Tomatoes & Zucchini Oh My!

Despite well above average temperatures, stiffling humidity and torrential downpours, my garden beds are thriving. They almost seem to be enjoying the weather and are blessing me daily with a full produce basket or more.

Tomatoes

I have thirty-two tomato plants outside with more in the greenhouse. The grape cluster and tiny tim tomatoes have been producing for awhile. It has been with great anticipation and patience that we have awaited the first ripe tomato for BLTs. When it's this hot cooking is really the last thing to think about so BLTs make a nice summer meal. We enjoyed our first BLTs Sunday night. The two ultra sweets were mouth watering!

Between Sunday and Monday's pickings I had almost a full basket of tomatoes. The cherry tomatoes are tiny tims and grape cluster. Towards the lower left corner almost hidden by the cherry tomatoes are three better boy tomatoes. The middle three tomatoes are ultra sweets. The lone red tomato at the top is the first of the beefsteaks from the plant that had BER. The rest of the tomatoes are lemon boys. My heinz and beefmasters are still green but it won't be long now.

This morning, I picked a nice sized beefsteak along with five ultra sweets and two lemon boys as well as about a quart of cherry tomatoes, green beans and a larger than I prefer zucchini. So the kitchen is overflowing with produce. I think I have enough lemon boys to make Savoury Yellow Tomato Spread so will likely work on that either today or in the morning. This is a nice dipping sauce for chicken fingers or spreading over barbequed fish.

Zucchini

Zucchini really gets a bad rap sometimes. It is such a versatile vegetable that every gardener should grow it. You can use it in quick breads, in deserts, in meatloaf, and as a vegetable. It doesn't get much better than that! I'm getting three to four nice sized zucchini daily. Yesterday, I froze chunks and shredded zucchini. I also had enough green and yellow beans to can four jars. The pole beans are just starting so they will be coming in fast shortly. An entry detailing both will be on my cooking blog later today.

Happy Gardening

Garden Gnome