Another exciting morning of tomato bondage:
This is almost a completely mature head of broccoli, and I have three more about half that size. You can’t tell by the picture because there is no frame of reference, but that is about 5-7 inches across. The week of cool weather last week was perfectly timed and all the broccoli just exploded in size:
And here is one of my bells, which is going to be massive:
Not sure if you can tell by the big picture at top, but the tomato plants are about to start exploding with fruit. I have about 75 roma tomatoes that are about thumb sized or bigger, and the big boys and heirlooms and big girls and all the others I planted are starting to really grow fruit. I’m excited. The green beans are quite the recidivist escape artists, though, breaking away from my poles every other day it seems. Peas are coming along nicely, too, and I have a ton of hot peppers in the back that you can not see.
Are there any health risks to eating tomatoes for three meals a day? We shall soon find out.
mr. whipple
Nice!
Alice Blue
Beautiful garden, John.
I was reading about your love of limes in another thread. Have you ever tried squeezing a few drops of lime juice onto freshly steamed broccoli? It’s good!
General Egali Tarian Stuck
I’m jealous, those Bell Peppers look delicious. As for eating tomatoes only, I do that every year in August and September. I find I can solve Quantum Physics equations more better, but my shit turns a little crimson.
And now for a July 4 moment of Zen
On The Fifth Day, God bequeathed opinions to man
Then somebody complained they had trouble expressing them
On The Sixth Day, God bequeathed assholes to man
Things have run more or less smooth since.
jeffreyw
We have 6 tomato plants at about the stage you mention. One early tomato Mrs J has eaten and bushels of green tomato wannabes. Planning to make spaghetti sauce and salsa from most of them, though we’ll eat our share of fresh ripe and fried green ones. Anybody have a green tomato salsa recipe or similar?
jeffreyw
Here’s some pizza.
robertdsc
I was hoping for another Lily photobomb.
Moonbatting Average
I’m so jealous! We have 11 tomato plants and zero fruit so far. The plants are HUGE, some over 6 feet tall, but they hardly flower and when they do, they don’t produce fruit. It’s been a huge bummer.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Moonbatting Average: Probly to much nitrogen in soil. I’ve had that happen to me by over fertilizing. Causes plant to focus growth on greenery and foliage.
Scamp Dog
I’m making my first attempt at “gardening” this year, growing tomatoes on my balcony in a 5-gallon bucket. Despite being beaten up by a hailstorm 3 weeks ago, they’re carrying ~50 cherry tomatoes, with about a half dozen already turning red.
Besides looking at color, how do I tell when they’re ready for picking?
Libby
Happy Independence Day John Cole. What a gorgeous garden.
By the way, google logo today is a fun interactive one
Emma
If there is, I’m in trouble. I even put them on my morning bagel-with-cream-cheese.
lamh32
Happy 4th everybody!
Oh…and Happy 12th Birthday Malia Obama!!!
Emma
Moonbatting Average: The General is right. Tomatoes seem to thrive in some difficulty. We have a recurring volunteer tomato plant that shows up every year in different spots in the yard — grape tomatoes, nothing larger across than a fingernail, bears tons of fruit in a month and then dies — and it always picks the worst soils.
Elisabeth
I ate the first “fruit” of the garden yesterday ~ a bit of cauliflower. Yummy! Have some radishes waiting to mix with some fresh greens, too.
horatius
Kidney stones are probably the toughest health risk posed by tomatoes. The outer skin of a tomato is rich in oxalates which are notorious for their low solubility and tendency to crystallize at the slightest excuse.
This gets amplified if you don’t take enough fluids. Also, alcohol increases chances of kidney stones.
Violet
Beautiful garden, John! That broccoli is amazing. There is nothing better than eating out of your own garden. Heaven. Happy 4th.
Kathryn in MA
the groundhog ate my Romanesco broccoli (looks like fractals) and topped my tomatoes. You are doing so good!
recipe for fresh tomato over rotini =
chop garlic and half a red onion finely, put into medium bowl.
pour some balsamic vinegar over – smoothes out any harshness.
chop up basil and tomatoes, add to bowl, stir, pour over rotini.
crumble feta cheese on top.
enjoy!
CynDee
@Emma: Tomato Toast: put buttered bread in the toaster oven and toast it lightly. Then add sliced tomatoes and toast some more.
Works great for fresh peaches, too.
As JeffreyW would say, Mmmm.
I’m SURE he would say that. Wouldn’t you, Jeffrey ? ?
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@horatius: While this is true with oxalates, and speaking as someone who once had a huge problem with kidney Stones. The 90’s were my decade of pain from them, then I started drinking only distilled water and haven’t had a single one in ten years. And still eat tons of tomaters. Tomatoes are chocked full of antioxidants such as Lycopene, that have lots of good health effects. Though I doubt past a certain degree, they don’t increase by eating nothing but tomatoes.
TaMara (BHF)
Mmmm, fresh garden produce. Nothing better.
beltane
What happened to the Topsy Turvy tomato planter? The one’s I’ve observed on people’s porches aren’t looking too wonderful, maybe because water drains away from the roots rather than towards the roots.
jeffreyw
@CynDee: Indeed
Leisureguy
Berton Roueché in one of his articles of medical detective work (collected later in the book The Orange Man and Other Narratives of Medical Detection (1971), wrote of a guy who walked into a doctor’s office for help. The guy was bright orange, and the doctor couldn’t wait to hear his story. The guy had come in for a painful headache, and the doctor checked him out, gave him something for the headache, and the guy got up to leave.
“Wait!” the doctor said. “Isn’t there anything else?”
“Nope”, the guy said, ready to be on his way.
The doctor had him take a look in the mirror. It turns out that the guy had been driving from New York to Florida in a pickup, and on the seat beside him was a bushel basket of tomatoes, which he ate as he drove, more or less continuously. That many tomatoes that fast produced his wonderful orange glow.
Wonder if this is John Boehner’s problem?
Betty
My mom once got hives form eating too many tomatoes So if you have a break out, that may be why. Until then, enjoy!
beltane
@Leisureguy: The title of that book would be a good one to use for Minority Leader Boehner’s biography.
TaMara (BHF)
BTW, just how many people are you feeding with that garden? Or are you starting your own farmstand to supplement your blog income?
David
Get a juicer.
Rey
Not sure about you John, but for me my colon would be clean as a whistle!
jeffreyw
More pickle fun.
tatertot
This year I’ve grown lots and lots of salad – leaves are coming up that I have no idea what they are, but they taste good. An Italian Salad seed mix has rocket (sorry, arugula to you librul, soshalist Obama lovers), radicchio, young broccoli plants (is this broccoli rabe that I see in the shops when I go to NY?). Provencal Salad seed mix has chervil, red leaves, etc. Stir Fry seed mix has given us mizuna, pak choi, red mustard leaves. I’ve sown a Mesclun seed mix, cause I like the Mesclun salads I’ve had in NY, but can anyone tell me what is the green leaf with purple marking that grows about a foot high, and tastes a bit like wasabi? We love it, but dunno what it is! Happy 4th of July folks! Here in Scotland, it’s blowing a gale and rainy, but we had our BBQ yesterday when the weather was more kind, and we met our good friends’ three-week-old first grandchild.
Chat Noir
@Moonbatting Average: We have 3 different tomato plants and the same thing. They are very tall and green but only a couple little green tomatoes on one and a few flowers on the other. Fingers crossed, though, that we’ll see quite a few tomatoes come August.
This is the first summer for the new birdbath which is on the deck next to one of the bird feeders. Over the past couple weeks, I’ve noticed quite a few birds come for a nice drink. And it is cute to watch a bird taking a bath. I’m sure it’s quite enjoyable when the weather is very warm as it is today. I thoroughly enjoy summer.
And the garden looks excellent, John. Love broccoli with some A1 steak sauce on it. Yum.
Maude
@Leisureguy:
can happen with carrots too.
Ahasuerus
I can’t speak to any actual health risks, but my own experience may offer a cautionary tale:
During my high school years I spent three weeks in Romania (interesting story in itself) where every meal had two elements in common. The first common element was a type of roll we lovingly christened “Romanian rocks”, a small dinner roll which could readily serve as either a lethal projectile or a serviceable anvil. It could also be eaten, but only by a starving creature with no regard for its dentition. The second common element was tomatoes, delicious small plum-like tomatoes served in twos or threes on every plate. For every meal. Three times a day, plus snacks, for three weeks. Now, I loved tomatoes back then, and I still do, but after I returned from Romania I couldn’t even look at a tomato for a year.
Consider yourself forewarned.
Libby
@beltane: Those topsy turvy things have been a complete fail for everyone I know who ever tried them. Who knows how they got them to look so good in the ads.
Damned at Random
Tomatoes are wonderful. Canned home grown tomatoes are wonderful with cottage cheese on dreary winter days – and great in soup
tesslibrarain
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: Really? Wow. I planted beans near my tomatoes in order to fertilize them, but maybe that’s why I have leafy plants (not 6-ft, but enough to bear fruit) and almost no blooms. Thank you!
Hate to pull out the beans, but tomatoes are the priority this year. Maybe I’ll just thin them greatly before they get too crazy.
And yes, you can eat tomatoes 3x/day. But there’s a pretty unpleasant withdrawl through the winter, and it will lead you to do some crazy things when spring rolls around. Trust me: even from a local farmer’s greenhouse, that March tomato will not taste like it’s of the earth, and only increase your withdrawl symptoms.
henqiguai
Um, how about a touch of acid reflux ?
Capri
No vegetables, but my Bottlebrush Buckeye bush is blooming and attracting plenty of winged attention. I just saw a Hummingbird moth, a very cool little insect that looks on first and second glance like a tiny hummingbird. It’s antenna give it away.
A Button Bush I planted 3 years ago is coated in flowers this year for the first time (I try to use native plants) and looks fabulous.
Finally, I also had some milkweed come up in my garden. Instead of pulling it, I’ve let it grow to provide nutrients for Monarch caterpillars. I’ve seen Monarch butterflies around it for several weeks and some chewed up leaves, so hopefully they’re becoming the next generation of Monarchs.
Jackie
Many is the summer I have gotten sores in the corners of my mouth from eating too many tomatoes. I think it is the opposite of scurvy. Not fatal, I think.
Loneoak
Not only is it okay to eat tomatoes three meals a day, it is also possible to eat some combination of carb, cheese, and tomato three meals a day! My favorite is:
-a thick slice of crusty toast, buttered
-thick slice of heirloom tomato
-poached egg
-some good parmesan or other hard cheese, thinly sliced or grated
-lotsa pepper
-shredded basil
bemused
Here is my current favorite recipe for fresh tomatoes:
On a flat baking pan (cookie sheet with a lip), make a phyllo dough crust with 3 layers of phyllo sheets, brushing each with melted butter before layering on the next. Bake until golden at 375.
2 1/2 tablespoons
olive oil, plus more for drizzling
2 onions, thinly sliced (prefer a sweet variety)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup goat cheese or bleu cheese
1 pound tomatoes (any combination of red, yellow, heirloom, cherry), sliced if large or halved if small
1/2 cup crumbled feta or Stilton cheese
1/4 cup pitted calamata olives (optional)
8 sliced basil leaves.
Saute the hinly sliced white onions separated into rings in olive oil.
Crumble goat cheese or bleu cheese on the phyllo crust. Add fresh basil leaves, onion rings, then sliced tomatoes. Top with dots of feta/stilton cheese and the olives (if you are from the planet of the olives; omit if like my husband you are from the planet of the nolives).
Put under broiler for 5-6 minutes until the cheese is well melted/turning a little golden.
Slice, serve with salad and a chilled white wine. Yum.
jeffreyw
@Capri:
Ta Da!
gbear
How sado-masticatic.
Hot and muggy muggy muggy in the Twin Cities today. The cats and I are staying close to the window AC unit.
I’m celebrating that Al Franken is my senator this holiday. I would hope that people would hear him and think ‘Why can’t I have a smart senator like that’, but I’m afraid that Franken is a freak as far as electable senators are concerned. Glad he’s my freak.
debit
@tesslibrarain: I am with you on the withdrawal concerns. This spring I plopped some basil in a container on my back steps. Every day I step a few feet out from my kitchen, snip off what I want and it’s so much better than anything I’ve ever bought.
What the hell am I going to do this winter? Indoor plants don’t live through the winter in this house, for one simple reason: I have radiant heat and there’s a radiator under ever single damned window. Once December hits, anything in the windows gets baked. Tried grow lights on the built in buffet one year; the cats put an end to that fairly quickly. “Look, guys! A new litter tray with it’s own lights! Awesome! Now to just get rid of the annoying vegetation she’s inexplicably put in it.”
Mnemosyne
Reading the comments, clearly there are so many health risks that the only possible solution is to distribute your fresh tomatoes among your loyal readers.
Bella
Tomatoes can get leafy with few flowers/fruits if they’re given too much water, too. I read to treat them like weeds, no pampering.
I share my garden plot with the neighbors. We both have celebrity tomato plants, put in at the same time, from the same place. Hers is lush and green and looks like the healthier plant, yet she’s harvested only two tomatoes. Mine looks much more weedy but I’ve picked a dozen already at least, and they’re bigger, too. Same soil, same sunlight. I’ve taken over watering the whole plot and now hers is starting to produce.
I’ve been picking those along with early girls and homesteads, and can’t wait for the lemon boys and black prince tomatoes to ripen. They’re getting there. (I’m in NC.)
Ducktape
One word — gazpacho!!
I help out at the local farmers’ market on Saturdays, and starting last weekend, my reward has included a box of eat-me-now heirloom tomatoes. This week I got 2 boxes, which I’m about to go process. By “box” I mean a flat of at least 10 lbs!
My gazpacho recipe is about 2/3 chopped tomatoes, then peppers, onions, garlic and “crunchies” (this week I’ll use cucumbers) to make up the remaining 1/3. Add a huge handful of chopped fresh cilantro (for me and John, basil for you cilantro-haters), a good dash of Worcestershire, and olive oil and good vinegar (or a good vinegrette if you already have one made). The peppers can be hot or sweet or a mix, you can use shredded carrots or chopped zucchini as crunchies, and if you don’t have enough juice (not my problem), you can add some V-8 or bloody mary mix or something like that.
I make this in a 1-gallon container that was originally intended for koolaid or such, but that has a big removeable top. I eat on it all week long, at least one bowl a day, with yogurt and whole grain rusks (or croutons). Gazpacho was invented by the Spanish to use up their leftover bread, or so I’ve been told, and I even freeze my really good bread ends over the winter for gazpacho.
It’s all knife work, no cooking, to make, and while it’s ready to eat after about an hour or so, it just gets better over the week as the flavors merge. It [i]can[/i] be frozen, but if you do that, blend it up and heat it when you serve it so that it won’t seem mushy.
c u n d gulag
John,
I’m a fellow tomato fanatic. But, yes, there can be some problems with tomato’s 3 x a day.
I was doing just that a few years ago and got a rash that wouldn’t go away. I eventually went to a doctor who asked about my diet. He then told me to chill out on the tomato’s. They’re a member of the ‘nightshade’ family, many members of which are mildly to deadly poisons.
He said you couldn’t eat enough to kill yourself, just enough to get a reaction, depending on a number of factors.
Me? Hell, death by tomato is the worst of my worries.
And congrat’s – the garden lookd GREAT!!!!!!!
Enjoy the fruits of your labor – and the vegetables, too, of course…
debbie
@debit:
At the end of the season, you can turn your basil into pesto for the winter: Make up a huge batch, freeze it in ice-cube trays, toss the cubes into baggies, and pull out and defrost as needed.
asiangrrlMN
@gbear: Totally with you on the yucky weather and Al Franken. He is my kinda freak, and I am SO glad he’s my senator. Bitchez.
P.S. The fact that Thurgood Marshall has to be defended is a sad commentary on the state of the Republican Party.
Bella
Another thing about the nightshades is that they can aggravate arthritic conditions. A few years back I had a month or so of what I think was gout in my hands and feet, after eating tomatoes and peppers for weeks on end. I’m trying to stay just on *this* side of a flareup this summer, while eating my lovely produce.
ruemara
As I sit here, digesting a lovely breakfast of local chorizo & eggs featuring italian peppers & tomatoes from the garden, I can’t think of anything more lovely than having such abundance. Now gimme some peppers. The black bell I planted is coming up so slowly I think it might be part glacier. And whoever gave me that advice on getting the carrots to sprout, thank you. I finally see some coming up. It just took 4 plantings and all the seed I had, ha!
Mnemosyne
@asiangrrlMN:
In case you don’t get down to the other thread, here’s my recommendation for your migraine: Gin-Gins Boost ginger candies. I get ’em at Cost Plus World Market, but I’ve also seen them in health food stores.
Jules
We keep eating our tomatoes so fast that I can’t get enough to make the most wonderful of summer things to eat. Paula Dean’s Tomato Pie.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/tomato-pie-recipe/index.html
God it so, so good.
licensed to kill time
Your garden is a thing of beauty, John Cole, and there is not much that is more satisfying than eating the food that you have grown yourself. Enjoy!
When I was a kid there used to be little farmer’s stands all over the place, and we would often stop and buy sacks of peaches or corn or tomatoes. I have a vivid memory of sitting on the ground in the sun next to a sack of tomatoes that was as tall as I was, with a salt shaker in hand, and eating about a gazillion or so tomatoes one after the other. No ill effects, though it was more of a one time massive consumption than a three times a day until the ‘maters are gone thing.
jeffreyw
Hummingbird moth is getting tired of me goin all clickety click on him.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffreyww/4760800661/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffreyww/4760789891/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffreyww/4760789195/
CynDee
@ John Cole:
Do short doggies eat tomatoes?
Svensker
After the groundhog hordes appeared and ate all the lettuce,spinach,beans,peas and squash, we fenced the veggie garden and things seemed to be recovering. Lettuce and spinach were lost causes, but beans and squash were starting to grow again and the okra sprouted. Just went out and the little fuggers have figured out how to get under or over the fence because the beans, squash and okra are now history.
I am so pissed off. Last year we lost everything to mildew and rot because of the cool, wet summer. So this year we got extra compost and got everything in nice and early, extra plantings to make sure we got good crops. And the little busterds have eated it all. All. Looks like we will get chives and basil this year out of our 10×15 plot.
Comrade PhysioProf
Looks like you need some motherfucking sausages!
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@jeffreyw: Those are some gorgeous colors. Great pics. Saw my first Rufous late last evening. Feel like a kid on xmas eve.
OriGuy
I’m not big on raw tomatoes, but with some fresh buffalo mozzarella, fresh basil, olive oil, salt and pepper, they’re great in an insalata caprese.
Anne Laurie
@CynDee:
Only one of our three does, but Zevon’s sufficiently interested in them that when we moved our tomato planters to the wrong side of the fence, I left a couple plants where he can inspect & pick his own. If Lily or (more likely) Rosie has the same gourmet tastes, it’s a good thing Cole’s got his plants growing up on stakes!
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
Skin color is probably the biggest worry about tomatoes. I went through a period where I drank tomato/carrot juice multiple times a day, and I definitely developed a Boehner-like glow for awhile. (Although, I was probably unusually bad off, because there are two different coloring compounds–lycopene and beta-carotene–in tomatoes and carrots)
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
@Svensker:
It sounds cruel, but leg traps are the only thing that works. One of their buggers caught in a trap is apparently an excellent repellent.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@tesslibrarain:
Jeebus, I missed this comment. Do not pull up your beans, that will have no effect on the tomatoes, and will only leave you without beans. There is really nothing you can do about it, if that is the problem, except not over fertilize next year,. Gawd, I hope I didn’t cause the untimely and unnecessary demise of an innocent vegetable.
Yutsano
@Anne Laurie: My Lab used to soft-mouth tomatoes that she’d find on the ground. She never attempted to eat them, but she was VERY good at holding it just right so the fruit would not bruise. She could do the same thing with eggs, although if she was in the mood to “treat” herself, she’d break one and slurp it down in one gulp. It was so funny it was impossible to be mad at her.
Lynn Lightfoot
Eating tomatoes three meals a day usually coincides for me with getting canker sores, which makes me sad, since I adore fresh in-season tomatoes. May you suffer no ill effects from bingeing on tomatoes!