The garden, it seems, is pretty much exploding with tomatoes. Livia tells me that I have planted too many, but I think that she’ll end up being wrong. Between putting up sauce, canning tomatoes, and possibly making ketchup–which I’ve always wanted to do but have never actually done–I think that I’m going to still need to buy some for all of my summer plans.
If you look closely at the picture above, there are at least three kinds of tomatoes in the picture. The one that’s most exciting for me, though, is this:
It’s almost ripe! I mean, almost is fairly relative here, since it obviously still has a ways to go before it’s really ripe, but it’s visibly red. It’s terribly exciting. I took that picture yesterday, and when I went out today, I noticed that another one of the tomatoes in that bunch has taken a distinctly red flush.
One more tomato, just for good luck. Those ones will grow up to be yellow teardrop tomatoes–they have an official name, but damned if I can ever remember what it is. They’re lovely and sweet, and roast up wonderfully, if you’re into that sort of thing. (I, obviously, am into that sort of thing. Mmm.)
The squash and watermelon have really taken off, as well. The squash above will be hard-shelled table squash by the end of the summer–despite appearances, it’s not a yellow summer squash.
Watermelon I don’t have a picture of, but the damn things are everywhere. I really only put the watermelon in because Maura insisted and she loves it so. I’d sort of hoped that some of the plants that I’d mentally classified as watermelon were, in fact, cucumber, but it seems that they’re all watermelon. It’s rather disappointing, to be honest; I hate watermelon and am just dreading ending up with dozens of the damn things by the end of summer. My friend Tory recently pointed out that I could just pop off the flowers, and then I’d have not nearly so many watermelons. Tory is a genius, and I promptly removed half of the watermelon flowers. Problem solved, just like magic.
At the start of the weekend I headed outside with my new sawzall (anniversary gift from my father–best presents ever) and attacked some of the ridiculously numerous trees growing along the back of our property. I’ve made a good start and not yet come down with poison ivy, though I did manage to smash my foot up. It turned all purple and swollen on the bottom, and we ended up in the ER to make sure that I’d not broken it. Thankfully, it was just a bad bruise, but they did give me one of those weird, clompy, stiff-bottomed shoes to wear. Very sexy and fashionable, which is to say horrible and uncomfortable, plus the sole’s a good half-inch thicker than on any other pair of shoes that I own, rendering them totally unwearable. Poor me–it’s meant that I’ve had to relax and put my feet up over the weekend. It’s been awful, I tell you. Just awful. (Value of that means TOTALLY AWESOME.)
In other domestic news, I’ve made not one but two kinds of jam over the weekend–pictures and recipes forthcoming.
Beautilicious! Tomatoes are always gorgeous, and I like what they turn into (sauce and salsa). Also, pretty squash. I want more cucumber, or maybe sauteed zucchini. And the idea of watermelon makes me drool.
The yellow teardrop ones are Yellow Pear – or maybe Sweet Yellow Pear. I grew them last year.
for the watermelons, make sure you are CONSTANTLY watering them. I grew watermelons one year, and dammit if they didn’t get bigger than a softball cuz I wasn’t always watering them.
Mmm, jam sounds yummy and I hope that your foot starts feeling better.