Sorry, been busy with work and the remodel, but… got a nice looking basket of goodies from the yard this morning (eggs, too!):

Whatcha got there is Asian pears, my last Oregon curl-free peach, Van Buren grapes, casper eggplants, yellow zukes, (borghese, striped roman, and sungold) tomatoes, cali wonder pepper, and trombocino squash.

Still, doesn’t mean I’m going to quit whining.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Another in my series of “I don’t have anything to say about my garden” posts.

The weather here in Portland has… mostly… sucked.  First we did the never-ending-winter spring, and now we’re doing the hah-hah-the-fall-rains-have-started summer.  Of my one beelion tomatoes, approximately none are ripe.

So, fine, we make the love!

Or… if you can’t get anyone to go for that… we make fried green tomatoes.

You take the green tomatoes from the vines that have collapsed in the wind because of your hokey sisal twine that you used to tie them up (forgetting that a vine full of tomatoes is real heavy).  In this case, we’re using Brandywines.

You dip them into the beaten eggs from your mentally challenged yard fowl.  Then, you dip them in some corn meal, salt, and pepper.

I suppose this goes without saying, but you fry them.  In a pan.  A hot pan.

And VOILA!  They are very fine with a remoulade comme ca!

If you do not lock the door, a pathetic urchin may come in, and in an attempt to charm some food from you with his humor, tell you that your fried tomatoes are:

“EARILY GOOD!”

We chased this one away.

So sad, really.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Normally, I like to procrastinate until my basil’s all gone to seed and gotten real bitter, but this year, I read this country lady’s post about how she made pesto, and I thinks to myself “she doesn’t seem so all-fired smart… I should be able to do that!”

So, here’s my city boy variation:

• 4 c. fresh basil
• 1 1/3 c. extra virgin olive oil
• 1 c. grated parmesan
• 1 c. cashews (oh yes, you read that right, CASHEWS!)
• salt and pepper

Directions:

Put stuff in food processor. Turn on. Wait. Turn off.

FAQ:

Why the cashews?
Because we didn’t have pinenuts.

Can I freeze this with the cheese already in there?
God no. I do, but you shouldn’t.

Did you X before/after/during or add Y or count to Z for the processing?
No.

How is it?
Real, real good.

Did you take any pictures?

Before, I had these here leaves.

After, I had this here bucket ‘o sauce.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Dayam!  It is HOT.  My thermometer read 102 a while ago.  Yeesh.

Anyway, I decided that it is possible that I sounded a bit whiney in my last post.  Possibly.

So, I decided to brave the heat and go look for some encouraging scenes.  Submitted for your/my enjoyment:

I wanted to take a picture of the peaches that we ate, but those people are animals.  By the time I got my camera out, they were gone!

At least this guy seems happy about the sun.

One of a couple of surprises that I found upon closer inspection.  This Casper eggplant is ready to be eaten.  We’ll probably have to have a ceremony of some kind.

The shiso continues to bush out nicely.  Normally it’d have bolted by now.

I have had the worst time with leaf miners wrecking my chard this year.  Finally a couple of them seem to have made it past the stunting phase.  Love chard.  Love it.

The Ancho peppers are cranking along nicely.  Threw some in the scrambled eggs this morning.  Note to self: delicious much?

My potimarron winter squashes are doing great, each has thrown several squash.  Those things are animals.  I got the seeds from The Seed Saver’s Exchange.

When the termaters do come in, we’re sitting pretty.  These brandywine’s are just waiting to explode with deliciousness.  Come on, babies!  Come on!

And then, before my eyes, a ripe(ish) tomato!  I will admit that it wasn’t the best tomato that I’d ever eaten, but I’m going to count it as the official #1.

To top it off, my family got me a straight razor kit (complete with strap and everything).  I’m into slow everything, pretty much.  It wasn’t the easiest shave ever, but you gotta love getting away from disposable/fast/convenient/plastic/as-seen-on-tv stuff.  This thing’s made by a guy in lederhosen in Germany and has a wood handle and a stainless blade.  Sweet.

Relevant to nothing in particular, my brother in Hawaii sent me this recording of a bird called a Hwamei.  Enjoy.

 

 Hwamei Sings Happy Birthday to Me [2:39m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

One more trip around the sun.

You might imagine that I don’t have any pictures of that.

As for the topic of this blog… I haven’t posted much this summer because it’s been oddly unsatisfying out there this year.  It is August 15th, and I have yet to harvest a ripe tomato– with the exception of some Sungold cherry tomatoes.  I’m not even close to an eggplant.  My Rainier cherry was eaten alive by aphids.  All the surviving peaches have pestilence of one kind or another.

It’s just not been one of my better gardening years.

Now, having said that, it’s not over yet.  The tomatoes are loaded with fruit– it’s just green.  My soil has improved immensely over the last few years from the depleted clay that I purchased originally.  I’ve put in some fall and winter crops.  The chickens have been entertaining, and they’re now putting out two dozen eggs each week. We did hog on raspberries for a couple of weeks.

All is not lost.

Still, nothing that interesting to report from the farm, partially because we’re doing some bathroom remodeling– which I do have pictures of, but they’re not even remotely on topic– and we managed to start the project without having even ordered any of the fixtures, the cabinet, or the finishes.  So, while they tear out 80-year-old galvanized pipes and rip out the window, I’m sketching cabinet designs and racing around to plumbing showrooms.

Just goes to show you that wisdom and age are not necessarily correlated.