I had decent timing on my eggplant this year. Snagged several of these beauties last week to add to my ratatouille. They're pretty small but flavorful! They are called Diamond from Adaptive Seeds and are said to grow in less than ideal conditions.

Our weather this summer has been amazing with decent temperatures and little rain. I'm sure this helped Diamond do well.

Shiny!

 

 

Hope your summer harvests are winding down nicely. Savor those last meals that make the most of the season. Invite your friends over and eat in the garden before the weather turns.

 

One lonely eggplant

I felt pretty on top of it this spring with getting my starts going. But there was one day when I realized I had missed the date for sowing my eggplant seeds by a whole month. WHAT?! What happened? Where did the time go? I'm sure it will be fine, I told myself. Summer usually arrives late anyway, so it shouldn't matter.

Well, as my tomatoes were taking off and thriving (even though I do always freak out that I'm behind with them, too), the eggplant were not. Temperatures were in the 50s at night and our days were relatively warm so not to worry right? Wrong. That whole month when they could have taken advantage of indoor heat to increase in size and vigor was missed. Meaning I produced only one eggplant this season. And it formed in September so it won't be tasty.

Here's a picture of the loneliest eggplant in my garden...and maybe in all of Columbia City. A least the afternoon sunlight makes it look pretty.

Lesson learned. Start your eggplant in March...

 

Edibles in Front

This is the second year I've planted my heat-loving tomatoes in the front garden and the first I included eggplant.

Last year, despite our minimal summer, I enjoyed a fair amount of tomatoes from my south-facing front yard. I decided it wasn't worth trying to grow them in the back yard this year. Even with my west facing beds, I have much more space in front for them.

We had another cool summer this year, but with the little heat we did get, I had a great crop of cherry tomatoes. Remember, I'm not growing big, beefy heirlooms like Purple Cherokee. I choose varieties that have less than 85 days to mature.

Look at these gorgeous Black Cherry tomatoes!



If wonderfully vine-ripened tomatoes are your goal, then you may want to consider changing your aesthetic perspective. I find tomato towers a nice accent to my perennials. Check it out. Wow! cherry tomatoes growing behind my Cape Fuchsia and Symphytum 'Axminster Gold.'




You can see the Symphytum again behind my 'Kyoto Egg' eggplant. Both types of eggplant thrived here.


Breaking the rules and norms can lead to beautiful veggies AND a beautiful garden. Get out there and try something new!

Tomatoes and Eggplant

When I got home this afternoon, my son asked if we could go outside and pick tomatoes. No one has to ask me twice!

Today there was a definite hint of fall in the air. It rained last night and was still overcast when we headed out. But, still warm enough where I'm not feeling panicked about ripping out tomato plants just yet.

We gathered a fantastic looking bowl of tomatoes and eggplant. Check it out!



Most of the tomatoes are the Isis Candy which are delicious! Tangy and sweet with a cool orange-red swirl of color around the fruit. I would say it's a nice balance between the sweet, sweet Black Cherry and the punchy tang of the Wow!

I had given up on the Isis Candy harvest since they are quite slow to ripen given the cool summer we had. If it weren't for growing these beauties in the south-facing front yard, I'm sure most of them would still be green.

As we filled the bowl, my son reminded me about making green tomato pie. And, he mentioned several times he wanted it "now." Maybe later this week, we'll fill a bowl of all green tomatoes just for that.

Oh, and I almost forgot the eggplant! One of my Little Fingers eggplant finally came round and produced a handful (pun intended!). If you look closely at about 6 o'clock in the bowl, there is one peeking out. The others you see are Kyoto Egg. One single plants had a good looking and sizable crop--close to 10 eggplants!

I promise I'll make a separate post of what they look like out in the garden. I hope to convince you to plant your edibles amongst your perennials.

Eggplant Surprise

As my tomato plants waned and I picked the last of those red beauties, I checked on the eggplants. I have grown eggplants for the last few years now and have had either pathetic-looking fruits that have been nibbled on by critters or loads of flowers too late into the season for any hopes of a crop. I even asked another gardening friend of mine--who gets much more sun and has a much larger space dedicated to veggies than I do--about his eggplants. His response, "I gave up a couple of years ago on growing them."

What can I say? I guess I like a challenge. Either that, or I'm terribly optimistic, thinking, "This year it's going to be different!"

I couldn't believe it when I crouched over the plants and spotted not one, but THREE eggplants. They were decent in size with a lovely dark purple color. I hurried them into the kitchen. I wasn't prepared for this crop and needed to bide some time. I didn't want to put them into the fridge and have them rot away. That would've been a shame. I thinly sliced them up and froze them for a later date.

Look at that fantastic jewel-toned color!

Last week, I made a vegetarian shepherd's pie from the UC Davis Coffeehouse Cookbook from 1996. This recipe showcases eggplant and bell pepper in a ratatouille-inspired base that is topped with sour-cream infused mashed potatoes. It calls for wheat germ, but I subbed in ground up quick oats for my wheat-intolerant friend. The perfect dish to start off our fall-like weather in Seattle.

ps: I'm not sure you can still buy the spiral-bound version of the 1996 edition, but the original 1986 edition has been reprinted and is available through the UC Davis Bookstore.

Seeds are in!!!

I wasted no time this year ordering seed, and have received my long-awaited back orders. FINALLY!

Every year around this time, I am anxious to start sowing seeds, getting the garden prepped for spring. I've been super impatient this year with the warm winter we've been having--thank you, El Nino!.

So far I have sown two--only two!--of my crops this year: Cardoon Rouge d'Alger and dwarf orange Allegro poppies.

The Rouge d'Alger cardoon supposedly has red-tinged petioles. I check my starts every day to see if they're starting to show signs of blush. So far, right at the soil level, some plants have a little hint of red.

I'm a HUGE fan of dino kale, or lacinato kale. It has great texture and great flavor, and is takes on an interesting shape in the garden. I've also heard it described as palm tree kale since the plants look like little palms has you harvest the leaves from the bottom. Well, Fedco Seeds came out with a Rainbow Lacinato kale when they crossed dino kale with Redbor. I'm not sure if it will be as colorful as Bright Lights Swiss chard, but one can hope!

Two eggplant varieties I'm looking forward to are 'Galine' and 'Applegreen' both from Fedco as well. I was sold on 'Galine' since it was described as dependable and not fussy. It's also supposed to mature in about 70 days. The 'Applegreen' is supposed to produce tiny little green eggplants. Also supposed to mature in 70 days. I'm a little concerned that the seed packet tells me to wait until June to transplant. June just seems so far away!

I'm going to give it a shot with melons this year with Charetais and Sakata's Sweet. Our local radio gardening show says not to bother with melons as they take too long to ripen. I love a challenge. With a little help from indoor starts and some black ground cloth, I like to think have enough heat to have at least a couple fruits. I love Charetais--so crisp and sweet. One of our Columbia City Farmers' Market vendors has carried this gem. Hopefully, I won't have to buy any this year since I'll be enjoying the ones I produced in my garden.

Another crop I'm super excited about is the Beer Friend soybean from Fedco. I like this purely for the fact that edamame and beer go hand in hand. I've never grown soybeans before so it should be fun to see how this one does.

The weather is getting warmer, light drizzles of rain here and there, lots of blooms on the trees all around town. It's beginning to look a lot like spring around here!