Saturday, September 13, 2008

Grandma's Garden

This is my grandmother's garden out in Iowa. Quite a container garden! Peppers, eggplants, beans, squash, tomatoes, and basil, among other things! The beans were growing especially well - over 8' tall on poles.




I love the zucchini flowers - Honeybee and I ate them deep-fried in Montreal (one of many amazing experiences from our 5th anniversary trip!)

Friday, September 12, 2008

Tomatoes!

FINALLY my tomatoes are beginning to ripen! Here are the first - a Gold Medal, a Brandywine, and some Black Plums. No Green Giants yet. The Gold Medal slices are beautiful! Also tasty when fried. The green pepper made it into the chickpea salad.

I started all of my tomatoes from seed this year in order to try some different heirloom varieties. The seeds are from Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa. I didn't really have a good set-up, so the seedlings grew slowly and were transplanted late. Next year I will either get better lighting or just go back to buying seedlings at the nursery. My local nursery did have two or three heirloom varieties, including Brandywine and Cherokee Purple. My parents grew 23 varieties this year - amazing!