway to keep the hens out. If it is warm enough and the moisture on the plastic has evaporated, I roll up the door and secure it with the ties.

“Northwesterlies, gusty at times” are forecast. The greenhouse, although nestled into the fence, is not secured – so fingers crossed it stands its ground.

So far, so good…