Tomatoes

It finally happened - we got our first ripe tomatoes out of the garden, took a bit longer than usual this year. And they are delicious, can't wait for more. We have plenty of green tomatoes on the plants that we are waiting for. Including lots of big ones this year that always threaten to not turn red, to either stay green till the snow comes or to rot.

And while I was out there I pulled up the dead pea plants. This year I am going to try planting a fall crop of peas for the first time. And with the pea plants out I was able to get at these sneaky potatoes that grew from potatoes I missed harvesting last year. We got a full 3L basket of them.



Henry did quite a good job of entertaining himself while I was back there.



He ate some peas from one good pod that I found.



And I caught him climbing up the slide on his own!

Potatoes

Last year I read the book One Straw Revolution which was all about letting nature take its course as much as possible in farming to make less work for the farmer plus there are all sorts of ecological benefits too. Anyway, this new philosophy lead to quite a messy garden last year. This year I think I'm a bit more balanced but I was happy when these potatoes sprung up themselves this spring. That involved no work from this farmer, was just a result of good soil and nature taking its course.

But these guys weren't growing in the right place and were starting to overcrowd the tomatoes that I had actually planted there. So I let the potatoes grow till they had flowers (a sign that there are some definite potatoes under the ground) and then this week I carefully pulled them up. I had to be very careful as not to disturb the tomato plants so I am sure that again this year there will be some leftover potatoes that will grow next year.

I was surprised that I got a whole 3 L basket of lovely new potatoes. And yesterday I cooked them up in my favourite way for new potatoes: steamed and tossed with light olive oil and some garden chives. We had them with chickpea cutlets and also tried a new veg - swiss chard. Neither of us are swiss chard fans but it was worth a try. And for dessert we had some more homemade ice cream.


This is raspberry ice cream made from our backyard raspberries. It was delicious but our favourite so far has definitely been banana. I am still loving the Vegan Scoop but someone has put it on hold so I have to return it to the library soon.

Here are a couple of pictures of Henry keeping cool in the water all around town. He doesn't do much at the splash pad other than stand and watch the other kids play but he is slowly getting more adventurous and he is definitely more adventurous when we go to the creek.

Final Potato Harvest

We've been eating potatoes out of the garden since June so a lot of them have been harvested already but I pulled up the remaining. I got a whole five of the 3 litre basket full. Now I just have to find a good place to store them.