7.12.2011

Garden Update: 6 Weeks

It's not July-hot around here.  No sir, it's August-hot.  The steamy kind of hot where you start to perspire before you walk more than a few feet outdoors.  These are the type of days where Tim and I look at one another and ask, "How did we live in that townhouse without air conditioning?"

Because we were newlyweds.  In love.  It had a backyard.  And I was going to grow things. 

In reality, the backyard of that townhouse was barely 15 ft x 15 ft and was mostly shaded mud, but I tried anyway.  I hung one of those upside-down tomato plants in the one spot wayovertooneside where I thought it just might get enough sun.  It didn't really grow and I was disappointed. 

During that first year of marriage we added two little (and rambunctious) dogs to our family, and they needed more space, too.  We looked around in the city, but there wasn't anything that fit all of our needs--central air, a big yard with a fence, a couple of bedrooms, and a garage or basement for storage.  As a semi-last resort, we looked in the suburbs and found a place that met all of those requirements. 


The dogs like it--there is plenty of room inside and out for them to run, explore, and wrestle.  It's very quiet here, which is so different than anywhere I lived in the city.  There is a calm in the neighborhood that I can only attribute to people putting down roots.  It makes me feel calm, too, and I like it. 


The biggest perk, of course, is the vegetable garden.  Especially when it's this hot--August-hot--we just walk outside and turn on the hose, neither of us minding if the spray gets caught in the wind and blows back on us.

I know it seems like I just bragged about how much things where growing in the garden, but I'm still surprised every day at the progress of the plants.  The Mr. Stripey heirloom tomato is a monster of a bush, towering over our other plants and continuing to reach upwards.  And the White Wonder tomato plant has been officially nursed back to health and even has new blooms.  The Early Girl tomato plant that we have been growing in a pot on our patio has already given us four ripe tomatoes with many more green tomatoes maturing. 


Tim picked an eggplant today that was getting so big and heavy that the plant was tipping to the side.  I'm not exactly sure what to with just one.  Grill it?  Fry it?  Parmesan it?  Suggestions are appreciated.


As for the pumpkins, we have two that have really started to take off, going from the size of a softball to the size of a large melon in less than a week.  I can't find any information specifically about "compact pumpkins" online so hopefully I will intuitively know when they are full grown. 

How about you, reader? How is your garden coming along? 

5 comments:

  1. We have just one of that kind of eggplant, all our other eggplant are Japanese. We are using ours in a spicy stir fry. We don't have red tomatoes yet. I'm so jealous!

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  2. Whatever you decide to do with that eggplant, Jen, you are cordially invited to contribute it to the upcoming Culinary Smackdown: Battle Eggplant - a friendly little online cooking contest that is open to ALL! Details up on my blog: http://eggplanttogo.blogspot.com/2011/07/4th-of-july-recap-and-culinary.html

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  3. Wow! it's grown even more since this past weekend! and you already have a tomato? dustin is going to be so jealous!! great post!

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  4. We have had both the purple eggplant and the Japanese eggplant. We just peeled it, sliced it, battered it with egg and flour and then pan-fried them in olive oil. I then took half of them and added tomato sauce and cheese and heated it some more. Walker liked both ways but probably liked the fried eggplant better. I thought they were both tasty.

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  5. That's some fine-looking produce!! :) We've gotten a couple of tomatoes and a solitary giant red pepper so far, but other than herbs I haven't really used much yet.

    We have no central air! =( I'm sweating as I type this. And the sun went down three hours ago. I envy your circulating molecules of oxygen... maybe it's just a first-house rite of passage?

    Jen, I just love your blog and your casual, welcoming writing style! :) Hope your summer is going deliciously well!

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Thanks for sharing your thoughts!